Commons-Based Identity Shift
Description
David Bollier:
"The practice and the discourse of commoning has an elemental character: it reflects a desire by people to provision their needs directly, as self-governing communities working outside of the usual circuits of capitalist markets and state power.
Such realizations can entail a shift of identity and culture. Participants come to see that they are not “citizens” petitioning a remote, powerful state. They are not “consumers” seeking satisfaction through the market or “volunteers” donating their time to good causes. People realize they are commoners whose peer-governed activities are helping to constitute a different social and political mise en scene. They realize that their commoning enacts a different social logic, set of provisioning practices, and cultural ethos than the dominant ones of capitalist modernity and liberal, representative democracy."