Making degrowth locally meaningful: the case of the Faroese grindadráp

Abstract While the doxa of growth continues to dominate mainstream understandings of what constitutes a healthy economy, the concept and agenda of degrowth beg for theorization about how culture and power render some economic strategies more viable and meaningful than others. In this article we discuss the highly contested practice of Faroese pilot whaling, grindadráp. Through autoethnographic methods we identify and analyze forces challenging this deep-rooted practice, both within and outside Faroese society. Faroese resistance to abandon the practice, expressed in local pro-whaling narratives suggest that, in the struggle to legitimize the grindadráp as a sustainable and eco-friendly practice, Faroese people are simultaneously deconstructing central tenets of the global food system, and comparing grindadráp favorably with the injustices and cruelties of industrial food procurement. In this sense, we argue that the grindadráp not only constitutes a locally meaningful alternative to growth-dominated economic practices, but may also, in this capacity, inspire Faroese people to reduce engagement with economic activities that negatively impact the environment and perpetuate social and environmental injustices in the world. Keywords: Degrowth, whaling, Faroe Islands, relational ethic, noncapitalism

Making degrowth locally meaningfull:the case of the Faroese grindadráp

While the doxa of growth continues to dominate mainstream understandings of what constitutes a healthy economy, the concept and agenda of degrowth beg for theorization about how culture and power render some economic strategies more viable and meaningful than others. In this article we discuss the highly contested practice of Faroese pilot whaling, grindadráp. Through autoethnographic methods we identify and analyze forces challenging this deep-rooted practice, both within and outside Faroese society. Faroese resistance to abandon the practice, expressed in local pro-whaling narratives suggest that, in the struggle to legitimize the grindadráp as a sustainable and eco-friendly practice, Faroese people are simultaneously deconstructing central tenets of the global food system, and comparing grindadráp favorably with the injustices and cruelties of industrial food procurement. In this sense, we argue that the grindadráp not only constitutes a locally meaningful alternative to growth-dominated economic practices, but may also, in this capacity, inspire Faroese people to reduce engagement with economic activities that negatively impact the environment and perpetuate social and environmental injustices in the world

Transcending binaries: a participatory political ecology of the Faroese foodscape

This paper discusses some methodological aspects of a participatory research project on political economic dynamics of food in the Faroe Islands, in particular how to balance between the critical perspective and an affirmative practice when doing engaged research in political ecology. Drawing from Gibson-Graham’s diverse economies framework combined with the concept of food sovereignty, familiar conceptual binaries (capitalism-noncapitalism, growth-degrowth, affirmation-critique) are challenged. The paper argues that instead of remaining locked in the analytical distinction between say a ‘capitalist/global food-system’ versus an ‘alternative/local food-system’, a critical-affirmative political ecology of food would ultimately have to entail a transcendence of such binary thinking. In particular, it would put more attention on the complexity and queerness of the foodscape, take more notice of the ‘in-betweens’ and the nuances that do not fit such categorisation. Participatory research with local activists is suggested as a fruitful and ethical methodology to facilitate such a process as it emphasises the doing of research and engages with the situated knowledge and experience of local activists