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Contribution short abstract:

This presentation will be an overview of degrowth, decolonial, and eco-feminist accounts of the polycrisis, and proposals for systemic transformation, with emphasis on the value of reproductive work for development.

Contribution long abstract:

The global polycrisis reawakened debates around the limitations of our current mode of development. While conventional accounts of the polycrisis assert that business as usual can continue if we implement a few technical tweaks, a wide range of alternative perspectives of the polycrisis recognise that what is needed for sustainable development is nothing short of systemic transformation.

This presentation will explore degrowth, decolonial, and eco-feminist theoretical accounts of the polycrisis. These, although conceptually different, all highlight how the polycrisis exposed the dependence of the economy on the non-market spheres (the environment and the care sector), and construct a vision of ‘development’ which focuses on making invisible work visible, with reproductive work – or what Ariel Salleh (1997) has called ‘meta industrial labour’ – at its core. Practically, such a vision has resulted in a demand for ‘wages for earthwork’ (Temin, 2024) which builds on the ‘wages for housework’ movement of the 1970s.

The presentation will therefore also consider synergies between these different alternative development paradigms, as well as reflect on the question of what role crises play in bringing about a paradigm shift.