Knowledge commons

Definition

Knowledge commons (Hess & Ostrom, 2007), commons and common good are umbrella terms. The concepts behind these terms are in the process of being (re)defined for deeper and wider understandings. The purpose of this page is to identify resources to contribute to this larger endeavour.

In the Aristotelian’s meaning for example, a common good is: “a good belonging to and attainable only by the community yet individually shared by its members” (Dupré, 1993, p. 687).

"Hess and Ostrom (2007) caution that research on knowledge commons does not take into account the breadth and depth of the literature on natural-resource commons. Knowledge commons are analyzed both from the perspective of enclosure and the perspective of openness/inclusiveness (i.e., democracy and human rights). In the former, threats take the form of property legislation that prevents open access to knowledge. In the latter, which draws on Benkler (2001), the focus is on digital interoperability, Open Science, and networks to the detriment of the importance of sharing and using shared knowledge to support sustainable democratic societies (Hess and Ostrom, 2007, p. 13)" (Class, 2022).

Following Ostrom's work, the knowledge commons research framework pursues systematic, empirical approach to governance of shared resources but its approach differs in substance. "Knowledge, information, and data governance pose opportunities and social dilemmas that aren’t always evident in the world of biophysical resources. Knowledge resources may not be Common Pool Resources. A “tragedy of the commons” may not be the key threat to productive development or distribution of knowledge. Ostrom’s “design principles” for managing a commons are neither natural starting points nor natural conclusions with respect to shared knowledge resources" (Workshop on Governing Knowledge Commons).

The aim of both calls for papers, mentioned in the next sections, is to widen understandings of knowledge commons and commons, especially in relationship to Open Education.

Call for papers

Panel on Knowledge Commons at IASC 2023

The XIX Biennal International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC) Conference on the topic of "The Commons we want: between historical legacies and future collective actions" hosts a pannel on What about revitalising African knowledge commons for/through education? The summary is accessible below and papers can be submitted until December 12, 2022.

In this panel, we suggest to discuss knowledge commons beyond the 2030 agenda and beyond theories of development, within the framework of Open Science (UNESCO, 2021).

Leveraging epistemologies from the South, we explore how to move away from post-positivist approaches created by the Global North, first by recognising absences, and next by encouraging emergences of different knowledge systems (Santos, 2016).

How can overall life philosophies such as Maat or Ubu-ntu contribute to create alternative ways to education? How can educating in community languages empower learners towards a holistic cultural identity? How can leadership be developed to train individuals to become bridges, proficient of one local culture / language of the Global South and one of the North?

Taking advantage of the momentum and current awareness with regards to knowledge commons in Africa, i.e. topics that concern the Global South and are discussed in and for the Global South in journals hosted for instance on African Journals Online (AJOL), education is discussed in a much deeper sense than schooling, in temporalities that far exceed international agendas.

Finally, rather than addressing knowledge and natural commons as two different entities in the modern perspective (Latour, 2006), we consider them one and the same commons, in interaction, and nurturing one another. This with respect also to traditional ways of educating through initiation which take place in forests.

References:

Latour, B. (2006). Nous n'avons jamais été modernes: Essai d'anthropologie symétrique. Paris: La Découverte.

Santos, B. d. S. (2016). Epistémologies du Sud : mouvements citoyens et polémique sur la science. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer.

UNESCO. (2021). Recommendation on Open Science. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000379949.locale=en

Education Ouverte et Libre - Open Education - Volume 2

A participatory approach to write the call

Inspired by colleagues who brought together historical research and commons studies, starting in 2014 (Laborda-Pemán & de Moor, 2016), we think it is important to bring together Open Education research and commons studies.

We would like to dedicate the second volume of Education Ouverte et Libre – Open Education to this topic: bridging Open Education and Commons.

Being in learning and emergence processes, the most appropriate approach to write this call is a participatory one. To participate, please contribute directly on this EduTechWiki page or through the discussion page attached to it.

By December 15, 2022, the call should be consolidated and ready.

To start somewhere…

At a first glance, one might be tempted to limit the scope of this joint enterprise, Open Education and Commons’ studies, to Knowledge commons (https://knowledge-commons.net/ (Frischmann et al., 2014; Madison et al., 2019)) since Education may be considered an overall intellectual issue. Yet, recent texts like the one on Indigenous and Local Knowledge (Benyei et al., 2022) show us that it might be safer to consider commons holistically. In a completely different setting of fruit breeding, researchers talk about “hybrid commons” (Wolter & Sievers-Glotzbach, 2019) again to fight against artificial categorisations that do not seem to be relevant with the knowledge of commons we have reached today.

Some years ago, distinguishing “traditional commons” from “new commons” was suggested. While traditional commons would refer to forests, fisheries, etc., new commons “are various types of shared resources that have recently evolved or have been recognized as commons. They are commons without pre-existing rules or clear institutional arrangements” (Hess, 2008). In reference to the sociology of absences and emergences (Santos, 2016), this framework’s added value is to allow new knowledge to emerge. Actually, studies mapping the field underline that all sorts of commons are discussed from forests to urban areas and software and key themes include resources, property rights and local management” (Lambert et al., 2021). The growing literature gives also insights into critical scholarship: some scholars make this literature legible to potentially use it as a lever - functionalist, apolitical management, methodological, government and ethical critiques with regard to common-pool resource theory are discussed (Quintana & Campbell, 2019).

Furthermore, addressing the confusion that exists between commons and global public good, a comparative analysis of the normative implications of commons and global public goods are highlighted. For instance, in terms of power, while commons consider "power with" and "power as cooperation", global public goods take the position of "power over" and "power as the ability to steer the conduct of others" (Brando et al., 2019, p. 570).  Scholars also suggest to conceptualise value as a commons, placing value itself in the commons, as a collective agreement and being part of the shared rules that guide the collective action. This results in suggesting for example "cosmolocalism” defined as “human imaginaries are embedded in universally effectuated local autonomy and genuine emancipation", contrasting it with the capitalist value practice of "cosmopolitism”, defined as “humanity has one single self-image" (Pazaitis et al., 2022, p. 255).

