Housing for degrowth: a fiction-based approach

Bernas, Lauren Rose (2023) Housing for degrowth: a fiction-based approach. Masters thesis, Northern Arizona University.

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Abstract

Constant economic expansion is harming both people and planet and ‘green growth’ tactics aimed at reducing the associated negative impacts of economic growth on the environment are failing. To see beyond our current pervasive system of growth, alternative narratives must become more well known. Fiction work that illuminates the issues we face now and transports the reader to an alternative way of being can spark ideas and create more change than academic writing alone. This thesis is a creative writing project at the intersection of Degrowth theory and housing. Using Fiction-based research, an Arts-based research methodology, I created the piece, ‘The Last Crash Centennial Commemoration’ to address my central research questions: How can issues of growth-based housing be explored through writing speculative fiction and what kind of window into a degrowth future could this writing create? In fiction-based research, the writing process is the inquiry and the goals of the work inform the design choices. My goals of inquiry were focused at the reader’s experience and were to; 1. Disrupt the dominant ideology of growth in their minds, 2. Unsettle stereotypes that degrowth=suffering, 3. Raise critical and political consciousness, and 4. Evoke resonance with the work. I created a frame for the piece from Anitra Nelson and Francois Schneider’s book, Housing for Degrowth: Principles, Models, Challenges and Opportunities, and used it to contextualize the exploration of these goals to inform my choices in structure, characterization, literary tools and in turn, my central research questions. This research and writing process revealed to me the endless possibilities for developing accessible hope through fictionalization.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Publisher’s Statement:	© Copyright is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the Cline Library, Northern Arizona University. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.
Keywords:	Degrowth; Fiction; Housing
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PS American literature
NAU Depositing Author Academic Status:	Student
Department/Unit:	Graduate College > Theses and Dissertations College of Social and Behavioral Science > Sustainable Communities
Date Deposited:	23 Oct 2025 23:49
Last Modified:	23 Oct 2025 23:49
URI:	https://openknowledge.nau.edu/id/eprint/6274

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