The Sustainability of Life Approach: A State of Affairs

Abstract

This article explores the main features of the “sustainability of life” approach, a theoretical and political approach specifically developed in the context of Spanish, Latin American, and Caribbean feminist economics in the last two decades. It dialogues with decolonial feminisms; ecofeminisms and degrowth ecological proposals; the popular, social, and solidarity economy; and feminist reflections on “good living” and “good co-existence.” The article situates this approach within the wider spectrum of feminist economics as a plural school of thought and examines its particular characteristics in greater detail. Specifically, the article highlights sustainability of life as a multilevel approach that connects economic, social, and ecological systems and reveals the capital-life conflict that runs through them; offers a non-Eurocentric and intersectional perspective for analyzing the diverse implications of this conflict; and presents a political positioning that draws emancipatory imaginaries and horizons that place life at the center.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Sustainability of life has come to be a main theoretical approach of Spanish, Latin American, and Caribbean feminisms.

• It offers an emancipatory roadmap for organizing life outside of capitalist structures.

• It proposes a vision for constructing an economy that is feminist, plural, and inclusive, prioritizing women and peripheral subjects.

• It presents a political proposal for collective action to confront the logic of capitalist, patriarchal, and racist systems.

• It harbors as its ultimate goal the sustaining of a “good collective life.”

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainability of life
• capital-life conflict
• social provisioning
• decolonial feminism
• capitalism
• good living

JEL Codes:

• B54
• P1
• Q57

Notes

1 The set of forms of domination and subjection present in capitalism, such as economic exploitation and social exclusion; practices of political oppression; sociocultural discrimination based on ethnicity, race, gender, age, sexual orientation, and regional differences, among others; and ecocide, ethnocide, feminicide, and genocide (Valdés 2009).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Astrid Agenjo-Calderón

Astrid Agenjo-Calderón is Professor in the Department of Economics, Quantitative Methods and Economic History at the Pablo de Olavide University of Seville (Spain). She is an Economist and holds a PhD in Social Sciences. She participates in national and international networks, such as the Emancipatory Feminist Economics Working Group of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO); the Ibero-American Research Network on Work, Gender and Daily Life (TRAGEVIC); the EcoEcoFem Research Group; the Observatory of Gender, Economics, Politics and Development (GEP & DO); and the Spanish Association of Critical Economics. Her latest book (2021) is Feminist Political Economy: Sustainability of Life and World Economy, edited by Catarata and Fuhem Ecosocial, Madrid.