Reclaiming the Commons Through Grassroots Activism

PhD project by Sophie Ball: The political significance of grassroots activism with particular reference to initiatives to ‘reclaim the Commons’.

Abstract

The following is an excerpt:

“Out of the multitude of different grassroots activist groups currently working around the world for a huge range of different causes, a number of initiatives can be identified as attempts to ‘reclaim the commons’. Describing the present day enclosures which these initiatives attempt to push back, Shiva writes: ‘While the(se) first enclosures stole only land, today all aspects of life are being enclosed – knowledge, culture, water, biodiversity, and public services such as health and education. Commons are the highest expression of economic democracy.’ (Shiva 2005) It is on these initiatives that we shall focus, with particular consideration of what they may teach us about democracy. ‘Across the world, grassroots movements are working to open up more spaces for the commons by denying that any social whole – whether cultural, language, livelihood, art, theory, science, gender, race or class – has a right to assert privileged status over, and thus to enclose, all others of its type’. (The Ecologist 1993)”

Registered Proposal

Sophie Ball:

"I registered for the degree with a proposal entitled: ‘Reclaiming the Commons’ and the political significance of grassroots activism in Haringey: local actions, international political phenomenon?’ that expressed the following aims:

“The proposed research will examine the significance of grassroots activism and its influence on the evolution of democracy within the political system in the UK today. It will examine how grassroots activism can reveal new models of democratic participation and demonstrate a reinvention of popular politics. The study will contribute to the existing body of literature on citizenship and democracy through an updating of the concept of ‘the commons’.

Aims:

• To offer an analysis of movements to ‘reclaim the commons’ that suggests an interpretation of these as social, cultural, political and economic empowerment • To suggest that the concepts that are emerging through these debates offer a basis for new forms of political organisation for the 21st century • To undertake a study of a contemporary and local example of grassroots activism in the context of recent debates on participative citizenship and democracy

Contents

Tentative:

Chapters 1-4

I have so far drafted four chapters. The first chapter introduces the themes and the methodological approaches that I adopt; the second is a broad typology of the commons; the third is a selective literature review; the fourth is an exploration of some examples of grassroots activism. They are organised as follows:

Chpt. 1: A personal and political journey across the Commons

The learning process versus the regime of the academic disciplines
Background to the proposal and the problem of methodology
Background to the research questions
A research problem identified
The languages of academia and activism

Chpt 2: A Typology of the commons

An enduring term
An enduring myth: the ‘tragedy’ of the commons
The emerging meaning: an introductory typology
Existing resources & expertise 
Capitalist or non-capitalist commons?
Grassroots activism
Personal & public spaces

Chpt.3: Talking about the commons: a literature review

Whose Common Future? Reclaiming the Commons (The Ecologist 1993)
Grassroots Post-Modernism: Remaking the soil of cultures (Esteva & Prakash 1998)
All the World Needs a Jolt: Social Movements and Political Crisis in Medieval Europe (Federici 2004)
The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons for All (Linebaugh 2008)
Imperial Ecologies (new formations N.69, 2010):
Introduction: New Enclosures (Dawson 2010)
‘The Future of ‘The Commons’: Neoliberalism’s ‘Plan B’ or the Original Disaccumulation of Capital?’ (Caffentzis 2010)
Digger Barley (Fuller 2008)

Chpt.4: Walking on the commons: the activists

Activism in Haringey
International activism
The Dark Mountain Festival: Uncivilisation
Levellers & Luddites
The Zapatistas
Nowtopia
The ‘Commons Movement’
School of Commoning

Summary

Sophie Ball, a narrative summary of chapters 1 to 4:

In the first chapter, as well as introducing the themes and the background to the research questions, I also enter into my exploration of methodologies that came about both as a result of the topics of the research, and of my approach to the research. I believe, in the words of an activist-academic Isabel Fremeaux, that ‘emotions also encompass knowledge, learning involves an emotional as much as an intellectual process.’ To some extent, I ignored the conventions and divisions that risk being imposed by the disciplinary traditions of university teaching and research, and tried not to limit myself to the language of academia. This approach partly emerged out of my own background. At school, I developed skills in languages and literature, enjoying both literature and the learning of foreign languages. As I started my first degree, however, I gave this up and embarked on a new direction, taking a BA in Third World Studies. Poems and dissertations are both mediums of words; and some truths can best be told through fiction. I accepted both influences as I searched for an appropriate epistemology and a new ontology to describe the contemporary world.

