Power, Inequality and Justice in the Commons
Global and local commons are central to the intersecting challenges of climate change, sustainability, and resource degradation. While this has always been the case, questions of inequality and justice have gained greater significance in the present moment, in which the fate of global and local commons is tied together more strongly than ever before. For example, powerful actors seek to use local forest commons as sites for global restoration efforts or international carbon offset projects that are meant to stop the deterioration of global atmospheric commons. At the same time, because of the widespread reckoning with questions of justice and equity both global and local commons present new opportunities for justice-centered resource stewardship.
The Ostrom Workshop Working Group on "Power, Inequality and Justice in the Commons" builds on the workshop tradition of institutional analysis to develop novel analytical approaches for a deeper understanding of issues of power, inequality, and justice in the commons. To do so, we engage with a plurality of theoretical and methodological approaches, including classical institutional analysis of the commons and interdisciplinary fields such as political economy, political ecology, agrarian studies, critical theory, development studies, and urban studies.
This working group will act as a hub of brainstorming, researching, and writing that both advances our knowledge and is relevant for policy-making, and citizen actions. It aims to build stronger bridges between the Ostrom Workshop and the members of International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC). We welcome early- and late- career scholars, scholar-activists, and other researchers to join us in this exciting new endeavor.
To join this working group, please fill out the following Google Form: https://forms.gle/zYFeyHqSwfSzE6F26