Making Commons for Peer Production
* PhD Thesis: ANNA SERAVALLI. MAKING COMMONS (attempts at composing prospects in the opening of production). Doctoral dissertation in Interaction Design. Malmö University, School of Arts and Communication, Faculty: Culture and Society, 2014
URL = http://dspace.mah.se/handle/2043/17232
Author is affiliated witj the MEDEA Collaborative Media Initiative, Malmö
Description
Contents
Selected from the contents, headings related to peer production and the commons:
2.4 The actual program: Making Commons (attempts at composing prospects in the opening of production)................................55
3 Commons as the first compass .....................................................................56
3.1 In the swampy lowlands of the opening of production:
a long way for the definition of the ’where’ and the ’what’.....................56
How commons entered this work ....................................................... 58
3.2 Commons as a manifold notion..........................................................60
3.3 Commons, commoning, and infrastructuring in the opening of production...
xxx
2. THE OPENING OF PRODUCTION ................................................ 87
7. Mapping the opening of production..........................................................88
7.1 Hackers, makers, and freedom for commons-based production......88
Commons-based peer-to-peer goes tangible
(and maybe also big?) ....................................................................... 91
7.2 Open and democratic innovation, publics and ethical economy ..93
7.3 Sharing economy buen vivir and degrowth ......................................97
7.4 The opening of (re)production: a matter of care ..............................99
7.5 The opening of production: the same old story?............................102
8. What happens to the roles of users, producers, and designers? ..........104
9. Issues and dilemmas in the future of opened production.......................109
9.1 Maintenance and provisioning of the commons............................109
9.2 A very fine line between empowerment and exploitation.............111
9.3 The myth of the amateur? ................................................................112
9.4 Going local and small: the risks of neo-medievalism.....................114
9.5 Infrastructures for commoning: struggling towards economies of scope....................................................................................................114
10. The engagements: two infrastructures in the swamp .................................................................................................116
10.1 Malmö: a city in the opening of production.................................116
10.2 Fabriken and Connectivity Lab: infrastructures for
tangible production .................................................................................118
10.3 The Neighbourhood and HWA as enabling platforms ..............119
3. COMMONS AND PROSPECTS ...................................................125
11 Fabriken and HWA as commons in the opening of production............ 126
11.1 What kind of production? ..............................................................126
11.2 HWA as a commons: consensus, collective identity, the premises .............................................................................................129
Collective groups versus peer-to-peer networks?.............................130
11.3 Fabriken commons, form 1: transient participation,
lack of consensus, and the NGO as a partner ....................................132
Issues with transient participation ....................................................135
11.4 Fabriken commons, form 2: from commoning with individuals
to commoning between organizations...................................................138
Issues with expectations and ownership..........................................140
11.5 Commons sustainability: rivalry and durability and economies of scope....................................................................................................142
Nuancing rivalry and durability .......................................................142
Economies of Scope ........................................................................143
11.6 Connectivity Lab a non-commons..................................................145
12. Prospects in the opening of production .................................................146
12.1 Creative communities struggles .....................................................146
When bees and trees do not match.................................................146
Spaces and resources for experimentation and continuity.............148
Supporting the trees? ........................................................................152
12.2 While waiting for the third industrial revolution ...........................152
Commons-based, peer-to-peer production goes tangible:
articulating openness ........................................................................152
Dealing with material scarcity ..........................................................153
Amateurs, but not necessary entrepreneurs.....................................155
