Contesting Closures: Deconstructing the Political Economy within Degrowth

Abstract: This study explores the analytical and conceptual closures within political economy and degrowth literature. In order to explore these closures, poststructural theories of postcolonial and queer have been used. Derridian deconstruction has been applied to the degrowth literature to illuminate the silences and contradictions present within the texts. A deconstructive reading of the degrowth literature, through the lenses of postcolonial-queer theory, unravels that the texts reproduce heteronormativity and colonial underpinnings. Further, the texts overlook the materiality of bodies that political economy and processes of production are built upon. This study also shows that the works of feminist economists is marginalized within the degrowth literature. Yet, the thesis concludes that despite these critiques, degrowth literature challenges other analytical closures: of theory and praxis, state/market dichotomy and liberal notions of private property. Hence, it can build alliance with postcolonial-queer theories that resonate the critiques of such closures in order to envision alternative imaginaries.