From Backbone to Ruin: Rethinking Digital Infrastructures for a Post-Growth Society
Mario Pansera, Director, Post-Growth Lab at the University of Vigo, SpainAs digital technologies increasingly mediate every aspect of contemporary life, the internet has become both a critical infrastructure and a symbol of limitless growth. Yet behind the abstraction of "the cloud" lies a heavy material footprint-of servers, cables, rare minerals, and energy-intensive systems-whose ecological and social costs are largely invisible. This keynote explores the infrastructural conditions that sustain the current digital paradigm, arguing that the internet as we know it is incompatible with the principles of a post-growth society. Drawing on the concept of infrastructural ruin, I ask what it means to inherit and manage the decaying systems of extractive capitalism. How can digital infrastructures be reimagined under conditions of ecological constraint, democratic governance, and social justice? This talk calls for a radical rethinking of ICT through the lens of degrowth, proposing pathways toward a digital future grounded not in efficiency and expansion, but in care, sufficiency, and collective stewardship.Panel discussionMario Pansera, Director, Post-Growth Lab at the University of Vigo, Spain
Alex de Vries, Founder, Digiconomist & PhD researcher, VU Amsterdam
Karen van der Zanden, Strategic Advisor on Digital Sustainability, TNO
The panel discussion will be followed by refreshments at 16.00.
Start date and time 8 September 2025 - 14:00
End date and time 8 September 2025 - 17:00
Location VMA Bistro
Registration
Please register here: https://survey.uu.nl/jfe/form/SV_4SkVZR0vPEBBI1M