Institutionalizing alternative economic spaces? An interpretivist perspective on diverse economies

Abstract

This article offers an approach that helps geographers and others to carefully and critically reexamine prospects for diverse economies. We propose an interpretative institutionalist perspective is useful for elucidating overlooked opportunities for creating alternative economic visions and practices by revealing the process of ‘meaning making’ undertaken by actors in the process of developing policy responses to various dilemmas. We explore this notion in the context of de-growth or post-growth. De-growth is a way of thinking about the economy in ways that are not growth oriented, or fixated on GDP, but on the redistribution of wealth and living within the Earth’s ecosystems.