The Commons in History

The Commons in History PDF

Author: Derek Wall

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2014-03-07

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 0262027216

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An argument that the commons is neither tragedy nor paradise but can be a way to understand environmental sustainability.

The Wealth of the Commons

The Wealth of the Commons PDF

Author: David Bollier

Publisher: Levellers Press

Published: 2014-05-23

Total Pages: 752

ISBN-13: 1937146146

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We are poised between an old world that no longer works and a new one struggling to be born. Surrounded by centralized hierarchies on the one hand and predatory markets on the other, people around the world are searching for alternatives. The Wealth of the Commons explains how millions of commoners have organized to defend their forests and fisheries, reinvent local food systems, organize productive online communities, reclaim public spaces, improve environmental stewardship and re-imagine the very meaning of "progress" and governance. In short, how they've built their commons. In 73 timely essays by a remarkable international roster of activists, academics and project leaders, this book chronicles ongoing struggles against the private com­moditization of shared resources - often known as market enclosures - while docu­menting the immense generative power of the commons. The Wealth of the Commons is about history, political change, public policy and cultural transformation on a global scale - but most of all, it's about individual commoners taking charge of their lives and their endangered resources. "This fine collection makes clear that the idea of the Commons is fully international, and increasingly fully worked-out. If you find yourself wondering what Occupy wants, or if some other world is possible, this pragmatic, down-to-earth, and unsentimental book will provide many of the answers." - Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and The Durable Future

Governing the Commons

Governing the Commons PDF

Author: Elinor Ostrom

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-09-23

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1107569788

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Tackles one of the most enduring and contentious issues of positive political economy: common pool resource management.

The Commons in a Glocal World

The Commons in a Glocal World PDF

Author: Tobias Haller

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-04-30

Total Pages: 765

ISBN-13: 1351050966

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This volume focuses on how, in Europe, the debate on the commons is discussed in regard to historical and contemporary dimensions, critically referencing the work of Elinor Ostrom. It also explores from the perspective of new institutional political ecology (NIPE) how Europe directly and indirectly affected and affects the commons globally. Most of the research on the management of commons pool resources is limited to dealing with one of two topics: either the interaction between local participatory governance and development of institutions for commons management, or a political- economy approach that focuses on global change as it is related to the increasingly globalised expansion of capitalist modes of production, consumption and societal reproduction. This volume bridges the two, addressing how global players affect the commons worldwide and how they relate to responses emerging from within the commons in a global- local (glocal) world. Authors from a range of academic disciplines present research findings on recent developments on the commons, including: historical insights; new innovations for participatory institutions building in Europe or several types of commons grabbing, especially in Africa related to European investments; and restrictions on the management of commons at the international level. European case studies are included, providing interesting examples of local participation in commons resource management, while simultaneously showing Europe as a centre for globalized capitalism and its norms and values, affecting the rest of the world, particularly developing countries. This book will be of interest to students and researchers from a wide range of disciplines including natural resource management, environmental governance, political geography and environmental history.

Blue Ridge Commons

Blue Ridge Commons PDF

Author: Kathryn Newfont

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 0820341258

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"In the late twentieth century, residents of the Blue Ridge mountains in western North Carolina fiercely resisted certain environmental efforts, even while launching aggressive initiatives of their own. Kathryn Newfont provides context for those events by examining the environmental history of this region over the course of three hundred years, identifying what she calls commons environmentalism--a cultural strain of conservation in American history that has gone largely unexplored. Efforts in the 1970s to expand federal wilderness areas in the Pisgah and Nantahala national forests generated strong opposition. For many mountain residents the idea of unspoiled wilderness seemed economically unsound, historically dishonest, and elitist. Newfont shows that local people's sense of commons environmentalism required access to the forests that they viewed as semipublic places for hunting, fishing, and working. Policies that removed large tracts from use were perceived as 'enclosure' and resisted. Incorporating deep archival work and years of interviews and conversations with Appalachian residents, Blue Ridge Commons reveals a tradition of people building robust forest protection movements on their own terms."--p. [4] of cover.

