Commons Movements: Old and New Trends in Rural and Urban Contexts

Abstract

Over the past few years, studies in political ecology and environmental justice have been increasingly connecting the commons and social movements empirically, giving shape to a new, distinctive body of research on commons movements. In our review, we first organize and synthesize empirical lessons from this body of literature. We then highlight recent theoretical efforts made by scholars to both bridge and transcend the gap between the theory of the commons and social movement theory. As we illustrate, movements can help create and strengthen commons institutions and discourses, as well as rescale them horizontally and vertically. This is particularly evident in the context of rural community-rights movements in the global South, as well as in new water and food commons movements and community-energy movements in both the global South and North. Commons institutions, in turn, can serve as the basis of social mobilization and become a key frame for social movements, as shown in the context of local environmental justice and livelihoods conflicts and anti-privatization struggles. Tensions and contradictions of commons-movement dynamics also exist and reflect trade-offs between diversity versus uniformization and organizational closure versus expansion of discourses and practices. Theoretically, there is an opportunity to cross boundaries from the theory of the commons to social movement theory and vice versa, e.g., by highlighting the role of political opportunities and framing, and biophysical factors and polycentricity, respectively. More importantly, a new commons movements theory is emerging focusing on cross-scalar organizations, the virtuous cycles between commons projects and mobilization, and the processes of commons-making. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Volume 46 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Imaginaries and the Commons: Insights From Irrigation Modernization in Valencia, Spain

“…As the experiences of several other irrigation communities in Spain have shown (e.g. Sanchis-Ibor et al, 2017a, b;Duarte-Abadía et al, 2019;Villamayor-Tomas and García-López, 2021), the network of actors that value cultural and socioecological heritage seems to be growing over the years. This has important consequences on the debates there are at different scales about what the future of these irrigation systems and their commons should be.…”

Kapitel 15. Globalisierung: Globale Warenketten und Arbeitsteilung

“…Während einige Autor_innen finanzielle Kompensationszahlungen für arme Länder vorschla-gen, etwa als Kompensation für CO 2 -Steuern (Baranzini et al, 2017), sprechen andere von "ökologischer Schuld" und "Klimakolonialismus" (Martinez, 2014), weil die für die sozialökologische Transformation im Globalen Norden notwendigen Rohstoffe -wie Lithium oder Seltene Erden -aus dem Globalen Süden extrahiert werden. Forderungen von Regierungen und transnationalen Umweltgerechtigkeitsbewegungen gehen in die Richtung, globale Gemeingüter zu definieren, Rohstoffe im Boden zu lassen und die betreffenden (armen) Länder dafür zu entschädigen (Sovacool & Scarpaci, 2016;Villamayor-Tomas & García-López, 2021).…”

Moral economies for water: A framework for analyzing norms of justice, economic behavior, and social enforcement in the contexts of water inequality

“…Observing irrigation systems that followed these principles, first in the Andes and later elsewhere in the world, Trawick et al (2014) argue that common‐pool irrigation systems based on moral economy principles emerged simultaneously in different societies around the world as a way to solve collective action problems. Yet, as CPR researchers become increasingly concerned with understanding when and how ideas of justice give rise to “commons movements” (in which people mobilize to resist the expropriation of water commons) (Clark, 2019; Villamayor‐Tomas & García‐López, 2021), the moral economies framework may help to provide explanatory power. For instance, using the moral economies framework, we can theorize that in a CPR system, violations of people's understandings of water justice via perceived unjust or unfair economic practices can cause the system can tip into a state of intensified reaction or mass revolt, spurring social movements and protests.…”