New producers and old producers: alliances in the margins? ......157
13. Which prospects get to travel?
(Constraints making)...........................158
13.1 The making of CL and the delegitimization of Fabriken...............159
13.2 Others constraints making: regaining legitimacy .........................162
13.3 Shaping ‘matters of fact’, actants, and relationships ...................165
4. MAKING COMMONS AS COMPOSING ...................................169
14 Commons which gather actors with diverse interests ............................170
14.1 Boundaries, boundary objects, boundary organizations and trading zones....................................................................................170
14.2 Engagements: infrastructuring for boundary organizations and trading zones....................................................................................173
15 Initiating commons...................................................................................174
15.1 Exploring boundaries: finding common interests and articulating differences............................................................................174
15.2 Giving trust, lending/borrowing trust............................................177
15.3 Non-humans mobilizing humans: laser cutters and stories .........178
15.4 Openness as matter of constructing the stakeholder ...................180
16 Unfolding commons.................................................................................183
16.1 From co-design to non-consensus-based commoning ..................184
16.2 Collaborative making without commons?.....................................186
16.3 Co-ownership for long-term commitment ......................................187
16.4 Diverse and non-overlapping interests..........................................189
16.5 Collaboration: trading or bending? .............................................191
17 Continuing commons...............................................................................193
17.1 Control over production ................................................................193
17.2 Sharing as a necessity and (safe) trading zones ........................194
18 Leaving commons.....................................................................................196
19 Design(er) and making commons...........................................................199
19.1 Collective prototyping and making rather than facilitating..........199
19.2 Making power, practicalities and friendly hacking ......................201
19.3 Beyond workshops: other collective forms....................................203
19.4 From strategies and methods to located prudent tactics..............205
5. CONCLUSIONS ..........................................................................208
20 Summing up contributions .......................................................................210
20.1 Answering the questions................................................................210
What kind of co-production practices are emerging in the opening of production?...............................................................210
To what kind of (alternative) futures do they relate?
Which of them may move forward as possible presents? ..............212
How can design be at play in co-production practices as a matter of making possible presents?.............................................214
20.2 Design practice-based approach, as a matter of making futures .... ..................................................................................................215
20.3 Reflecting on the programmatic approach ...................................216
Actionable program, knowledge-able experiments, a matter of where ..............................................................................216
From experiments to engagements...................................................218
21 Aftermath reflections................................................................................219
21.1 Prospects in the opening of production.........................................219
Community-supported production....................................................219
Makerspaces, meeting-by-making, and learning-by-making ..........220
21.2 Making commons and design .......................................................221
Excerpts
The notion of the Opening of Production
Anna Seravalli:
"The opening of production, where the increased accessibility to means of production, and the rising of open, collaborative and sharing-based production practices are fostering the emergence of a number of visions and scenarios about the future of production.
In such a swamp, I position my two engagements which may be looked upon as two possible examples of the growing role that openness, collaboration and sharing play in making things and delivering services. The broader context and the two engagements raise a series of questions which are relevant for the design field, but also for academic and practical work concerning alternative, or heterodox, economics.
1.1 In the opening of production: a matter of alternative futures?
The notion of the opening of production accounts for emerging practices and understandings of co-production, where openness, sharing, and collaboration play a growing role in making goods and delivering services. Openness—as the increased possibilities of participation for ’end-users’ in processes of value creation, thanks to the growing accessibility of means and resources for production. Sharing—as the establishment of forms of collective ownership, management, and use over resources for production, as well as over 21 processes’ outputs. Collaboration— as forms of collective action that, contingently, emerge with openness and sharing.
When it comes to performing value production, the opening of production entails a shift from individuals, private property, controlled production, and closed innovation processes, toward collectives, shared ownership, and distributed and open production processes.
The opening of production is not a homogenous phenomena; it spans from the software field to public services and from food production to the media industry. It also presents a number contradictions and issues in the way in which openness, sharing, and collaboration work.
Nevertheless, it seems characterized by four distinctive traits:
- Shuffling of roles—these practices often entail an overlapping of roles between end-users, producers and designers and, consequently, a profound transformation of the relationships between them.
- Beyond use value—the centrality of sharing and collaboration implies that these practices are not only generating products and services which respond concretely to a human need, but also social connections between the participants, as well as facilitating a knowledge exchange between them.
- Alternative production forms—the increasing availability of technologies and knowledge about making is boosting the emergence (or reinforcement) of marginal practices on the border of capitalist, industrial mass-production.
- Diverse forms of commons—where commons have to be understood as ways of organizing and performing sharing and collaboration and, consequently, entailing diverse modes of openness.
The opening of production is mobilizing and feeding a number of
possible futures that span from the creation of a post-capitalist mode
of production based on shared resources, to the idea of collaboration
and sharing as the new mantra for possible business models and
startups. An in-depth mapping of the opening of production, the
possibilities and challenges it entails is provided further on. What is
important to highlight here is both how it challenges the traditional
role of the designer and how it seems to open up the possibility of 22
transforming or reforming the actual production system toward a
more social and environmentally sustainable one."