Patterns of Commoning

Patterns of Commoning
Author: David Bollier
Publisher: Commons Strategy Group and Off the Common Press
Total Pages: 510
Release: 2015-11-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1937146839

What accounts for the persistence and spread of "commoning," the irrepressible desire of people to collaborate and share to meet everyday needs? How are the more successful projects governed? And why are so many people embracing the commons as a powerful strategy for building a fair, humane and Earth-respecting social order? In more than fifty original essays, Patterns of Commoning addresses these questions and probes the inner complexities of this timeless social paradigm. The book surveys some of the most notable, inspiring commons around the world, from alternative currencies and open design and manufacturing, to centuries-old community forests and co-learning commons - and dozens of others. David Bollier (www.bollier.org) is an American author, activist and independent scholar who has studied the commons for nearly twenty years. Silke Helfrich (commonsblog.wordpress.com) is a German author and independent activist of the commons who blogs at www.commonsblog.de, and cofounder of the Commons-Institut in Germany. With Michel Bauwens, Bollier and Helfrich are cofounders of the Common Strategies Group. For more information, go to the book's website, Patterns of Commoning (www.patternsofcommoning.org)

Commoning

Commoning
Author: Camille Barbagallo
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019
Genre: Capitalism
ISBN: 9780745339412

A passionate collection rediscovering the work of two giants of autonomist Marxism and feminism.

Commoning the City

Commoning the City
Author: Derya Özkan
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2020-03-10
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0429664184

This collection seeks to expand the limits of current debates about urban commoning practices that imply a radical will to establish collaborative and solidarity networks based on anti-capitalist principles of economics, ecology and ethics. The chapters in this volume draw on case studies in a diversity of urban contexts, ranging from Detroit, USA to Kyrenia, Cyprus – on urban gardening and land stewardship, collaborative housing experiments, alternative food networks, claims to urban leisure space, migrants’ appropriation of urban space and workers’ cooperatives/collectives. The analysis pursued by the eleven chapters opens new fields of research in front of us: the entanglements of racial capitalism with enclosures and of black geographies with the commons, the critical history of settler colonialism and indigenous commons, law as a force of enclosure and as a strategy of commoning, housing commons from the urban scale perspective, solidarity economies as labour commons, territoriality in the urban commons, the non-territoriality of mobile commons, the new materialist and post-humanist critique of the commons debate and feminist ethics of care.

Free, Fair, and Alive

Free, Fair, and Alive
Author: David Bollier
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2019-09-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1771423102

The power of the commons as a free, fair system of provisioning and governance beyond capitalism, socialism, and other -isms. From co-housing and agroecology to fisheries and open-source everything, people around the world are increasingly turning to 'commoning' to emancipate themselves from a predatory market-state system. Free, Fair, and Alive presents a foundational re-thinking of the commons — the self-organized social system that humans have used for millennia to meet their needs. It offers a compelling vision of a future beyond the dead-end binary of capitalism versus socialism that has almost brought the world to its knees. Written by two leading commons activists of our time, this guide is a penetrating cultural critique, table-pounding political treatise, and practical playbook. Highly readable and full of colorful stories, coverage includes: Internal dynamics of commoning How the commons worldview opens up new possibilities for change Role of language in reorienting our perceptions and political strategies Seeing the potential of commoning everywhere. Free, Fair, and Alive provides a fresh, non-academic synthesis of contemporary commons written for a popular, activist-minded audience. It presents a compelling narrative: that we can be free and creative people, govern ourselves through fair and accountable institutions, and experience the aliveness of authentic human presence.

Spaces of Commoning

Spaces of Commoning
Author: Anette Baldauf
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016
Genre: Art and society
ISBN: 9783956792663

The 18th volume in the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna series, Spaces of Commoning raises unsettling questions about research ethos, accountability, and the entanglement of power and knowledge embedded in Western sciences, arts and architecture. The well-designed, illustrated softcover book gathers over 20 case studies by an international collective of artists, architects and social theorists to investigate the question of commoning practices in Austria, Ethiopia, Greece and across the world. Organized into six sectionsNo Beginnings, Call to Order, Wage Labor and Reproductive Labor, Noise as Border, Bodies and Other Ghosts and Commoning as Horizon the essays explore how social movements are often caught between competing agendas and the gap between agendas and everyday life. It is the sites of these struggles that constitute the Spaces of Commoning. With contributions by artists Moira Hill and CASCO Office, scholar Lisa Lowe, spatial and urban theorists Stavros Stavrides and Stefan Grub, sociologist and art historian Pelin Tan, and architect Julia Wieger, among others.