Nor did I intend to emulate academics who, as Professor Gill Nicholls of the University of Surrey wrote in a paper on the subject, ‘in order to attain some kind of security ...in a world of vast quantities of new information’, ‘seek to come ashore on ever-smaller islands of learning and enquiry...’ (THE 23-29 June 2011 No.2004) The notion of a discipline to Nicholls implies ‘both a domain to be investigated and the methods used in that domain...emphasising characteristics that separate discreet units of knowledge as opposed to those that might relate them.’ In order to get a full picture of the commons, my approach was necessarily trans-disciplinary, and I would not have been able to reach my conclusions in any other way. A paragraph from the first chapter describes the relevance of the approach:

“Global capitalism and enclosures; a lack of language, or of concepts, to describe a world in transition and the need for a story that attempts to bring together the cultural, the political, the economical and perhaps even the environmental...These themes will run through this thesis. It is not my ambition to attempt to describe a mega-theory that will provide an immediate ‘solution’ or explanation, even if such a task were possible. Rather, it is my hope that this work will itself be part of the emergent new discourse that I identify, which I will do by exploring the use of the concept of the commons and reflecting on contemporary activism; that not just what I say but how I say it – the themes that I bring together, the language I use, the priorities that I award – will of themselves be a signal of a new discourse. In other words, I am not just concerned with the outcomes of this research; the way this thesis itself is written, and the priorities and choices that are made in its construction, will carry some of the meaning that I hope to transmit. This writing is itself an act of reclaiming the commons.”

Over the next three chapters, I explore the meaning of the commons. In chapter 2, which is submitted with this report, I outline a typology of the commons, through which I summarise the historic and contemporary occurrences, contexts and meanings of the word and identify some current experts and practises in the field. This chapter provides essential background and a broad picture of the ‘state of the art’ concerning notions of the commons. It also makes the first step towards identifying how this thesis will take forward the discussion about the commons and expand my hypothesis:

‘Contemporary use of the term ‘the commons’ spans the political arena from reformative to radical approaches to capitalism. For the ‘commons’ discourse provides an alternative to the neoliberal discourse; the ‘commons’ relationship replaces the capitalist relationship. The term is being used in approaches to the management of resources which prioritise social and environmental justice, providing a reformative tendency to neo-liberal capitalist exploitation. It is seen in responses to emerging issues about the management the ‘global’ environment, through the concept of the ‘global commons’.

When the word ‘to reclaim’ is added (a verb with both transient and intransient uses), we find ourselves looking at a phrase (‘reclaim the commons’) that describes a concept suggesting activism and radicalism. If neoliberalism has encroached upon, privatised, destroyed or damaged commons, if it has limited or denied access to physical, economic, cultural and political spaces, then movements to reclaim spaces, to ‘reclaim the commons’, have emerged to counter these trends.’

Throughout the writing of the next two chapters, which are a literature review and a study of some examples of grassroots activists respectively, I struggled with the organisation of the material, for in many ways those who have written about the commons are inseparable from the activists themselves who are in some way manifesting the commons in their actions. This very struggle, however, reflects my concern that academic writing does not exclusively emerge from or seek its home in academia and illustrates how that concern is embodied in this thesis.

The literature review provides a review of a selection of texts from the last two decades which lead into a more in-depth exploration of the concepts that have emerged in a discourse around the commons, drawing together the discussions about the commons that have taken place, and are continuing to emerge, across different disciplines. This is a selective literature review which looks at a number of key texts from different disciplines or areas of interest. This approach is needed because current expressions of thinking about the commons have emerged across different disciplines. This chapter therefore draws together a cross-disciplinary selection of materials and analyses whether it is possible to identify a cross-disciplinary consensus, a state-of-the-art position of what could be called the study of the commons, and/or whether the commons is a contested territory. It examines whether by bringing together these texts, we can begin to hear the missing story and find the new politics that I identified in the introductory chapter.

So for the purposes of this study, I draw together some key texts and actors in order to create a cross-disciplinary study, asking whether the story of the commons provides us with any new tools or new stories which help us define and understand the period of crisis and transition we find ourselves living through. The material I have selected represents only a small sample of a wide range of discussions that have emerged from areas of interest and concern that include: social history, human rights, land rights, the environment, architecture and town planning, governance, local politics, grassroots activism, cultural studies, the market, radical critiques of capitalism and neo-liberalism, reformative approaches to capitalism, and spiritual evolution. I select four key texts, the first from 1993, and the most recent from 2010, each of which makes a notable contribution to the emergence of a discourse about the commons. I conclude with an edition of a journal published in 2010. A number of other texts, which are also important but cannot be discussed in any greater detail due to lack of space, are also referred to.

