POST GROWTH PROJECTS
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Post Growth Projects

This site is dedicated to exploring a question: can social, political, and economic institutions improve wellbeing without growth? At best, post-growth thinking can be seamlessly integrated; at worst, it will become bound up in fanciful ideology.  The reality lies somewhere in between.
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Projects ​+ Experiments

Portfolio

James' portfolio of entrepreneurial projects, experiments, and ongoing research to consider the primacy of wellbeing over growth.  
Project portfolio

PhD Research

Prototyping a novel home ownership model
​A case study in institutional agency among social entrepreneurs  

We live in a period during which housing affordability, inequality, and the ecological crisis motivate social entrepreneurs to disrupt homeownership and land development patterns. This study seeks to trace the journey of socially-motivated and institutionally-embedded entrepreneurs, documenting both their investigation into novel housing models as well as the ways they address context-specific institutional problems.

As a "hypercommodified," debt-backed housing market endures contemporary shocks and disturbances, how can social entrepreneurs conceive of a house-as-home rather than home-as-commodity? 
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​The ideation and prototyping of a new home ownership model takes place in one of Canada’s major urban centres—Winnipeg—leveraging experience in Asian, European, and North American contexts. The entrepreneurs draw from knowledge in a variety of professional fields—from finance and law to business, architecture and public policy. The experiential diversity of the group, including a wide geographical, cultural, and professional scope, provides an opportunity to study what Garud et al (2007) refer to as a “theoretical puzzle” in institutional entrepreneurship: how are embedded agents able to envision new practices and get others to adopt them? 
Study proposal

Courses

Courses in political studies, business, and economics. 
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Networks

Wellbeing Economy Alliance 
Post Growth Institute
Post Carbon Institute / Resilience.org
​Non Profit Ventues
Canadian Mennonite University
Leadership for the Ecozoic
Economics for the Anthropocene
University of Leeds: A Good Life
Long Talks in the Woods

Commentary

James writes online commentary on a range of topics related to post growth economics and political thought for The Post Carbon Institute (resilience.org) and CASSE (steadystate.org). ​Here are some favourites: 

New Zealand Deprioritizes Growth to Improve Health & Wellbeing
​Social Solidarity Requires a Universal Basic Income
Outbreaks in the Anthropocene: Growth Isn't the Cure
Ecological Existential Dread
Distinguishing Capitalism From Growth
Guess What Trudeau Said About Growth?
What Kind of Future Does Your Degree Prepare You For?
What About Innovating Beyond the Growth Trap?
Peace, Love, and the Gift 
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Hedonism, Survivalism, and the Burden of Knowledge
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Are We Hard-Wired to Think We Can Grow Forever?
Piketty Acknowledges a Limit to Inequality–What About Limits to Growth?
Do We Need a Steady State Economy? One Politician’s Surprising Answer
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This site is not formally associated with any organization and it has no political affiliation. 

Schedule a meeting with James. 
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