The Wealth of the Commons

The Wealth of the Commons
Author: David Bollier
Publisher: Levellers Press
Total Pages: 752
Release: 2014-05-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1937146146

We are poised between an old world that no longer works and a new one struggling to be born. Surrounded by centralized hierarchies on the one hand and predatory markets on the other, people around the world are searching for alternatives. The Wealth of the Commons explains how millions of commoners have organized to defend their forests and fisheries, reinvent local food systems, organize productive online communities, reclaim public spaces, improve environmental stewardship and re-imagine the very meaning of "progress" and governance. In short, how they've built their commons. In 73 timely essays by a remarkable international roster of activists, academics and project leaders, this book chronicles ongoing struggles against the private com­moditization of shared resources - often known as market enclosures - while docu­menting the immense generative power of the commons. The Wealth of the Commons is about history, political change, public policy and cultural transformation on a global scale - but most of all, it's about individual commoners taking charge of their lives and their endangered resources. "This fine collection makes clear that the idea of the Commons is fully international, and increasingly fully worked-out. If you find yourself wondering what Occupy wants, or if some other world is possible, this pragmatic, down-to-earth, and unsentimental book will provide many of the answers." - Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and The Durable Future

Common Space

Common Space
Author: Associate Professor Stavros Stavrides
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2016-02-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1783603291

Space is both a product and a prerequisite of social relations, it has the potential to block and encourage certain forms of encounter. In Common Space, activist and architect Stavros Stavrides calls for us to conceive of space-as-commons – first, to think beyond the notions of public and private space, and then to understand common space not only as space that is governed by all and remains open to all, but that explicitly expresses, encourages and exemplifies new forms of social relations and of life in common. Through a fascinating, global examination of social housing, self-built urban settlements, street trade and art, occupied space, liberated space and graffiti, Stavrides carefully shows how spaces for commoning are created. Moreover, he explores the connections between processes of spatial transformation and the formation of politicised subjects to reveal the hidden emancipatory potential of contemporary, metropolitan life.

The Commons in an Age of Uncertainty

The Commons in an Age of Uncertainty
Author: Franklin Obeng-Odoom
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 355
Release: 2020-11-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1487537611

In the last two hundred years, the earth has increasingly become the private property of a few classes, races, transnational corporations, and nations. Repeated claims about the "tragedy of the commons" and the "crisis of capitalism" have done little to explain this concentration of land, encourage solution-building to solve resource depletion, or address our current socio-ecological crisis. The Commons in an Age of Uncertainty presents a new explanation, vision, and action plan based on the idea of commoning the land. The book argues that by commoning the land, rather than privatising it, we can develop the foundation for prosperity without destructive growth and address both local and global challenges. Making the land the most fundamental priority of all commons does not only give hope, it also opens the doors to a new world in which economy, environment, and society are decolonised and liberated.

Explorations in Urban Practice

Explorations in Urban Practice
Author: Katja Aßmann
Publisher: dpr-barcelona
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2017-10-26
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 8494752324

Both a learning platform and a pedagogical experiment, Urban School Ruhr is built upon the foundational belief that experts and amateurs can, together, build a space of critical exchange and knowledge transfer. USR prioritises exchange and dialogue that is not necessarily attached to specific outcomes, results or interventions in built reality, instead understanding conversation as the first step to co-producing cities. Explorations in Urban Practice, the first edition in the Urban School Ruhr Series, draws from and reflects upon USR’s experiences to date whilst also looking to the future of urban practice in contemporary cities. The book presents the reader with key current questions in the field: how can we learn city making? How should we understand the political concept of commoning for this purpose? And how can we discuss intervention as a strategy for enacting urban change?