Science, technology and society (STS), science, technology and innovation (STI) and degrowth researchers have engaged with the question of science, economic growth and the ideals of progress in diverse spatial and temporal contexts (Birch, 2020; Jasanoff & Kim, 2015; Kallis et al., 2018). Yet, somehow, these two crucial strands of scholarship do not adequately engage (barring a few exceptions, like Kerschner et al., 2018; Vandeventer & Lloveras, 2021) and draw from the literature amassed by each sub-stream, especially in analysing the role of technology in society. The degrowth scholarship critiques the growth imperatives and control of technology by capitalist actors and forces. It advocates for strong social, economic and environmental policies to meet human needs, environmental goals and general well-being. However, the multi-scalar politics of technology are underplayed in the majority of the degrowth literature, and the complexity of socio-technical entanglement remains under-theorised (Pansera et al., 2024). The degrowth literature reframes the debate between the public or private control of technology or democratic control versus other modes of control, management and governance. Yet, many of the studies within the degrowth literature do not empirically, explicitly and critically engage with the technological question in contemporary societies. For instance, Hickel (2023) argues, The real conflict is not between technology and anti-technology. It is about how technology is imagined and the conditions under which it is deployed. Degrowth research makes a strong claim to having a more scientific (and more just) approach to technological visions…..Yes, we need innovation to solve the ecological crisis. We need better solar panels, better insulation, better batteries, better recycling, better methods for producing steel, etc. But we do not need aggregate growth to get these things. If the objective is to achieve specific kinds of innovation, then target those directly rather than grow the whole economy indiscriminately and hope it will magically deliver the innovation we need. (Hickel, 2023, p. 48) Numerous STS studies have critiqued the binary vision of technology and society, or the good technologies versus bad technologies framing and explained the social shaping, mutual shaping and co-production of STS and specific political and economic world orders (Boczkowski, 1999; Jasanoff, 2004; Pinch & Bijker, 1984; Winner, 1980). Similarly, a crucial set of STI literature has theorised the politics of innovations, directionality of innovations, alternate framing of innovations and democratisation of innovations (Pansera & Fressoli, 2021; Von Hippel, 2006). The mainstream degrowth literature often inadequately engages with this critical STS/STI literature or often bypasses this scholarship, which studies STI as a hegemonic project and explains the power asymmetries in the production of dominant science and society relationships. The majority of the degrowth scholarship on technology does not even directly draw inferences from the classical Marxist STS (Goto, 2013; Werskey, 2007), even though many streams in the degrowth community draw from the Marxist literature to critique capitalist growth machines. The technological imaginary within degrowth draws heavily from the convivial technology approach (Vetter, 2018). The resurgence of interest in convivial technological framings fails to engage with the rise and fall of appropriate technology, intermediate technology and other alternate technological models debate (Pursell, 1993; Smith & Ely, 2025). In contrast, the STS literature engages with the politics of technology but does not adequately engage with the limit to growth debate (barring a few exceptions, such as Sandbach, 1978) or the new debates on degrowth, a-growth and post-growth, which are taking place in several disciplines and are emerging policy and political concerns. The special issue builds upon the shared concerns of these two broad sets of literature on the role of technology in society and attempts to take the debate forward by re-conceptualising technology in the degrowth and post-growth literature by cross-fertilising the degrowth and STS/STI debates. In the subsequent sections, we broadly map the debate on technology in the degrowth literature and later on how STS/STI literature engages with the question of growth, degrowth and post-growth.
Sharma, A., Pansera, M., Lloveras Gutiérrez, J. (2025). Science, Technology and Innovation for a Post-growth Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/09717218251326832