Self-Devouring Growth: A Planetary Parable as Told from Southern Africa

Critical Global Health: Evidence, Efficacy, Ethnography

by Julie Livingston

Under capitalism, economic growth is seen as the key to collective well-being. In Self-Devouring Growth Julie Livingston upends this notion, showing that while consumption-driven growth may seem to benefit a particular locale, it produces a number of unacknowledged, negative consequences that ripple throughout the wider world. Structuring the book as a parable in which the example of Botswana has lessons for the rest of the globe, Livingston shows how fundamental needs for water, food, and transportation become harnessed to what she calls self-devouring an unchecked and unsustainable global pursuit of economic growth that threatens catastrophic environmental destruction. As Livingston notes, improved technology alone cannot stave off such destruction; what is required is a greater accounting of the web of relationships between humans, nonhuman beings, plants, and minerals that growth entails.  Livingston contends that by failing to understand these relationships and the consequences of self-devouring growth, we may be unknowingly consuming our future. 

Genres: Anthropology, Nonfiction, Theory, Africa, Grad School, History

176 pages, Paperback

Published September 20, 2019

Reviews

[Rohan Arthur]

Livingston's brief but insistent environmental history of Botswana is a lesson for our time. It offers as a parable the common ironies of growth in much of the developing world. Her history does not for once claim to be comprehensive, giving us instead brief vignettes into the history of rainmaking, roads, sand and cows. Yet these are sufficient to evoke her message. Growth is necessary, but once you drink from its fountain it becomes a thing in itself, a monstrous creature that can only survive by consuming itself and everything else in its path. A wonderful read.

[Keenan DeMeritt]

read for class, pretty interesting.

[Heather]

Required reading for seminary class. Couldn’t look through the photo essay of the slaughtering of cows. This book may be good for those (U.S.) who want to know more about what consumerism is doing to our world being told from another country. There is definite connection, but people (U.S.) may feel “better” that is not about our country.

[ameya]

interesting

[Leif]

Livingston's interest in Botswana is palpable and fascinating; however, her knowingly abstracted perspective is ultimately more repelling than compelling. More frustrations than anything else here. Yes: the transformation in cultural, economic, and social practices has an environmental and physical difference that has disproportionately benefited some and tends toward the degradation of resources used. Once we accept that, however, what else can we say other than the exploitation of resources is "self-devouring"? This is a point that is either well-understood or will never be understood, dependent as reasoning is on political, social, and economic drivers that grant benefits to those who adhere to them - almost as if "devouring" brings with it strength, joy, and confidence for those undertaking it, however temporary or ultimately illusory these effects might be. Livingston's "planetary parable" had little to say about these questions.

[Ahmed]

Wonderfully written, yet depressing. The second chapter about cattle to beef abstraction is the one that is the most poignant.

How is one to argue for less - even if self-devouring growth is the force that is undermining collective well-being? Let us ask ourselves - what would rainmaking on a planetary scale entail?

[Anna Whitney]

Super good read, super quick, incredibly informative. Good for thinking through anthropological and ecological problems alike. Livingston doesn't have all the answers, but she asks the right questions.

[Myfanwy]

I feel like if I cared more about the topic I would have liked it better?

But may I just say, cow poetry.

[Sahara]

interesting parable, but offered no real solutions of how to fix the results of self-devouring growth

[Elena]

read for my cultural anthropology class. don’t remember the specifics of it but it was interesting and very important i think

[Libby Henrickson]

really good! I was confused about the rain making section in the Beginning but the rest of it was interesting

[Kimb Liu]

3.5; a book i read for my global health writing seminar that i actually thoroughly enjoyed reading!

[Rowan]

Had to read this for my anthropology class. I really enjoyed it. It was really detailed and gave me a different view on consumption and capitalism.