Postgrowth Imaginaries: New Ecologies and Counterhegemonic Culture in Post-2008 Spain by Luis I. Prádanos (review)

In response to the global postgrowth crisis caused by the unsustainable and undesirable effects of capitalism, the lens of ecological cultural studies may be used to analyze works of film, literature, and popular culture. In his new book Postgrowth Imaginaries: New Ecologies and Counterhegemonic Culture in Post-2008 Spain, Luis I. Prádanos's masterful approach situates postgrowth issues in the context of a mosaic of varied contemporary Spanish cultural products. The book explores the consequences of economic growth on our environment and ways of living and calls for a shift of paradigm, one that seeks to establish a more sustainable way of being in the world. Prádanos offers commentary on how a collective approach based on the decolonialization of capitalism could serve as a point of departure in finding solutions to destructive economic policies and unsustainable growth patterns.

Prádanos presents contemporary Spain as the perfect petri dish in which to study the global postgrowth crisis. From the ironic "milagro económico" of the 1960s to the aftermath of the indignados movement, Spain has experienced negative effects of overconsumption and lack of fair distribution of wealth and resources, which, consequently, has led to what the author correctly tags as "the Spanish Neoliberal crisis" in the first chapter. Here, a succinct look at the effects of the economic crisis of 2008 in Spain and the aftermath of the 15M movement critique of free markets and deregulation is presented. Chapter 2, titled "Urban Ecocriticism and Spanish Cultural Studies," is a must-read for those who study contemporary Spain, new ecologies, and urban cultural studies. This section, in fact, is so packed with intriguing information that it could have been an entire book in itself. Here, Prádanos seems to make an implicit call to readers to continue studying these cultural productions in order to continue spreading the message that there are better ways of being in our world. His message is incredibly inspiring.

Perhaps the gem of Prádanos's book, "the historical gap between environmentalism, cultural studies, and the urban experience" is skillfully analyzed in cultural products from twenty-first-century Spain in chapter 2 (Bennett and Teague, "Urban Ecocriticism: An Introduction" in The Nature of Cities: Ecocriticism and Urban Environments, 1999, p. 10, qtd. by Prádanos 91). Prádanos first schools the reader on urban theories—he precisely and clearly explains key ideas from Marx, Fraser, Harvey, Girardet, and more—and then explains several recent cultural productions in Spain that offer counternarratives to the notion that economic growth is advantageous. Some of the cultural products that the author discusses in this chapter are as follows. Films, Sobre ruedas: el sueño del automóvil (dir. Óscar Clemente, 2011), Mercado de futuros (dir. Mercedes Álvarez, 2011), and Gente en sitios (dir. Juan Cavestany, 2013) challenge Spain's response to the economic crisis of 2008 and the notion that growth is favorable. Two dystopian novels based in Madrid by Rosa Montero, Lágrimas en la lluvia (2011) and El peso del corazón (2015), encourage readers to reimagine the human relationship with the environment. The short novel Distintas formas de mirar el agua (2015) by Julio Llamazares offers a critique of the construction of dams and reservoirs carried out in the mid-twentieth-century in Spain, and, thus, "fictionalizes some of the specific consequences of Franco's technocratic project in Spain and its authoritarian, biopolitical management of populations" (Prádanos 131). Two books, La voz de los sabios (Elena García Quevedo, 2013) and Palabras mayores: un viaje por la memoria rural (Emilio Gancedo, 2015) vindicate rural communities of Spain. The graphic novel Memorias de la tierra (Miguel Brieva, 2012) criticizes contemporary human life from an extraterrestrial perspective. Also explored in this chapter: street art, performance art, a website, public manifestations like the 15M encampments in Madrid's Puerta del Sol, public gardens, a magazine. All of these cultural products share the common objective of challenging the...