The limits of growth

For half a century, activist and author Vandana Shiva has been criticising the excesses of the global economy and arguing for a simple life. A conversation about false abundance and the necessity of downsizing

Only those who already have something can settle for less. But for many people around the globe, going without things is no more than a pipe dream. A life spent living in and fleeing from the Central African Republic

In the middle of the Saloum river delta in Senegal lies the island of Diamniadio. Here people live off the sea – but every year the nets get a little emptier

What do you need in life? From Canada to South Africa to Pakistan, people around the globe explain what they can’t live without. Here Fatma Aydemir and T. C. Boyle say what is indispensable

The restaurant Owamni in Minneapolis is one of the best in the USA. Its owner Sean Sherman is both a chef and an activist. On serving food with explosive political power

What makes a building a beautiful structure? Ornamentation on the front? Or is a building beautiful if it houses as many people as possible? Can we separate the aesthetic evaluation of a building from its construction circumstances and the ecological and human price it cost?

The notion of recycling and saving resources was already an everyday reality in Japan 300 years ago. Makiko Yamaguchi reflects on the Edo era

In search of people who have had enough of big city life, the French photographer Antoine Bruy has traveled through Europe and North America. The result is the visually stunning photo series “Scrublands,” in which he documents people who opt out of society, depicting their everyday lives

In Taiwan, the digital world is displacing the physical one. Even tradition is migrating to the cloud. Our author sets out in search of a lost era

What once seemed significant for author Serhij Zhadan - irony, coolness, status symbols -  became irrelevant overnight when war broke out in his homeland. Now, collective solidarity and the fight against “evil” is what counts. How are the people in Ukraine affected by this sudden shift?

On the social media platform TikTok, #celibacy has become a global trend. Why are more and more young people voluntarily abstaining from sex?

What does it take to get to the top - and what do you have to give up? A conversation with ballerina Aurora Dickie

In music, forgoing excess often stands for minimalist innovation. Rarely has less been so much more than in the nine piano pieces that the musician Malakoff Kowalski handpicked for this playlist