From Waste to Renewal: Circular Economy and the Ethics of Degrowth in <i>Record of a Spaceborn Few </i>

This article examines the alternative future of Becky Chambers’s Record of a Spaceborn Few through the frameworks of circular economy, degrowth, and critical posthumanism. As I shall argue, Chambers’s novel envisions a future society that moves beyond extractive capitalism, emphasising a sustainable socio-economic system with communal labour and non-hierarchical social structures through the Fleet, a collection of ships inhabited by the descendants of the last humans on Earth. By analysing the Fleet’s socio-economic system, this article explores how and to what extent Chambers criticises lineal capitalism and proposes an alternative mode of existence, potentially more aligned with critical posthumanism. Drawing on economic theory and speculative fiction, including science fiction, scholarship, the article argues that Chambers’s novel offers a complex vision of post-capitalist futures, demonstrating the role of science fiction in imagining sustainable alternatives to the Anthropocene.