Structures and Transformations in Modern British History

Structures and Transformations in Modern British History PDF

Author: David Feldman

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-01-30

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781107679641

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This major collection of essays challenges many of our preconceptions about British political and social history from the late eighteenth century to the present. Inspired by the work of Gareth Stedman Jones, twelve leading scholars explore both the long-term structures - social, political and intellectual - of modern British history, and the forces that have transformed those structures at key moments. The result is a series of insightful, original essays presenting new research within a broad historical context. Subjects covered include the consequences of rapid demographic change in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the forces shaping transnational networks, especially those between Britain and its empire; and the recurrent problem of how we connect cultural politics to social change. An introductory essay situates Stedman Jones's work within the broader historiographical trends of the past thirty years, drawing important conclusions about new directions for scholarship in the twenty-first century.

Stop, Thief!

Stop, Thief! PDF

Author: Peter Linebaugh

Publisher: PM Press

Published: 2014-03-01

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 1604869011

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In this majestic tour de force, celebrated historian Peter Linebaugh takes aim at the thieves of land, the polluters of the seas, the ravagers of the forests, the despoilers of rivers, and the removers of mountaintops. Scarcely a society has existed on the face of the earth that has not had commoning at its heart. “Neither the state nor the market,” say the planetary commoners. These essays kindle the embers of memory to ignite our future commons. From Thomas Paine to the Luddites, from Karl Marx—who concluded his great study of capitalism with the enclosure of commons—to the practical dreamer William Morris—who made communism into a verb and advocated communizing industry and agriculture—to the 20th-century communist historian E.P. Thompson, Linebaugh brings to life the vital commonist tradition. He traces the red thread from the great revolt of commoners in 1381 to the enclosures of Ireland, and the American commons, where European immigrants who had been expelled from their commons met the immense commons of the native peoples and the underground African-American urban commons. Illuminating these struggles in this indispensable collection, Linebaugh reignites the ancient cry, “STOP, THIEF!”

The Commons in the New Millennium

The Commons in the New Millennium PDF

Author: Nives Dolsak

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2003-02-14

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 9780262541428

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Globalization, population growth, and resource depletion are drawing increased attention to the importance of common resources such as forests, water resources, and fisheries. It is critical that these resources be governed in an equitable and sustainable way. The Commons in the New Millennium presents cutting-edge research in common property theory and provides an overview and progress report on common property research. The book analyzes new problems that owners, managers, policy makers, and analysts face in managing natural commons. It examines recent findings about the physical characteristics of the commons, their complexity and interconnectedness, and the role of social capital. It also provides empirical studies and suggestions for sustainable development. The topics discussed include the role of financial, political, and social capital in deforestation, community efforts to gain political influence in Indonesia, the Maine lobster industry, outcomes of the implementation of individual transferable quotas in New Zealand and Iceland fisheries, and design of multilateral emissions trading for regional air pollution and global warming.

Protecting the Commons

Protecting the Commons PDF

Author: Joanna Burger

Publisher: Shearwater Books

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13:

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Commons—lands, waters, and resources that are not legally owned and controlled by a single private entity, such as ocean and coastal areas, the atmosphere, public lands, freshwater aquifers, and migratory species—are an increasingly contentious issue in resource management and international affairs. Protecting the Commons provides an important analytical framework for understanding commons issues and for designing policies to deal with them. The product of a symposium convened by the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) to mark the 30th anniversary of Garrett Hardin's seminal essay “The Tragedy of the Commons” the book brings together leading scholars and researchers on commons issues to offer both conceptual background and analysis of the evolving scientific understanding on commons resources. The book: gives a concise update on commons use and scholarship offers eleven case studies of commons, examined through the lens provided by leading commons theorist Elinor Ostrom provides a review of tools such as Geographic Information Systems that are useful for decision-making examines environmental justice issues relevant to commons Contributors include Alpina Begossi, William Blomquist, Joanna Burger, Tim Clark, Clark Gibson, Michael Gelobter, Michael Gochfeld, Bonnie McCay, Pamela Matson, Richard Norgaard, Elinor Ostrom, David Policansky, Jeffrey Richey, Jose Sarukhan, and Edella Schlager. Protecting the Commons represents a landmark study of commons issues that offers analysis and background from economic, legal, social, political, geological, and biological perspectives. It will be essential reading for anyone concerned with commons and commons resources, including students and scholars of environmental policy and economics, public health, international affairs, and related fields.