Frontiers of Commoning, with David Bollier

Severine von Tscharner Fleming is a young organic farmer who helped start Agrarian Trust, an organization supporting land access for the next generation of farmers. Ian McSweeney, the organizational director of Agrarian Trust, explains strategies for decommodifying land for farmers even as the pandemic drives up land prices. Also discussed: Greenhorns, a cultural network for young farmers; Farm Hack, a global design community for open source farm equipment; and Seaweed Commons, a network studying the stewardship of intertidal zones.

For Dave Jacke, a designer of ecological landscapes and lead author of the classic book 'Edible Forest Gardens,' the key to how humanity will navigate its future on Earth lies with our culture and "inner landscapes," as refracted through our technologies. Paradoxically, the extreme underdevelopment of Western culture, psychosocially, is a reason for hope, he argues. If humanity truly were advanced while facing so many planetary challenges, "we’d be screwed." Fortunately, we have so much room to grow in self-awareness, and ecological design can help us learn to co-evolve abundant landscapes once again.

Janelle Orsi, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Sustainable Economies Law Center, in Oakland, California, is an accomplished practitioner of creative legal hacks. She and her colleagues at the Law Center focus on ingenious ways to decommodify land to keep housing and farmland affordable; to empower peer governance and give people control over their lives; and to provide legal structures that help people acquire greater security by "surrendering into each other's arms." Orsi and the Law Center are at the forefront of the kinds of innovative lawyering needed to build a more just, eco-friendly, localized and humane world.

Marcos García is Artistic Director of Medialab-Prado in Madrid, Spain -- an independent, city-funded 'commons laboratory' that facilitates bottom-up innovation on various tech platforms. As a commons incubator, Medialab-Prado actively facilitates the formation of new communities of experimental, collaborative practice in such diverse fields as citizen science, participatory budgeting, data visualization, open source software, Wikipedia entries, and book translations, among many others.

Neera Singh, a geographer from the University of Toronto, shares her insights on community forests in India. She highlights how the emotional connections individuals have with their land lead to healthier forests than corporate management. Singh discusses the resilience of Odisha's communities fighting against bureaucratic mismanagement and the importance of the Forest Rights Act in balancing legal and traditional practices. Ultimately, she advocates for a care-based approach to environmental stewardship that honors local governance and biocultural heritage.

Drawing on their worldwide work with schools, tech ventures, and other projects and organizations, Ted Rau (left) and Jerry Koch-Gonzalez, Cofounders of Sociocracy for All, explain how Sociocracy provides a fair, effective, commons-based system of deliberation and decisionmaking.

Paul Baines, Outreach and Education Coordinator of the Great Lakes Commons, fosters new attitudes and practices toward the Great Lakes in collaboration with other groups. Through crowdsourced maps, public celebrations, cultural projects, and reconciliation work with indigenous peoples, the Great Lakes Commons is exploring what stewardship of water means.

Rachel Moriarty, the Coordinator of the Berkshires Local Currency program, dives into the fascinating evolution of BerkShares, one of the world's most successful local currencies. She highlights the importance of community-driven finance and discusses the innovative SHARE loan program that supports local businesses. Rachel reveals how BerkShares transitioned from a weekend initiative to a year-round currency, emphasizing local identity and resource reclamation. With insights on its legal framework and artistic design, this conversation is a deep exploration of economic localization.

Matthew Glassman and Carlos Uriona, co-artistic directors of Double Edge Theatre, explain how commoning animates the performances and stewardship of their artist-owned ensemble theater company in western Massachusetts.