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100 _aGearey, Mary
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245 _aThe nowtopia of the riverbank: Elder environmental activism/
260 _bSage,
_c2019.
300 _aVol 2, issue 3, 2019 : (451-464 p.).
520 _aDegrowth imaginaries offer alternative ways of envisioning future societies. Those, predominantly working age and working class people, seeking to purposefully enact degrowth in the here and now are termed ‘nowtopians’. Based on empirical work undertaken along the River Adur valley in West Sussex, UK, this paper argues that dynamic examples of nowtopian initiatives can develop from alternative and overlooked demographics, such as rural community elders. Explored through a series of interlinking activist narratives, orientated around collective responses to changing riverbank environments, this paper argues that the genesis of this elder activism is a desire to re-assert agency in older age that can be linked to degrowth sensibilities. Contending with the new realities of living under ‘austerity localism’, many of these elders have undergone a personal, if not political, epiphany and have turned to forms of environmental activism to articulate their agency and demonstrate solidarity with fellow humans across generations. This paper argues that these elder nowtopians champion direct action, conviviality and living well. Ageing and place connectivity are the motivators which underpin one of the key nowtopian concepts: ‘redefining life's purpose’. Reflecting back, projecting forward, but operating in the ‘now’, these elders help us to consider a ‘politics’ of degrowth through grassroots activism along a rural river catchment.
650 _aAusterity politics,
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650 _adegrowth,
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650 _aelder environmental activists,
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650 _anowtopias,
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650 _awater resources management,
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700 _aRavenscroft, Neil
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773 0 _012446
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_dLondon: Sage Publication Ltd, 2019.
_tEnvironment and Planning E: Nature and Space/
_x 25148486
856 _uhttps://doi.org/10.1177/2514848619843733
942 _2ddc
_cART
999 _c12471
_d12471