Seminar: "Decolonial Degrowth", by Ritu Verma

The REAL-Postgrowth project (Post-growth – REAL – A Post-Growth Deal) is excited to announce that Ritu Verma, adjunct professor at Carleton University and research scholar at UCLA, will present a public talk as part of our monthly public seminar series.

Seminar: "Decolonial Degrowth"

Speaker:  Ritu Verma, adjunct professor at Carleton University and research scholar at UCLA

• Date: Wednesday, December 3rd, 2025
• Time:  16 - 17h (CET)
• Venue: Sala Montseny (Z/022 & Z/023) ICTA-UAB and online 

      https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87147918474?pwd=iBurhpgcwPCqjuOX0vQRPKzc4bqDJ3.1

Degrowth, over the past decade, has ironically grown.As a socio-political movement it has expanded from the periphery to the center of debates of the way economics and ‘development’ can be reimagined and reconfigured – especially at a time of multiple global man-made crises. Yet, as degrowth expands in the global north, critical gaps remain in its engagement and traction in the global south. What does degrowth mean in relation to real pre-existing wellbeing alternatives in the global south, which themselves bear the destructive effects of waves of colonialism, hegemonic formations of development, geopolitical shifts, and neoliberal-economic intervention? Degrowth faces challenges in the global south, set against skewed relations of power and vested interests that privilege global north actors – and elites in both locales. It also holds potential for meaningful diversity, attribution of indigenous wellbeing cosmologies, and engagement of real-lived conundrums confronting those living in global south peripheries.

Ritu Verma is adjunct professor at Carleton University and research scholar at UCLA, and works at the interface of the anthropology of development and political-ecology. With transdisciplinary training in anthropology (PhD, School of Oriental and African Studies), development (MA, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs) and civil engineering (PEng, McGill University), her scholarship on degrowth grew organically from studying living global south development alternatives. Her recent publications include State of Play of Moving Beyond Growth Alternatives (2025) and co-authored works Radical Pathways Beyond GDP (2023) and Gender Differences in Gross National Happiness (2022)