Theesfeld moderates a book presentation on Commons by Silke Helfrich
Free, fair and vital | The Power of the Commons (Original in German: Frei, fair und lebendig | Die Macht der Commons) Book presentation and discussion with Silke Helfrich What do public forests, software from Linux, community-supported agriculture and apartment-house syndicates in common? All of this is not organized as private property but based on […]
Routledge Handbook of the Study of the Commons: Chapter on Pseudo-Commons in Post-Socialist Countries by Insa Theesfeld available open access now
Chapter 26. The Role of Pseudo-Commons in Post-Socialist Countries by Insa Theesfeld has now been made available Open Access, and the link to the chapter can be found on the books webpage here: https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Handbook-of-the-Study-of-the-Commons/Hudson-Rosenbloom-Cole/p/book/9781138060906 Summary of the Chapter: In the 50 years since Garret Hardin published his “Tragedy of the Commons”, scholarship has revealed what […]
Routledge Handbook of the Study of the Commons
We are pleased to announce that the new Routledge Handbook of the Study of the Commons edited by Blake Hudson, Jonathan Rosenbloom, Dan Cole and with contributions from some of the leading commons scholars and practitioners is available in print now. “The “commons” has come to mean many things to many people, and the term is often […]
Paradigm Change or Old Wine in New Bottles? Debating and Reformulating SDGs – An Experiment
“This paper contains the results of an experiment conducted at the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Bern, Switzerland, in a participatory seminar during the autumn semester of 2016. The seminar invited students in social anthropology and human geography (BA students from semester 5 onwards, as well as MA students) to reflect on […]
Commons Video Contest Winners Announced!
The Commons Video Contest was for 3-minute videos aiming to communicate commons research to a general public. The contest was held at the 1st IASC Virtual Conference. Funding for the contest prizes was provided by the Foundation for Scientific Symbiosis. We received 20 videos and these are the winners: Winner – Prize $3000 The Commons Explained […]
Videos now available from the IASC Workshop on Conceptualizing the New Commons!!!
We have earlier written about the IASC Workshop on Conceptualizing the New Commons held in Oldenburg, Germany on June 6-8, 2018. We also promised that once available we would share some of the speeches that the organizers managed to record on a video. This was our first such experiment, and as you will see, recording […]
Theesfeld on IASC Europe and the Commons (Video)
Here you can watch the excerpts from Prof. Theesfeld’s welcome address at the IASC Workshop on Conceptualizing the New Commons, held in Oldenburg on 6-8 June 2018. In this edited short version from her full speech, the IASC Regional Coordinator for Europe answers some of the basic questions related to the IASC and the Commons, […]
‘Decommonising the mind’: historical impacts of British imperialism on indigenous tenure systems and self-understanding in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland
New article by Iain MacKinnon in the International Journal of the Commons Vol. 12, no 1 2018, pp. 278–300, DOI: 10.18352/ijc.814, available at: https://www.thecommonsjournal.org/articles/10.18352/ijc.814/ Abstract: Common pool resource theory appears to assume that external authorities are responsible for initiating attempts to ‘decommonise’ common property regimes. An unusual decommonisation proposal put forward in the Highlands and Islands […]
Constitutionality: conditions for crafting local ownership of institution-building processes by Tobias Haller, Greg Acciaioli & Stephan Rist (SNR’s Designated Award Finalist)
This article presents constitutionality as a new approach for analyzing bottom-up institution-building processes emphasizing local perceptions and local agency in common pool resource management. Using four case studies—fisheries in Zambia; pasture and forestry in Mali; fisheries in Indonesia; forestry in Bolivia—this approach analyzes examples of local institution building differing from top-down imposed participation. Our analysis […]
Conceptualizing the New Commons – The Examples of Knowledge Commons & Seed and Variety Commons: IASC Workshop connects the open access to knowledge with agricultural questions for the future
From June 6th to 8th 2018, thirty scholars and activists from more than ten countries met in Oldenburg, Northern Germany, to discuss the sustainable and viable management of New Commons. In four different sessions, the participants debated the challenges related to creation and management of the so-called New Commons. These Commons arise from social, political […]