Slide 1

introduce hickel
Jason Hickel is an anthropologist who proposed the concept of "de-
development" as a way of bridging the gap between countries of
different levels of development.

Slide 2

“He questions the need for continuing growth and how this growth
negatively affects countries. Hickel's paradigm of "de-development"
suggests that rich countries should "de-develop or catch down" to give
way for poverty-stricken countries.”

He proposes that rich countries should voluntarily reduce consumption

and production to decrease their ecological footprint and, by
reallocating saved resources, help poverty-stricken countries, aiming for
a more equitable distribution of wealth and opportunities. However,
these ideas are highly controversial and face practical and political
challenges in their implementation.

Slide 3
According to an article from The Guardian, the main strategy for
eradicating poverty is growth, but it has not been working. Since 1980,
the global economy has grown by 380%, but the number of people
living in poverty on less than $5 a day has increased by more than 1.1
billion. This means that the trickle-down effect is not working.
SLIDE 4
Economist Peter Edward argues that instead of pushing poorer
countries to “catch up” with rich ones, we should be thinking of ways
to get rich countries to “catch down” to more appropriate levels of
development.

SLIDE 5

According to Hickel, the current measures in eradicating poverty fail,

and instead, the gap between rich and poor countries continues to
widen.
Hickel questions the need for continuing growth and how this growth
negatively affects countries.
The framework of de-development of rich countries is different from
traditional frameworks of development because it suggests that rich
countries should reduce their consumption and economic growth to
allow poor countries to catch up.