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.
You might want to read or listen into the following works that are related to this episode:
- Economy & Society special issue on (Post-)Growth Infrastructures: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/reso20/54/4
- Campbell-Verduyn, M., & Kranke, M. (2025) (Post-)growth infrastructures, Economy and Society, 54(4): 597–619. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2025.2590940
- Campbell-Verduyn, M., & Kranke, M. (2025). Post-growth tokens or token post-growth? Bitcoin, alt-coins and infrastructural evolution in digital finance. Economy and Society, 54(4), 765–788. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2025.2590941
- Kranke, M. (2025). From good to bad? The contested desirability of economic growth. In M. Campbell-Verduyn, H. McKeen-Edwards, & I. Roberge (Eds.), Ineffective Policies: Causes and Consequences of Bad Policy Choices (pp. 31–45). Policy Press. https://doi.org/10.51952/9781447371564.ch003
- Hasselbalch, J., & Kranke, M. (2024). Dealing with dangerous abundance: Towards post-growth International Relations. Review of International Studies, 50(5), 856–865. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210524000433
- Hasselbalch, J. A., Kranke, M., & Chertkovskaya, E. (2023). Organizing for transformation: post-growth in International Political Economy. Review of International Political Economy, 30(5), 1621–1638. https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2023.2208871
- Campbell-Verduyn, M., & Hütten, M. (2022). Governing Techno-Futures: OECD Anticipation of Automation and the Multiplication of Managerialism. Global Society, 36(2), 240–260. https://doi.org/10.1080/13600826.2021.2021148
This episode is also available on YouTube (channel: @postgrowthplan).