Landnahme, Acceleration, Activation. Dynamics and (de-)stabilisation of modern growth societies

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Klaus Dörre
• Subject Area: Sociological Theory
• Term: from 2011 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 200953000

In our initial application, our thesis was that the escalatory logic of incessant processes of Landnahme, acceleration and activation may have surpassed a critical threshold, beyond which the dynamisation imperatives of capitalist modernity are themselves becoming subject to a crucial challenge. After more than three years of work at the Research Group we consider this thesis more topical than ever. On the one hand, many early-industrialised societies, including some important Eurozone countries, continue to face an economic growth crisis, while on the other hand the criticism of growth models based upon unbridled consumption of fossil fuels continues to grow. Growth-critical impulses have entered into international elite discourse, they are discussed in the context of innovation and digitalisation of production processes, and they have sparked growing social movements. Within this multifaceted post-growth discourse, the Research Group plays an important role, having become a site for international debates on the crises of growth capitalism. Our key concepts of Landnahme, Acceleration and Activation have influenced sociological debates and even public and political discourse in various ways. We intend to build upon and extend these developments in the second funding period. Following our initial focus on the socio-economic and socio-cultural drivers of growth, we shall now turn our attention to the socio-political growth engines and to possible trajectories of transition toward a post-growth constellation. The Research Group intends to primarily address three research questions: (1) What consequences for the constitution and reproduction of "productive subjects" arise from the imperatives of and hindrances to growth, as well as from new inequalities? (2) How do economic crises and slow growth relate to the democratic question?(3) What contours of a post-growth society are conceivable, desirable and realistic? Does anything indicate transitions toward such societies? How can such processes of transformation proceed in a democratic fashion?We will relate these three question complexes to four newly accentuated meta-themes (notions and theories of crisis, Public Sociology, growth and constructions of masculinity, degrowth movements). (...)The guiding terminology of the first phase will be complemented by new categories (resilience/democratisation; alienation/resonance, externalisation/redistribution). In an expansion of our original objectives, we now pursue three goals: Firstly, to more systematically embed the debate on the crisis of growth capitalism within a global north-south context. Secondly, to further this by deepening and expanding cooperation within an international network scientific institutions committed to a critical Public Sociology. And thirdly, to draw on this network for fathoming and debating the possibilities of transformation towards post-growth societies in a global dialogue.

• DFG Programme: Advanced Studies Centres in SSH
• Subproject of: FOR 1642: 'Landnahme', Acceleration and Activation
• Co-Investigators: Professor Dr. Stephan Lessenich; Professor Dr. Hartmut Rosa