A Commons Perspective on Human-Nature Relations: Analysis, Vision, and Strategies for Alternative Futures (original) (raw)
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A Commons Perspective on Human-Nature Relations
I offer here some reflections on the commons. In particular, I reflect upon the question “How does the commons, as an alternative perspective, see the relationship between humans and nature?”
Awakening to an Ecology of the Commons
2020
We live in a transformative moment in human history, at once on the precipice of crisis and simultaneously awakening into a new awareness of ourselves as commoners and planetary beings. For the individual, this transformative moment in human history feels more like a crisis than a transition— drawn out, full of dangers, obstacles, and growing pains. The moment, however, is the birth of the “planetary” as an element of human experience, and this transition is, according to our perspective, the transition from social orders based on exploitation to social orders based on generative mutuality. In this chapter, we explain the intertwined and integral emergence of the planetary and the commons as complementary fields of experience and their role in the reimagination of who we are.
Agriculture and Human Values, 1990
Ron Herring teaches political science at Northwestern University. His concern with environmental issues emerges from work on land systems, agriculture, and land reform in South Asia, some of which has appeared as land to the Tiller (Yale, 1983). He is currently organizing work on the environment through the SSRC.
Commons: Old and New -- On Environmental Goods and Services in the Theory of Commons
2003
The modern and largely academic and urban initiated concern with environmental protection of landscapes, species, watersheds, biodiversity, ecosystem-services etc. are framed by a language suggesting that the main concern is the protection and preservation of precarious resources of common interests for mankind. Thus the values deserving the attention of environmental protection seem to be very different from the concerns shaping the evolution of traditional commons: the control of access to and extraction of resources seen as limited but essential for the survival of local communities. The paper will explore the theoretical differences and similarities of the two types of interests driving the concern for preserving values. It will be suggested that a basic difference lies in the distinction between values where there is rivalry in appropriation and values where there is non-rivalry. It will further be argued that in designing new institutions for managing protected areas, an understanding of traditional commons and how the new values to be protected are different from and interact with the old values will be important to achieve sustainability of resource use within the protected areas.
Introduction: No Place for the Commons
The Minnesota Review, 2019
This article introduces the dossier "Is There a Place for the Commons?" by briefly explaining the concepts of the common (no s) and the commons (with an s) in terms of their philosophical, political, social, and historical trajectories. It examines the tension between the universalizing aspiration of the common as a political project and the particular social situations of the commons. It emphasizes the commons as praxis, that is, as a practice that takes place in the world without being reducible to place. In doing so, it also considers the vexed relationship between the commons and state sovereignty, the way in which the common functions as a placeholder for revolutionary subjectivity, the significance of ecology for the commons and vice versa, and the importance of queer, indigenous, feminist, and minoritarian commons for understanding what it means "to common" within and against capitalism.
The Commons: A Social Form That Allows for Degrowth and Sustainability
Capitalism Nature Socialism, 2019
This theoretical article opens with the reconstruction of a value-critical argument which claims that capitalism is a form of society that is structurally unsustainable. The reason for this is the need for ever-increasing value production which stems from the core of capitalism (the commodity form, competition, profit maximization, private production) and its internal and external limits. Based on this, the article calls for a fundamental social transformation and positions the commons as a social form that has the potential to replace the commodity form as societal foundation. Constituted by social practices (commoning) that are based on voluntariness, autonomy and needs- satisfaction, commons do not have an inbuilt growth compulsion. Therefore, the article concludes, the commons may enable humanity to deal with the question of sustainability on the basis of social structures that include the possibility of a solution.
2002
The "tragedy of the commons" is a central concept in human ecology and the study of the environment in general. The prototypical scenario is simple. There is a resource--now usually referred to as a common-pool resource--to which a large number of people have access. The resource might be an oceanic ecosystem from which fish are harvested, the global atmosphere into which greenhouse gases are released, or a forest from which timber is harvested. Overuse of the resource creates problems, often destroying its sustainability. The fish population may collapse, climate change may ensue, or the forest might cease regrowing enough trees to replace those cut. Each user faces a decision about how much of the resource to use--how many fish to catch, how much greenhouse gases to emit, or how many trees to cut. If all users restrain themselves, then the resource can be sustained. But there is a dilemma. If you limit your use of the resources and your neighbors do not, then the resource still collapses and you have lost the short-term benefits of taking your share .
The Future of the Commons : Interfaces of Nature
2014
The interfaces of nature and culture define the ultimate life support for human well-being. They constitute a common; they are fundamentally shared. The commons of nature-culture are places which make up everyday language and poetics through landscape metaphors and other common topoi. But the commons have many senses, not all of them commonsensical or commonplace. The adjective common describes something that is in joint use or possession; public, shared alike. In the early 2000s the related legal concept “Creative Commons” was formed to promote – often noncommercial – sharing of otherwise copyright-protected material. The interface of nature and culture is the shared life of ecosystems and creativity alike. This workshop proposes to think about the past and present as well as the Future of the Commons to investigate individual and collective life conditions and cultural production. Here is a field where nature and culture cross: ecological boundaries and ecosystem changes will inev...
Sustainability and the Tragedy of Commons. A New Perspective
Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference – Competitiveness of Agro-Food and Environmental Economy CAFEE 2016, 2016
The "tragedy of the commons", as part of the mainstream economic theory, assumes that the selfish and rational human nature will lead to the depletion of essential resources (such as water, air, subsistence items, etc.) in the absence of well-defined property rights, formal, top-down management institutions, rules of access and exploitation. Nevertheless, evolutionary theory advances a new model of individual behaviour, based on altruism and cooperation that could lay the foundation of new types of institutions for managing the commons for the long-term benefit of the group or society. Reviewing the relevant literature that identifies instances of cooperation and successful management of the commons, the paper brings into light the essential conditions necessary for a responsible exploitation of a common resource. Introduction The well-known idea of the "tragedy of the commons"-meaning that in the absence of certain characteristics (such as clear property rights, solid management institutions, well-defined access and exploitation rules, etc.), a common-pool resource will be certainly placed in the middle of the confrontation between the self-interest of individuals and the collective interest of the community, eventually being depleted due to the tendency of any individual to overexploit it-is part of the mainstream economic theory. The tragedy is even greater if we take into account that most of the so-called "commons" are essential resources (such as water, air, subsistence items, etc.) that pertain to the survival of any individual, directly linked to the sustainability of a community. Nevertheless, the human species has succeeded in managing such common resources for millennia, ensuring its survival by proving a high degree of ultra-sociality and ultra-cooperation. The current paper is a theoretical research aimed at identifying successful instances of cooperation in overcoming the inexorable tragedy of the commons, describing the essential conditions necessary for a responsible exploitation of a common resource, and ultimately finding a new model to lie at the basis of the economic theory. The theme of the research is of great importance, given the fact that the sustainability of a community depends on an accountable use of the common resources, which is to be achieved by promoting a new model of individual, different from homo oeconomicus, driven by cooperation and concern for the common good. The paper will investigate the link between sustainability and the alleged self-centred human nature in order to ascertain whether the "tragedy of the commons" is inevitable when dealing with any common resource or whether such a tragedy is only generated by the promotion of a wrong model of economic man and institutions. Although theoretical, the research draws upon a large body of empirical research presented in the literature dealing with the management of the commons.