Commons Convergence

= Indian initiative to discuss the interconnection between different types of commons

URL = http://wiki.kandalaya.org/cgi-bin/twiki/view/CommonsConvergence/WebHome

Description

"In our age, "the commons" has widely become both a celebration of things and processes that are public, shared, openly accessible, and therefore common, as well as a symbol of resistance not only to capital but to all things and processes that are big, monopolistic, and hegemonic; and in both senses is evocative of other worlds and of other ways to do things. One student of the commons, Shiri Pasternak, of Toronto, argued at a workshop in New Delhi on December 13 2007 that "Through inter-related processes of imperialism, colonialism and privatisation, an unevenly felt but universally-prevalent violent system of enclosure has been destroying collective practices and shared systems of meaning in communities around the world" and beyond this, that there is great strategic potential in the convergence of struggles for the conceptually older "ecological" or natural commons and for the historically and conceptually new "information (or knowledge) commons". Even if these ideas were strongly debated, and even if it also began to be clear that there might in fact be some differences -- possibly fundamental -- between different kinds of commons, we also agreed that we needed to continue the exchange, and to open it up. (For details, see this link.)

Participants at a follow-up workshop in New Delhi on February 8 2008, led by Shalini Bhutani of GRAIN, decided to set up this "commons convergence" list to critically explore, interrogate, and debate this and other related propositions, towards a longer-term, critical understanding both of the concept of a/the/many commons and of the social and political potentials, limitations, and contradictions of convergence between different struggles for “the commons”. It is an open and unmoderated list, and we invite you to join!"