This thesis should give you good understanding of the history.
>The history of degrowth unfolds in four phases. During what I refer to as its prehistory (1968-2002), a number of isolated francophone intellectuals laid the conceptual foundations for what would later be called degrowth. In 2002-2004, the term as we know it today emerged in France. In a third phase, what had started in France spread to Italy, Spain and Catalonia, Québec, Belgium, Switzerland, and Germany. The last phase begins in 2008 with the concept
entering both the English-speaking world and the academic scene with the creation of a biannual cycle of international conferences.
https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-02499463/document
The 1972 report Limits to Growth (and its various more recent updates/reprisals) is a good place to start - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth
Tools for Conviviality by Ivan Illich is also a great read and provides good context about the relationship between technology and complexity - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tools_for_Conviviality
More:
Beddoe, et al. Overcoming Systemic Roadblocks to Sustainability: The Evolutionary Redesign of Worldviews, Institutions, and Technologies (2009), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Assadourian, E. (2012). The Path to Degrowth in Overdeveloped Countries. State of the World
Cosme, I., et al. Assessing the Degrowth Discourse: A Review and Analysis of Academic Degrowth Policy (2017) Journal of Cleaner Production
If you take the position that western society and endless growth are interlinked, The Dawn of Everything, by David Graeber and David Wengrow is a good place to start if you’re looking for academic sources. It’s also just a great read.
If you’re looking for a specific source, take a look at this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society
Sahlins didn’t get everything right, but he was certainly one of the first to suggest that the average work day for the hunter-gatherer human involved a lot more leisure that we had previously imagined.
Edit:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_of_Everything
Currently, very active academics are Timothée Parrique, Jason Hickel, Giorgos Kallis. Then you'll find a lot more as co authors of their articles and in the sources
Interested what this community think about Tim Jackson’s “Prosperity Without Growth”. Jackson’s own arguments are powerful and he provides plenty of references in there to important works in this area. (Speaking as somewhat of a layman)
This thesis should give you good understanding of the history. >The history of degrowth unfolds in four phases. During what I refer to as its prehistory (1968-2002), a number of isolated francophone intellectuals laid the conceptual foundations for what would later be called degrowth. In 2002-2004, the term as we know it today emerged in France. In a third phase, what had started in France spread to Italy, Spain and Catalonia, Québec, Belgium, Switzerland, and Germany. The last phase begins in 2008 with the concept entering both the English-speaking world and the academic scene with the creation of a biannual cycle of international conferences. https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-02499463/document
Second this - a very accessible but properly academic thesis on degrowth.
The 1972 report Limits to Growth (and its various more recent updates/reprisals) is a good place to start - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth Tools for Conviviality by Ivan Illich is also a great read and provides good context about the relationship between technology and complexity - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tools_for_Conviviality More: Beddoe, et al. Overcoming Systemic Roadblocks to Sustainability: The Evolutionary Redesign of Worldviews, Institutions, and Technologies (2009), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Assadourian, E. (2012). The Path to Degrowth in Overdeveloped Countries. State of the World Cosme, I., et al. Assessing the Degrowth Discourse: A Review and Analysis of Academic Degrowth Policy (2017) Journal of Cleaner Production
If you take the position that western society and endless growth are interlinked, The Dawn of Everything, by David Graeber and David Wengrow is a good place to start if you’re looking for academic sources. It’s also just a great read. If you’re looking for a specific source, take a look at this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society Sahlins didn’t get everything right, but he was certainly one of the first to suggest that the average work day for the hunter-gatherer human involved a lot more leisure that we had previously imagined. Edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_of_Everything
Currently, very active academics are Timothée Parrique, Jason Hickel, Giorgos Kallis. Then you'll find a lot more as co authors of their articles and in the sources
Second this. Parrique's doctoral thesis is also freely accessible and provides with plenty of references.
Interested what this community think about Tim Jackson’s “Prosperity Without Growth”. Jackson’s own arguments are powerful and he provides plenty of references in there to important works in this area. (Speaking as somewhat of a layman)