The commons can be understood as meaning an area of land or other resource, which can be used for the common good. Its second, more general meaning, designates shared forms of culture or cultural resources existing beyond private ownership.
There is a great current interest in the commons, extending across multiple disciplines. Historians have long been interested in the history of the commons and the forms of enclosure which have taken common land into private hands. Economists continue to debate whether the commons can exist in the long term, with Garret Hardin’s ‘tragedy of the commons’ opposed by Elinor Ostrom, in work for which she won the Nobel Prize. Ostrom stressed the forms of collective action needed to conserve the commons. Archaeologists are probing the deep history of the commons and anthropologists are using it as a means of thinking in a new way about the shared nature of culture. Geographers, philosophers and legal scholars are also developing the idea of the commons at a global level, contributing to debates on ownership and access.
This day event explores the idea of the commons from multiple perspectives, including indigenous views from groups in the Amazon Basin, whether genetic material can be seen as a commons and the history of the enclosure of common land. Exploring the past existence of various forms of commons is important, but there is also much important debate on how the notion of the commons could be useful in a period where much of culture is being taken into private ownership, as well as being of use in countering the effects of ecological degradation and climate change.
Please note: this event will close to enrolments at 23:59 UTC on 27 November 2024.