Let's Talk Commons
(from Vocabulary of Commons, article 82)
by Anita Cheria and Edwin
Tracing the vocabulary of commons has been an exercise in listing, analysing and drawing attention to the changing relationships between commoners and commons, the destruction of traditional commons on one hand and the growth of new commons on the other. It was interesting to analyse the use of the word ‘commons’, the language and culture it came from, where the commons were invaded and captured by the state displacing the commoners and their communities. The physical commons which form the basis and sustenance of communities have seen drastic degrading. Even with sustained attack and enclosure over centuries, they still provide the majority of the world’s life with their sustenance.
The commons created and defined by each community is different. Those who live off others, for example imperialist powers and large corporations, create a ‘commons’ based on exploitation. Indigenous communities on the other hand live on a principal of minimising physical needs with the least generation of waste and stockpiling. Creating commons is the first step to building communities and also the first step in resolving conflicts between peoples, communities, regions and nations. From a single cell, to the human body, the rivers and hills, everything has spaces to interface with its environment. Without this kind of an interface most life forms cannot exist, let alone grow and flourish.
There are new and emerging commons in the Indian context in a series of policy changes that have come as a response to community struggles for survival and dignity. They are an attempt to recognise and ensure certain basic rights for marginalised communities as well as more responsive state functioning. The Right to Information Act 2005, which provides transparency in the use of public resources, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005, The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006, recognising the rights of the forest communities over forests, and the Right to Education Act 2010 which provides for free and compulsory education to all children aged six to fourteen form a strong foundation for the new commons. These new commons are quite distinct from the digital commons which occupies the ‘new commons’ space in the commons discourse.
The digital commons has been a vehicle of exponential growth in the creation and commoning of knowledge. It has created a platform for participation, sharing and commoning of information in a scale unheard of before. This has been possible due to extensive networking and the capacity of digital commons to constantly upgrade technologies for extensive use. The digital commons have redefined the word ‘community’ itself. The number of virtual ‘communities’ today outnumbers the real. The globalised world with its modern technology has thus carved the space for a new generation of commons and communities. The distance between the real and virtual communities is also changing and dynamic. In many cases there is a growing synergy and at times even an overlap between real and virtual communities, with many virtual communities created to support the real ones and vice versa. What distinguishes the popular ‘new commons’, the digital commons of the techno–savvy, from the natural physical commons preserved largely by indigenous communities is its dependence on a technology that is polluting both by its intrinsic character and scale of its use. Therefore the purpose of this technology and its use must constantly be monitored to ensure that it is truly inclusive and commoning and not disregard the digital divide nor be oblivious of the dangers of illusionary instant gratification.
The millennium has brought with it several opportunities to move beyond the old frameworks of fear and scarcity. The explosion in information and technology and the demographic shift places the present time at an exciting crossroad of human history where we live in a world of plenty, with the means to ensure that all have sufficient resources to live with dignity. We have the knowledge and means to use fewer resources to provided better services to more people at less cost.
Strengthening commons institutions lie at the centre of any political and ecological solutions. Traditional institutional mechanisms and practices provide a starting point but a communitarian solution should be developed based on the contemporary situation. New commons are constantly emerging which need to be recognised and promoted. These need to be developed at many spaces, in micro level village communities, at the meso– and macro–scale. Building equitable, inclusive communities ensures that all are a part of the commons. There is a perceptible and progressive trend in creating new commons for women and other excluded sections. We now have laws and policies to promote and ensure their survival, personal growth, social and economic independence and political leadership. All these welcome and include the previously excluded as true citizens in the commons.
In this world of abundance, it is possible to have a paradigm of cooperation rather than competition, of sharing rather than hoarding. Commoning offers simple ways of solving the complex needs of survival. If certain ground rules are followed, it provides the resource base for multiple users with multiple needs to draw from it at sustainable levels. The commons make for economies of scale that find an organic balance between consumption and production cycles of multiple users, in a scale that no enclosed resource or space can match. It does away with the need for intrinsically unproductive phases of the economy. The users of commons could be diverse, since natural commons are naturally complex. It can support a complex user base of non competing users, whose use patterns often are symbiotic and complement the sustenance of a natural ecosystem.
This book is not about commons as an ancient culture to be preserved and promoted as a stagnant tradition or a set of rituals. It is an attempt to understand, recognise and acknowledge the commons for its true worth and complexities. It is to help develop a commons culture that is dynamic, taking the best from the commons cultures across time and space, developing them to suit our needs as an ‘earth community’. Changing the vocabulary alone will not suffice, but it is a start. Change of power relations is the true benchmark of success. We will need to understand the paradigm of nature as commons in contrast to nature as property, the crucial distinction of nature as source and nature as resource and the vital contradiction of nature as life and nature as commodity. And build our capacity to defend the commons.
Collaboration and commons are the way to the future. It is not even a matter of if or when. The change is already underway
The law still hangs the man or woman
Who stop those who steal the goose, from off the common
They can and do, take a lot of flak,
Yet they will go and take it back.