This umbrella project seeks to leverage the potential of FLARE, as a network with a diverse membership from across the globe, to work in a more concerted way to advance knowledge at the intersection of forests and livelihoods. FLARE Distributed Research is a novel means to do so. This project will include research on key topics and questions determined by the FLARE membership. The first topic is described below.
Atlas on Commons and Commoning
Transformative change agendas are increasingly under threat as many governments and corporate sector actors reassess their public commitments and investments to the environment, development, and sustainability. In this evolving context, the lessons of research and grounded action for the commons, community, and civil society are a promising source of institutional alternatives to sustain and advance transformative change towards a flourishing future. Research on the commons shows how institutional arrangements shape the multi-dimensional sustainability outcomes of collectively governed resources. Research on commoning has usefully added to existing research through a stronger focus on the forces that shape institutions and how engagement in commoning processes creates both commons and reshapes those involved in commoning. This project seeks to strengthen the growing conversation between research on commons (how do institutions affect sustainability outcomes?) with that on commoning (how do processes of commoning (re)shape the institutions and people that govern the commons?). We invite members of the FLARE community to build the first broadly comparative body of evidence to address this question. Participation involves two arms: (1) Complete a structured survey about a commoning practice with which you are familiar. The survey asks about the contexts in which the commoning practice occurred, the nature of the practice and the arrangements that emerged from it, relevant stakeholders, how commoning shaped commons and the participants in commoning, and your assessment of the relationships among these elements. Cases that did
not produce lasting institutions are as valuable to this study as those that did; (2) Be a coauthor on the resulting paper(s) from the survey. Contributions will lead to a) a shared dataset to support systematic analysis of how variation in commoning practices relate to variation in institutional forms and outcomes, b) at least one jointly-authored peer-reviewed publication, and in time, c) a larger “Atlas on Commons and Commoning” documenting the variety of ways people and societies build shared governance.
People
Arun Agrawal, University of Notre Dame
Fiona Gladstone, Fairleigh Dickinson University
Bethany Little, University of Notre Dame
Nabin Pradhan, University of Notre Dame
Daniel Miller, University of Notre Dame
Project Period
Ongoing
Partners
University of Notre Dame’s Just Transformation to Sustainability Initiative
Outputs
Forthcoming