ABSTRACT
As a systemic critique of growth dependency and the supremacy of economist patriarchal reasoning, degrowth provides a vision for a convivial and socioecologically just society. Emerging within the situated knowledges and realities of the North, and inspired by Global Environmental Justice movements, degrowth has been gradually diversifying its manifestations as a research agenda, political proposal, and practice. The slogan has nonetheless been rarely mobilized by progressive social movements. In this chapter, we present one notable exception. Learning from, and with, social mobilizations for tourism degrowth in Barcelona, we pursue the various significations of the term, including its political implications and appeal for the future. These significations, we argue, go beyond a simple critique of “overtourism” and offer a vision for a wider socioecological transformation based on leaner social metabolism in the Global North, rethinking needs and reorganizing modes of socio-economic production and reproduction along the lines of social justice and good life.
