Post-Growth Planning

Becoming a Post-Growth Planner #33: Matthias Kranke & Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn Episode #33 of “Becoming a post-growth planner: obstacles and challenges to changing roles and practices” with Dr Matthias Kranke (College for the Social Sciences and Humanities of the University Alliance Ruhr/University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany) and Dr Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn (University of Groningen, the Netherlands). In conversation with Dr Christian Lamker (University of Groningen, the Netherlands). "You can't get beyond growth without really getting inside of it". Working through roads, ports, rails, and accounting and between growth and post-growth infrastructures. Moving the focal point from policy towards materiality and the realities of existing infrastructures. Reflecting on a special issue on post-growth infrastructures and several workshops. Criticising how infrastructures can facilitate 'ever more everything' (growth, consumption, production), and opening pathways in different spaces and places. Further extending thinking into bitcoins, crypto currencies, and ecological accounting. Finishing with the need for more political debates on infrastructures and how to take socio-material relations seriously to avoid post-growth planning as being myopic and failing to see infrastructures.

Episode #31 of “Becoming a post-growth planner: obstacles and challenges to changing roles and practices” with Alejandro del Castillo Sánchez (Architect, n'UNDO, Spain/Colombia). In conversation with Dr Christian Lamker (University of Groningen, the Netherlands). "It's completely possible". Doing, undoing, and redoing. How do we change that big paradigm of architecture: building is growing, growing is welfare, and it's also progress and happiness? Discussing the intersection between architecture, territory and eco-social transition. Connecting post-growth theory to realities in architecture and tourism development along the Mediterranean coastline in Spain. Exploring the scope and the edges of (growth-based) architecture over 15 years to find new ways of bringing value to the territory. Using systems thinking to identify sweet spots between system change, action, and interventions. Learning from real sustainability transformations that are already working. In the end: "Post-growth planning is applying an approach that prioritizes the reduction of territorial and material metabolism, promotes the restoration of ecological functionality, and the reconfiguration of social and spatial systems through an eco-centric paradigm, mainly by undoing rather than producing the built environment."

Episode #29 of “Becoming a post-growth planner: obstacles and challenges to changing roles and practices” with Dr Sofia Greaves (Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway). In conversation with Dr Christian Lamker (University of Groningen, the Netherlands). "Post-Growth Planning is in need of creative methods for collectively imagining new futures". Reflecting on experiences with artists and arts-based methods in Thamesmead, London. Pondering on the question how art can be a form of research, of generating new narratives and stories, and a contribution to community-building. Working through tensions within artists and dangers of artwashing. Delving into recent projects moving from arts to engineering in Oslo and transdisciplinary research that integrates music, sounds, and painting, into environmental engineering. Uncovering the vortex of flow and creating an album of fluid motion that includes stories and experiences as data. Advocating for an emotional planning and the question how we might bring that kind of data into decision-making.

Episode #27 of “Becoming a post-growth planner: obstacles and challenges to changing roles and practices” with Dr Sophie Sturup (Xi'an Jiaotong Liverpool University, China). In conversation with Dr Christian Lamker (University of Groningen, the Netherlands). "What kind of humans would populate the world that is actually sustainable?" Looking beyond individualism and the multiple beings, we are, and we can be in the world. Explaining the dangers of conceptualizing ourselves as separate from everything else. Using insights from Aboriginal thinking in Australia to remind science and ourselves about exposure to other worlds and the imperfection of language. Each of us matters, and the collective is me - working towards responsibility as something we take on as a duty of care to others. Pondering on own pathways into academia, towards governmentality, transport planning, public-private partnerships, and post-growth. Calling for authority and authenticity to speak in opportunities of participatory planning. Post-growth planning is not just an idea; it is something we must actually do.

Episode #25 of “Becoming a post-growth planner: obstacles and challenges to changing roles and practices” with Luciana Maia (futurbanos, Germany). In conversation with Dr Christian Lamker (University of Groningen, the Netherlands). Can you be right in the wrong environment? Working through localising global agendas in diverse contexts, into legacies and relations between Global North and Global South, and recent international experiences. Arguing with post-growth principles, layers of decision-making and the power of Doughnut Economics as a model. Strengthening the importance of a common language and terminology, of listening as a precondition for dialogue and understanding, and providing hope and optimism for the future by connecting urgencies with normative ideas by diverse people. Post-Growth planning as a crucial piece of the puzzle and a pathway for collectively slowing down.

Episode #23 of “Becoming a post-growth planner: obstacles and challenges to changing roles and practices” with Dr Benedikt Schmid (University of Freiburg, Germany). In conversation with Dr Christian Lamker (University of Groningen, the Netherlands). Talking about experience from working groups on post-growth geographies and alternative approaches to prosperity, the common good in housing and district development in Freiburg/Germany and beyond, making limits visible and navigable, the importance of adopting a critical perspective, to be courageous by engaging and questioning and the key of listening to wishes, potentials, and abilities.

Episode #21 of “Becoming a Post-Growth Planner: Obstacles and Challenges to Changing Roles and Practices” with Dr Angelos Varvarousis (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain). In conversation with Dr Christian Lamker (University of Groningen, the Netherlands).

Episode #19 of “Becoming a post-growth planner: obstacles and challenges to changing roles and practices” with Dr Dick Magnusson (Linköping University, Sweden). In conversation with Dr Christian Lamker (University of Groningen, the Netherlands).

Episode #17 of “Becoming a post-growth planner: obstacles and challenges to changing roles and practices” with Dr Stephen Leitheiser (Wageningen University & Research, the Netherlands). In conversation with Dr Christian Lamker (University of Groningen, the Netherlands).

Episode #15 of “Becoming a post-growth planner: obstacles and challenges to changing roles and practices” with Dr Chandrima Mukhopadhyay (Coordinator AESOP Thematic Group Planning Theories and Practices for the Global South & East). In conversation with Dr Christian Lamker (University of Groningen, the Netherlands).

Episode #13 of “Becoming a post-growth planner: obstacles and challenges to changing roles and practices” with Dr Kim von Schönfeld (University of Porto, Portugal) and Dr Federico Savini (University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands). In conversation with Dr Christian Lamker (University of Groningen, the Netherlands).

Episode #11 of “Becoming a post-growth planner: obstacles and challenges to changing roles and practices” with Dr Robert Kitzmann (Humboldt University, Berlin). In conversation with Dr Christian Lamker (University of Groningen, the Netherlands). You may like to view the following works that are mentioned or relate to this episode: * Kitzmann, R. (2022). Home swapping as a degrowth strategy for housing. Urban Geography, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2022.2093503 * Kitzmann, R. (2017). Private versus state-owned housing in Berlin: Changing provision of low-income households. Cities, 61, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.10.017