Discursive Synergies for a ‘Great Transformation’ Towards Sustainability: Pragmatic Contributions to a Necessary Dialogue Between Human Development, Degrowth, and Buen Vivir

Abstract

There is a growing awareness that a whole-societal “Great Transformation” of Polanyian scale is needed to bring global developmental trajectories in line with ecological imperatives. The mainstream Sustainable Development discourse, however, insists in upholding the myth of compatibility of current growth-based trajectories with biophysical planetary boundaries. This article explores potentially fertile complementarities among trendy discourses challenging conventional notions of (un)sustainable development – Human Development, Degrowth, and Buen Vivir – and outlines pathways for their realization. Human Development presents relative transformative strengths in political terms, while Degrowt..