Frontiers of Commoning, with David Bollier

BIPOC farmers -- many afflicted by the persistent legacy of slavery, racism, and land theft -- generally do not have an easy path forward. To help inaugurate a different history, Jubilee Justice, a small Louisiana organization, is developing an ambitious array of commons-oriented projects. As cofounder and president Konda Mason explains, these strategies include community land trusts as a way to secure farmland in perpetuity; cooperatives that help protect farmers from market exploitation and discriminatory practices; an open-source-style of climate-friendly agronomy known as the System of Rice Intensification; and the hosting of "transformational learning journeys" to help White and BIPOC Americans heal the wounds of American slavery and racism. [Printable transcript: https://www.bollier.org/transcripts-frontiers-commoning]

When the Indonesian artists collective ruangrupa was selected to curate the prestigious international art exhibition Documenta, held every five years in Germany, the group made a bold choice: to prototype a new type of commons-oriented political economy for art-making. In this episode, Ruangrupa member Farid Rakun explains how the exhibition not only showcases many first-rate artists from marginalized countries. Ruangrupa's curation also became a massive experiment in artistic commoning, with democratic assemblies of artists deciding how the exhibit would be organized, funds allocated, and noncapitalist infrastructures of social solidarity built. (Photo credit: Jin Panji/Gudskul, 2019)

Guy Standing, an economist and scholar of the commons at SOAS University of London, talks about his new book, 'The Blue Commons: Transforming the Economy of the Sea'. He argues that overfishing and destructive deepsea mining are predictable results of 'rentier capitalism', the market/state system that privileges expansive property rights, financialization, and industrialized fishing practices. To help restore marine ecosystems and coastal fishing communities, Standing proposes a detailed 'Blue Commons' agenda that relies on commoning, commons-based legal regimes, and stakeholder trusts.

Stephan Harding, a pioneering scientist focused on earth sciences, deep ecology, and the theory of Gaia, discusses the origins of Gaia theory and its challenges to the conventional view of Earth. He explores the relationship between alchemy and science, the connection with the psyche of nature through Jungian psychology, and the importance of reconnecting science with spirituality. The need for a re-conceptualization of science and the role of art in climate communication are also addressed. Collaboration, holistic science, and uncovering new stories and images are key themes throughout the podcast.

It takes a lot of hard work to get small-scale commons started, especially with complications of managing money, budgets, and tax and legal compliance. These challenges have gotten easier since the rise of Open Collective, a nonprofit platform that acts a kind of commons-enabling infrastructure. In this episode, Alanna Irving, Chief Operating Officer of Open Collective, explains the challenge of "hacking organizational structures with our values," the benefits of distributed leadership, and the confidence that comes from managing risk together.

Open access is a term used to describe academic books, journals, and other research that can be freely copied and shared rather than tightly controlled by large commercial publishers as expensive, proprietary product. Over the past 20 years, this vision has fallen far short of its original ambitions, however, as large publishers have developed new regimes to control the circulation of scientific and scholarly knowledge and charge dearly for it. Since 2015, the Radical Open Access Collective has been championing experimental, noncommercial and commons-based alternatives. In this interview, Sam Moore, an organizer of the Collective, takes stock of the state of open access publishing.

Ruth Catlow is an artist, curator, and co-leader of Furtherfield, a London-based arts collective that has been convening playful, participatory art projects for more than 25 years. The group's artistic experiments -- deeply rooted in open source technologies and philosophies -- use digital platforms and its green space and gallery in Finsbury Park to invite people to imagine new shared futures. The aim, in Furtherfield's words, is to "disrupt and democratize existing hegemonies" and "re-landscape the terrain."