Barriers and Pathways for a Degrowth Transition: A Dialogue on the Lived Realities of Workers at the Peripheries

This article is based on dialogue between two researchers studying labor in the waste and clothing industries in the Philippines and India, respectively. The discussion highlights obstacles to a degrowth transition due to the absence of addressing inequitable relations within the peripheries. The conversation flows between the power imbalances among workers, private entities, and the government in the Philippines and inequalities generated by societal stratification in India. The gaps in the degrowth literature emerge when viewed through a political ecology lens. Firstly, it problematizes the understanding of global interdependencies via economic and quantitative viewpoints grounded in Global South-North relations. Secondly, the absence of labor discourse regarding the intersectionality of informal workers and the ‘dirty jobs’ they undertake. Third, the paper concentrates on transition pathways in the peripheries, critically evaluating alternatives and suggesting strategies to incorporate labor into the degrowth scholarship.