Towards development beyond GDP; case studies of Egnahemsfabriken and Uddebo
Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Master's Thesis
Master's Thesis
Program
Industrial ecology (MPTSE), MSc
Publicerad
2024
Författare
Rehnberg, Frida
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
Alternative approaches to sustainability, such as initiatives resonating with the degrowth paradigm
have the potential of showing how societies can develop with a focus beyond GDP. Considering the
current demographic pattern in Sweden, many people will live in rurban and rural areas in the future.
How to live and operate sustainably in these areas is explored in this thesis. More precisely, the aim is
to explore two rural locations in Sweden, Egnahemsfabriken on Tjörn, and the village Uddebo, where
civil society has organised to solve local issues - initiatives that resonate to a great extent with the
degrowth paradigm, and initiatives that has brought a lot of positive outcomes locally. Through
semi-structured interviews, these places are explored by delving into how these initiatives started,
how it has developed, what challenges there have been and what is important to consider for the
future. The results show that diversity among people, a lot of drive and energy, as well as unpaid time
spent, and empty premises for a low rent/price, has been important in both areas. While
Egnahemsfabriken seems to focus on reaching out locally, regionally and even nationally, and to
influence other places and institutional levels, Uddebo seems to be more of a place where people
move to do their own thing, to work less, do things together, but with great diversity where not
everyone is engaged in local initiatives. Some of Egnahemsfabriken’s focuses for the future could be
to reach out more to the local society and the municipality through e.g. meetings and low-threshold
events, increase the long-term financial stability and make projects last longer, as well as continuing
facilitating administration and collaboration with their partners. For Uddebo, preventing
gentrification, doing bigger projects, and exploring local solutions for sharing/gift economy as well as
other local platforms (e.g. local radio and local social media platform) were suggested.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
degrowth, alternative development, bottom-up, rurality, civil society