Less Is Not Enough

“This pioneering exploration of minimalist practices and their possible future political role provides a much needed addition to current literature on sustainable consumption and the promotion of a less-growth driven consumption. Writers, like Meissner, who are willing to go beyond deploring the environmental consequences of affluent living in order to focus on the possible agents of improvement and social transformation, are few and far between. When they produce a book as good as this, they deserve to be read.” * Katherine Soper, London Metropolitan University, UK *
“Meissner’s original perspective on minimalism encourages us to think critically and deeply about the emancipatory potentials of “less” as defined by popular culture. This book has potential to provoke critical re-evaluation of what it means to reduce consumption, and how this can be done. It is important reading for those engaged in degrowth or eco-politics and curious about the potentials of cultures beyond Capitalism. Meissner teaches us to think critically about cultural narratives and practices, and introduces new thinking and theorisation relevant across multiple fields.” * Sofia Greaves, PROSPERA, Spain *
“This is a profound and timely study of our present age of excess. Miriam Meissner does much more than expose the limitations and contradictions of minimalist living. She charts a path towards just futures free from addiction to affluence.” * Christoph Lindner, Royal College of Art, UK *
“Minimalism, mindfulness, downsizing and withdrawal – all individualized responses to late-capitalist societies veering increasingly out of control. As Miriam Meissner’s brilliant and insightful book shows us, this kind of self-help isn’t helping – not even those affluent enough to afford personal attempts at social escape. Yet, while Less is Not Enough criticises the cultural politics of minimalist lifestyles, and finds purveyors of ‘doing less’ both culpable and complicit with capitalism’s latest demands, it also reveals a middle-class that is agitated, discontented and unsatisfied with its own diminishing. Meissner’s daring conviction is that in the desire for minimalism lies a hope that might otherwise be channelled or transformed into a wider, and more radical and inclusive, postgrowth politics.” * Mark Banks, University of Glasgow, UK *
‘What if popular culture becomes the central arena of struggle against growth capitalism? In this incisive book, Miriam Meissner brings Cultural Theory into dialogue with Political Ecology to reclaim mass culture as a key battleground for postgrowth futures. She shows that middle-class exhaustion and the erosion of meaning under consumerism signal a deep crisis in growth’s cultural hegemony. Far from politically empty, the rise of minimalist and self-help cultures expresses desires which can be redirected toward emancipatory politics grounded in social justice and ecological regeneration. The book makes a powerful case for building a counter-hegemonic mass culture of postgrowth.’ * Maria Kaika, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands *

Miriam Meissner is Assistant Professor of Culture and Political Ecology at Maastricht University, The Netherlands. Her previous publications include Narrating the Global Financial Crisis (2017), Global Garbage (2016) and The Routledge Companion to Urban Imaginaries (2018). Her current research focuses on postgrowth and cultural politics.

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