These texts use the commons as a perspective and a language. Resistance and alternatives to capitalism find a language through the commons; the discourse is relevant to the activists; the activists contribute to the discourse. The language opens up new possibilities that the idea of the commons embodies in these texts. This chapter fills out the commons discourse and explores the relationship between this discourse and historic and contemporary struggles against imperial and neoliberal capitalism. This discourse is characterised by a strong resistance to the capitalist growth agenda and a strong critique of neo-liberalism, in some cases Marxian in approach. Ideas around the commons, as I have mentioned, are also used in a reformative approach to capitalism. This chapter includes in one of its key reviewed texts an analysis from an anti-capitalist perspective of these ‘capitalist commons’ and some discussion of this aspect of the commons discourse.

Chapter 4 turns our attention to the grassroots activists themselves, making a broad sweep to include both historic and contemporary examples such as the Luddites, the Zapatistas and community groups in London. The theme that links them together is the commons. So we see that a contemporary example of British protest fits into both a historic tradition and an international context. By exploring the historic and international links of contemporary British activism, I suggest what these links may signify, how they might empower present day struggles, and what political picture is emerging through this wider and deeper picture of protest and activism.

The discourse that flashed out of the Mexican jungle when the Zapatistas protested against repression and reclaimed their rights, their power, their space has resonated across the world ever since. The activism by UK students that took place in November 2010 was headline news for a few days in Britain and was also reported on internationally. Acts of engagement with politics are being seen increasingly, not within formal processes or parties, but in the streets, in informal alliances and groups. As Laurie Penny, a blogger for the New Statesman, commented in The Guardian: ‘The young people of Britain do not need leaders, and the new wave of activists has no interest in the ideological bureaucracy of the old left....Anarchists and social democrats are obliged to work together alongside school pupils who don't care what flag you march under as long as you're on the side that puts people before profit.’ Alex Callinicos, professor of European studies at King's College London, commented in a response to Penny’s article that she ‘has written superbly on the protests’ though he did not agree with all of her interpretations, noting that ‘she articulated one of the characteristic illusions of any new movement, namely that it has rendered all existing theory and past experience obsolete.’ Penny defended her position by noting that: ‘The structures of labour and power and information distribution have changed irrevocably since the 1980s... which is why the structures of solidarity and revolution have to change too.’

Further research

A current example of activism, the ‘Occupation’ movement, has spread from a small encampment outside the White House to similar encampments in around 1000 cities around the world including London. From the pages of The Times to the leader of the Church of England, the establishment has expressed its support and endorsed the message of the protestors. Not all comment has been favourable of course, though much of that which was not revealed ignorance about the people involved and their intentions, but in general the media’s take on this protest has been appreciative. Even as I write, we can see a consensus emerging from the steps of St Pauls. Media commentators and public figures broadly agree that the Occupation makes a valid point, and that the topics the Occupation wants to discuss and the issues they want to put on the agenda are important and relevant to society at large, and need talking about.

This group of protestors - and conversations that have taken place on the steps of St Pauls - illustrate a key point which will be explored further in the remaining chapters. As in many contemporary movements or examples of activism, there is no leading ideology, indeed there are often no leaders. This is generally deliberately so, and attempts to include and hold together a diversity of approaches and political positions, and to practise ultra-inclusive, flat and transparent decision-making processes, characterise many contemporary movements. In this way, activists from very different political camps have struggled to find a language through which to identify themselves, work together and move forward. This, as I will go on to illustrate, is the language of the commons; and so the language of the commons becomes the language of the emergent political sphere.

The conclusion that my research into the commons led to, is that it engenders a discourse that can leave behind the traditional anti-capitalist versus pro-capitalist polarisation, and move us towards something new, just as we can see that the activists have been doing. The commons, emerging as an alternative to the embedded powers of the market and the state, is more than just a way of opposing private ownership. This capitalist/anti-capitalist dichotomy is not the fundamental dichotomy, and moves us away from the real task of reconceptualising the political and economic sphere.

In the remaining chapters I will explore the above in more detail, and discuss how the language of the commons is emerging, how it has evolved and what its influence is. This will include some specific examples of cooperation replacing competition at international levels, such as in the work at CERN and the international space station, and of how notions of the commons are emerging in place of traditional notions of sovereignty in, for example in the context of the Arctic, suggesting an opening of alternatives to what we might call the international politics of enclosure. A chapter specifically on land rights and ownership will relate these discussions more directly to issues in International Relations and Human Security."