The current socio-ecological crisis is driving explorations of alternatives to mainstream development. One such pathway is the concept of degrowth, defined as “a voluntary transition toward a just, participatory, and ecologically sustainable society” (Degrowth Declaration of Paris, 2008). Although degrowth engenders alternative conceptualizations and practices of development, its potentially significant social and cultural dimensions are yet to be fully examined. While research and experiments of degrowth focus on the global North, similar work is lacking in the global South. At the same time, civil society and scholars in the global South are experimenting with parallel approaches that – like degrowth – seek to subvert growth-based economies and amplify community-led development pathways. At the crux of the politics behind these alternative development movements are the tasks of “imagining, producing, circulating” better material flows (Schlosberg and Craven, 2019), with important implications for how we use and manage waste.

My proposed research will explore what conditions enable alternatives to capitalism such as degrowth to be mobilized in practice in developing countries like the Philippines. My research is informed by a political ecology lens, and will draw primarily on qualitative methodologies. It will explore whether community-led zero waste management systems in central Philippines and the movements behind these represent a form of ‘degrowth’ and what lessons can be learned both for the relevance of degrowth to the global South, and pathways to navigate our current ‘wasteocene’.