Ostrom for anthropologists

Abstract

Elinor Ostrom has devoted much of her career to understanding the conditions under which people have incentives to conserve or over-exploit commonpool resources (e.g. oceans, air, irrigation, unowned forests and grassland). While a growing number of anthropologists have taken an interest in this critically important topic, her work is not well known to many anthropologists. This paper describes three different aspects of Ostrom's work which should be of interest to anthropologists. First is her analysis of collective action problems and the conditions under which people in local communities have devised rules and institutions to solve those dilemmas to conserve resources. Second is Ostrom's discussion and classification of the complex rules used to manage resources. Third is her analysis of four kinds of goods (i.e. public goods, common-pool resources, toll goods and private goods) and the property regimes that produce them in different combinations. Last, I outline several directions in which her work seems to be going.

Learning from Lin: Lessons and Cautions from the Natural Commons for the Knowledge Commons

“…5 Ostrom did not believe local self-governance was the answer to resource overuse problems any more than public ownership/regulation or private ownership/markets (E. Ostrom, Janssen, & Anderies 2007;Frischmann 2012). Again, there are no panaceas-no universal, first-best, institutional solutions to inevitably complex social dilemmas (E. Ostrom 2011Ostrom -2012Acheson 2011).…”

From a Given to a Construct

“…And second, under what conditions are resource users and communities able to generate effective rules to manage them? (Acheson 2011). Consequently, most works are devoted to the study and improvement of the management of natural ecosocial systems and common-pool resources such as fisheries or forests (see Berkes et al 1989).…”

Using institutional arrangements to teach undergraduates about commons in Thailand, and beyond

“…This was adapted from Table 2 in Sudtongkong and Webb (2008) concerning coastal resource use, and draws heavily on the multiple typologies set forth by Ostrom (Acheson 2011). We developed this framework as a guiding tool because most students are unfamiliar with naming the various elements used to examine institutional arrangements.…”

“…all those who took more than four candy bars stored some of them rather than eating them on the spot, in the event that they would have to surrender them to a fellow student later; and those who took the premium bars all shared them with others to moderate the social sanctions over taking the best products for themselves. Following Ostrom (Acheson 2011), students then generate some conditions under which more equitable resource sharing could occur, including a prior inventory of the resource quantity and quality; awareness of special conditions influencing distribution (e.g. allergies); user group discussion over optimal use and conservation of the available resource; and developing a decision-making body and monitoring mechanisms.…”