Commoning practices have in recent years attracted increasing attention, also outside academia, as a potential solution to many of the problems facing the world today – social, political, and environmental – and as political program for a common future based on principles of solidarity, justice, equality, and sustainability. Within academia, commoning has been treated as a new paradigm for rethinking the (global) economy, north-south and south-south relations, resource access and environmental justice, and as a transformative practice emphasizing participation, collaboration and well-being. Commoning constitutes a critique of and envisions alternatives to the ongoing privatization of economic, political, knowledge and ecological resources by transnational corporations. It is the tendency of the commons to resist neoliberal regimes of management and control that generates new emancipatory and participatory possibilities.

Being ‚in common‘ here forms the basis for re-imagining sociality, solidarity and citizenship outside the frameworks of community and nation, and beyond identity markers that emphasize sameness or difference. The commons may offer alternative modes of access and inclusion that defy conventional legal frameworks of ownership and dominant economic values of equivalence. Nonetheless, zones of enclosure and exclusion may arise at the boundaries and fringes of common projects. The research area shall explore these three interlinked aspects of:

(1) commoning practices

(2) the commons

(3) states of being in common

We emphasize the interdisciplinary nature of debates on commoning, the strong participation of scholars from the Global South, and the role of indigenous and marginalized groups in spearheading commoning practices, concepts, and knowledge. Our approach to commoning highlights relations, values, and future-oriented creativity. Socialities, infrastructures, knowledge/arts/design, ecologies, and human economies are possible fields or foci to study commoning processes, as are the local/translocal, rural/urban spatial dimensions of the commons.

 

 

Upcoming Activities:

• Continuation of Commoning Dialogues Series
  • Expansion to include (hybrid/online) audience and speakers associated with the DGSKA (German Anthropological Association), in view of the upcoming conference on Un/Commoning Entanglements:
    • Gustavo Garcia-Lopez (University of Coimbra) and Katharina Bodirsky (University of Konstanz) (25.November)
    • Xiang Biao (MPI for Social Anthropology) and Susanne Brandtstädter (UoC) (02. December)
• Commoning Collaborations Workshop

  • A small, informal workshop called “Commoning Collaborations” is scheduled as a one-day, in-person event on November 4th. The workshop will explore the intersection of activism and commoning, and we have invited participants who engage directly with local communities or leverage academic-activist knowledge to make a tangible impact on local contexts.

• DGSKA Conference “Un/Commoning Anthropology“

  • The German Association of Social and Cultural Anthropology (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie) biannual conference will take place in Cologne, from 29 September 29 – 2 October 2025. The topic will be: “Un/Commoning Anthropology.“

    • We have submitted a panel proposal on “Common(ing) Values and Values In-Common“ for the DGSKA
    • We also plan to submit an exhibition-oriented contribution

• A more long-term goal is to establish a network on Commoning with funding through the DFG Scientific Network program

 

Past Events:

• Panel for European Association of Social Anthropology Conference in Barcelona (23-26 July 2024) “Crisis Commons: Un/Doing Human Mutualities” (Susanne Brandtstädter, Dimitris Dalkoglou, Charlotte Bruckermann)
• Commoning Dialogue Series

  • 1 July 2024: Common names / Proper names: The Commoning Potential of Toponymic Practice With Anna-Louise Milne

  • 12 December 2023 16:00-18:00 On Care of Our Commons Home: The Past, Present, and Future of English Lowland Commons with Sharon Gradham

  • 23 October 2023 16:00-18:00 Art/Commons - Anthropology Beyond Capitalism with Massimiliano Mollona

• GSSC Meeting 24th January 2023
  • Building on the proposal of “Commoning: Visions, resources, and practices”, we wrote the additional text on the three interlinked aspects of the commons, commoning, and being in common. This formed the basis for our workshop on June 15th 2023 at the GSSC.
• GSSC Workshop “The Commons, In Common, and Commoning”, June 15th 2023 
  • We invited four external speakers to share their work on the three interrelated aspects of the commons, in common and commoning. These speakers were Tobias Haller, Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Bern; Harry Walker, Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics; Chizu Sato, Cultural Geography, University of Wageningen; Dimitris Dalakoglou, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. The speakers strengthened the three of the areas of “The Commons, In Common, and Commoning” with their expertise on the commons as land, infrastructure and ecological resources (Haller), the terms of recognition of being in common (Walker), and open and creative processes of commoning (Sato, Dalakoglou). The different theoretical perspectives the external speakers brought to the topic inspired our further discussions in the afternoon, where we discussed the website text, as well as our individual research on the topic to date, and connections of the theme to existing projects of the GSSC and the groups planned activities going forward. This workshop was funded and hosted by the GSSC.

 

Beyond individual research the following projects are particularly relevant to the research area:

• Cluster of Excellence Application “Sharing a Planet in Peril” (Kate Rigby, Michael Kleinod, Thomas Widlok, Franz Krause, Michael Bollig) 
• MESH – “Multidisciplinary Environmental Studies in the Humanities” (Kate Rigby, Michael Bollig, Franz Krause) 
• EUniwell incubator workshop and CHANSE/NORFACE application on “Cosmopolitanism from below: Practices and Contexts for Engaged Ethics in Urban (and non-Urban) Settings” (Susanne Brandtstädter) 
• Auerbach Fellowship “Museum of the Commons” (Massimiliano Mollona, Susanne Brandtstädter, Charlotte Bruckermann)

• Bruckermann, Charlotte. 2024 (December) “Atmospheric Commons for the Self in China.” In Special Issue (Un)Commoning Entanglements, guest editors Andreas Streinzer and Jelena Tosic (University of St. Gallen), Critique of Anthropology.
• Smyer Yü, Dan. 2021. “Situating environmental humanities in the New Himalayas: An Introduction.” In Dan Smyer Yü and Erik de Maaker, eds. Environmental Humanities in the New Himalayas: Symbiotic Indigeneity, Commoning, Sustainability. London: Routledge, Environmental Humanities Series, pp.1-24. 
• Smyer Yü, Dan. 2021. “Symbiotic Indigeneity and Commoning in the Anthropogenic Himalayas.” In Dan Smyer Yü and Erik de Maaker, eds. Environmental Humanities in the New Himalayas: Symbiotic Indigeneity, Commoning, Sustainability. London: Routledge Environmental Humanities Series, pp.239-260.