Open thematic sessions > The role of commons and commoning practices in organizing for a sustainable future

Contact pour soumission de communication

Coline Serres : coline.serres@kuleuven.be

Anaïs Périlleux : anais.perilleux@uclouvain.be

Cadrage et objectif de la session

The commons are alternative social and economic practices fostering community development and regeneration (Meyer & Hudon, 2017). Commons promise to protect and sustainably develop communal wealth (Bollier & Helfrich, 2014; Fournier, 2013; Tedmanson et al., 2015) supporting a logic of sustainability as opposed to a logic of material growth or over-consumption. They provide democratic alternatives intended to re-socialize and re-politicize the economy (Ostrom, 1990). In the face of growing criticism toward capitalism and its negative impact on the natural environment, a variety of work has leveraged the concepts on and around the commons to bring a commons fix to capitalism (De Angelis, 2012). Among commons-related concepts, commoning has drawn the attention of political economists, management scholars, and urban scholars, among others. Commoning refers to “a form of social organization through which common resources are (re)produced” (Fournier, 2013, p. 438) and which makes space for new social production and organization modes (De Angelis & Harvie, 2014). In this thematic session, we aim to advance knowledge on the understanding of commoning practices developed in the frame of both formal and informal institutions so to offer alternatives to traditional systems (such as capitalism) and organizing modes in order to build a more sustainable future.

Context and objectives

For 20 years, commons theories across disciplines have presented commons as a solution to fight market exchanges and commodification (Cossey et al., 2023; Harvey, 2012). Initial literature on commons focused on common-pool resources, which are non-excludable and subtractable resources (Ostrom, 1990).  Yet the recognition of various resources as “new commons” (Hess, 2008), as well as the growing focus on the social practices around the commons, also known as “commoning” (Fournier, 2013), has expanded the focus and action of commons to encompass more than the resource-based view of the commons (Brandtner et al., 2023) and focus on the ways commons are (re)produced and expanded. De Angelis (2017, p. 10) further defines commons as a social system in which “a plurality of people (a community) shar[e] resources and govern them and their own relations and (re)production processes through horizontal doing in common.”

Commoning is concerned with the way civil society organizes and creates organizations to support the development of collaborative communities governing commons (Linebaugh, 2008). Through commoning, organizations’ social relationships are not regulated by the market or the state but by community exchange and social links (De Angelis, 2017). At the heart of commoning lie “commoners,” individuals coming together and developing sets of practices and processes to govern the commons (Brandtner et al., 2023) and answer a collective dilemma through collective action (Coriat, 2015). In doing so, commoners form a community of practice (Feinberg et al., 2023)—that is, a group of individuals sharing specific practices,  expertise, or goals (Bacq et al., 2022).

In the management literature, the role of communities in the creation and sustaining of commons (Meyer, 2020) has been pinpointed through the engagement of collective action (Bradley & Pargman, 2017; Haugh, 2007; Périlleux & Nyssens, 2017; Rossignoli et al., 2018). The more recent management literature on the commons has, however, left aside the various types of mechanisms developed through commoning practices (such as governance for instance). Moreover, works on commoning in other disciplines have so far remained normative, leading to a lack of empirical evidence about implementation (Varvarousis, 2020). Such gaps prevent us from understanding how alternative organizational forms (such as communities of practice) can address not only sustaining the commons over time, but also their (re)production. The focus on the mechanisms surrounding commoning practices is necessary to understand the functioning of the common-pool institution as a whole (the organization governing the commons (Ostrom, 1990)) and the community practices deployed to solve collective dilemmas as well as to look beyond the sole provision of the resource. While a variety of disciplines (urban studies, management, critical management studies, among others) have started tackling commoning in urban commons, these works remain so far theoretical (e.g., Brandtner et al., 2023) or normative (e.g., Fournier, 2013). Moreover, more knowledge is needed on the commoning practices developed in the context of other types of commons, be they “new” or not. In line with the general theme of the conference, this thematic session aims to gain knowledge on commoning practices as sustainable practices for a fair future.   

References

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Rossignoli, C., Ricciardi, F., & Bonomi, S. (2018). Organizing for Commons-Enabling Decision-Making Under Conflicting Institutional Logics in Social Entrepreneurship. Group Decision and Negotiation, 27(3), 417–443.

Tedmanson, D., Essers, C., Dey, P., & Verduyn, K. (2015). An Uncommon Wealth. . .Transforming the Commons With Purpose, for People and Not for Profit! Journal of Management Inquiry, 24(4), 439–444.

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