Internet being a medium largely used in education, characteristics of internet goods as commons are to be analysed further, beyond the 3 layers of internet as a system of communication – physical, logical and content layers (Hofmokl, 2009).

Industry is also very present in education, e.g. textbooks, platform providers, etc. and analysing how it influences commons, especially in the time of industry 4.0, is timely. For instance, strategy to protect commons might consist to move it temporarily to some other regime (Carpentier, 2021).  

Are you interested to advance knowledge in the field of Commons and Open Education? You are cordially invited to contribute with different types of articles ranging from empirical research to reflective contributions, pitched at a diversity of levels, e.g. epistemic, strategic, policy, economy, and from different perspectives, e.g. anthropology, sociology, artificial intelligence, education, etc.  

Dates for the 2 steps-process

Participatory call for papers ready: 15.12.2022

Intent to submit and abstract submission (Step 1): 15.03.2023

Notification of acceptance: 15.04.2023

Submission deadline full article (Step 2): 13.06.2023

Final submission after review: 15.12.2023

Submission guidelines: https://oap.unige.ch/journals/eol-oe/information/authors (Step 1: only 2 documents: 1000-word summary in one of the 6 UN languages; and 2) self-assessment declaration by the author; Step 2: full process)

References

Benyei, P., Calvet-Mir, L., Reyes-García, V., & Villamayor-Tomas, S. (2022). Indigenous and Local Knowledge’s Role in Social Movement’s Struggles Against Threats to Community-Based Natural Resource Management Systems: Insights from a Qualitative Meta-analysis. International Journal of the Commons, 16(1), 263–277. https://doi.org/10.5334/ijc.1154

Brando, N., Boonen, C., Cogolati, S., Hagen, R., Vanstappen, N., & Wouters, J. (2019). Governing as commons or as global public goods: Two tales of power. International Journal of the Commons, 13(1), 553–577. https://doi.org/10.18352/ijc.907

Carpentier, P. (2021). Open Source Hardware, Exploring how Industry Regulation Affects Knowledge Commons Governance: An Exploratory Case Study. International Journal of the Commons, 15(1), 154–169. https://doi.org/10.5334/ijc.1081

Frischmann, B., Madison, M., & Strandburg, K. (Eds.). (2014). Governing Knowledge Commons. Oxford University Press. http://knowledge-commons.net/publications/gkc/.

Hess, C. (2008). Mapping New Commons Twelfth Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons, Cheltenham, UK.

Hofmokl, J. (2009). Towards an eclectic theory of the internet commons. International Journal of the Commons, 4(1), 226–250. https://doi.org/10.18352/ijc.111

Laborda-Pemán, M., & de Moor, T. (2016). History and the Commons: A necessary conversation. International Journal of the Commons, 10(2), 517–528. https://doi.org/10.18352/ijc.769

Lambert, J., Epstein, G., Joel, J., & Baggio, J. (2021). Identifying Topics and Trends in the Study of Common-Pool Resources Using Natural Language Processing. International Journal of the Commons, 15(1), 206–217. https://doi.org/10.5334/ijc.1078

Madison, M. J., Frischmann, B., & Strandburg, K. (2019). Knowledge Commons. In B. Hudson, J. Rosenbloom, & D. Cole (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of the Study of the Commons. Routledge.

Pazaitis, A., Kostakis, V., & Drechsler, W. (2022). Towards a Theory of Value as a Commons. International Journal of the Commons, 16(1), 248–262. https://doi.org/10.5334/ijc.1153

Quintana, A., & Campbell, L. M. (2019). Critical Commons Scholarship: A Typology. International Journal of the Commons, 13(2), 1112–1127. https://doi.org/10.5334/ijc.925

Santos, B. d. S. (2016). Epistémologies du Sud : mouvements citoyens et polémique sur la science. Desclée de Brouwer. Wolter, H., & Sievers-Glotzbach, S. (2019). Bridging traditional and new commons: The case of fruit breeding. International Journal of the Commons, 13(1), 303–328. https://doi.org/10.18352/ijc.869

External websites and References

• International Journal of the Commons (IJC), https://www.thecommonsjournal.org/
• International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC), https://iasc-commons.org/
• Workshop on Governing Knowledge Commons, https://knowledge-commons.net/
• Ronald DeSouza, P. (23 March 2021) Knowledge commons and enclosures. UNESCO Futures of Education Ideas LAB. https://en.unesco.org/futuresofeducation/ideas-lab/DeSouza-knowledge-commons-and-enclosures
• Chan, L & Mounier, P. (Ed). 2019. Connecting the knowledge commons - from projects to sustainable infrastructure. The 22nd International Conference on Electronic Publishing – Revised Selected Papers, https://books.openedition.org/oep/8999?lang=en
• Canterbury Knowledge Commons, https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/knowledge-commons/
• On the Commons, http://www.onthecommons.org/
• Rozas, D., Tenorio-Fornés, A., Díaz-Molina, S., & Hassan, S. (2021). When Ostrom Meets Blockchain: Exploring the Potentials of Blockchain for Commons Governance. Sage Open, 11(1), 21582440211002526. https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440211002526
• Sanfilippo, M., Frischmann, B., & Standburg, K. (2018). Privacy as Commons: Case Evaluation Through the Governing Knowledge Commons Framework. Journal of Information Policy, 8(1), 116-166. https://doi.org/10.5325/jinfopoli.8.1.0116