Knowledge for the Commons: what is needed now?

Abstract

We set out a case for practice theory as a way to better understand and advance commoning, responding to calls for more communologies, that is, methodologies for the commons. Within the framing offered by practice theory, we argue for two potentially complementary ways of knowing: comparison and interpretation. These approaches and combinations of them are under-used in the field but are growing as additional ways of knowing that could inform both theory-building and practice. The aim is to add to the knowledge base for commons movements, as part of the mycelium for the commonsverse. Such a claim is not just a methodological or epistemological argument, but an argument about how to advance the commoning movement by rethinking how we try to understand and study it. Particularly, we focus on trying to bridge the gap between the utopian aspirations of commons movements and the realities of making such changes to existing ways of organising social, political and economic life. Worked examples by the authors are offered to illustrate the value of comparison and interpretation. One is from a ’comparative configurational analysis’ of participatory budgeting, suggesting that some of the widely argued combinations of success factors for those initiatives are not borne out by the evidence. A second worked example showcases an innovative ‘autoactionography’ method, which helps to reveal the lived experiences of developing new practices of commoning, and how commoners in one place are creating strategies towards an ontological shift against dominant modes of social organisation. It concludes with a call for methodologies that foreground an understanding of the world as a recursive process of dynamic interplays between material resources, various forms of human agency and know-how, and ascribed meanings and aspirations.

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ORCID for Matt Ryan: orcid.org/0000-0002-8693-5063

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