Research

My doctoral research project drew heavily on the writings of Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom and the remarkable theoretical approaches of geographers Julie Gibson and Katherine Graham (aka J. K. Gibson-Graham). Ostrom’s work identifies and analyzes successful long-term collective management arrangements for common pool resources, debunking the notion of an inevitable “tragedy of the commons.” Gibson-Graham argue for the need to identify, name, and value the many non-capitalist forms of economic activity already present in our daily lives, and devise ways to incorporate them explicitly into a “post-capitalist politics” aligned with sustainability and justice goals. The research I propose here would extend my previous studies in Argentina focusing on alternative, cooperative, community-supported socioeconomic practices and models, which might help us chart a course towards a post-growth economy, or something like it.

Reimagining the Commons for a Post-capitalist Future

A Green Transition. The “Great Turning.” Another World is Possible. Social Sustainability. These labels and phrases all speak to the emerging consensus that avoiding the worst climate catastrophes will require rapid radical changes in human socioeconomic systems. Such change will require concerted effort across a large range of identities, ideological systems, disparate political power structures, and economic incentive frameworks.

But action in concert, at least in human affairs, requires more than a given set of material conditions (even if we all agree upon what those are). It requires motivation to act with and for others, beyond one’s own narrow self interest. The notion of “the commons” (cf. Ostrom) becomes useful here, as it defines a set of circumstances where people may have strong motivations to establish regimes of mutual regulation.

The biosphere is a commons, but one so vast that many do not understand it as such. Human groups—including corporate powers, governing bodies, small businesses, free associations, and the multitudes who comprise, identify with, struggle against, and serve such entities—often perceive competing interests that prevent the kind of cooperation required to govern that commons collectively. Indeed, with the spread of capitalism has come a tangled body of national and international law that not only encourages unchecked growth and competition, but often actually requires it.

The marketplace is also a commons—and has not always been a servant of competitive capital. Here and now, though, with a quarter of the 21st century almost behind us, the commodification of labor has reached nearly absurd levels, leaving most private citizens with practically no access to the marketplace as a producer beyond selling their own labor power for others’ profit. And yet, during “bust” cycles, the survival of the capitalist system absolutely depends on un-valued, non-capitalist forms of economic activity (from welfare payments to childcare sharing) to sustain the unemployed until the financial class decides what to do next.

Purposeful (re)imagining of the commons would be one prerequisite for thinking and practicing an economics that protects the biosphere, while restoring public access to and, crucially, retaining values produced by local and regional marketplaces. One way forward might be bioregionalism, as it offers a more comprehensible scale, with human impacts more readily recognized as such by local inhabitants. Here, indigenous perspectives and knowledges will be invaluable.

Thus, my broad research questions begin with: How do people develop a sense of shared responsibility when starting from positions of relative disconnection? What barriers exist to the development of a sense of common interest around a “green transition,” and how might those barriers be lowered? What role do human and physical geographical factors, including distance, scale, culture, economic class, and material conditions, play in the social construction of the commons? How might members of a community reimagine the commons to support a sustainable green transition?

A most important research question will be: what non-capitalist economic practices are hiding in plain sight, in each and every community, which might help us meet our needs during the challenging times ahead? We already know which capitalist economic practices are most harmful and why we must regulate or eliminate them. Naming and nurturing alternatives already present will also help us value the labor of our historically marginalized and undervalued peers more fairly.

To find answers to these questions, I propose a program of action research, using tried and true social science research method and with the aid of modern open source GIS software. This research program would, itself, serve the goals of sustainability, while further generating new shared knowledge that might help achieve those goals across greater scales.

STAGE ONE: SETUP (1-2 years)

• Recruit/train research assistants and identify potential action research communities and projects.
  • Projects should be related to “Green Transition” and/or climate change adaptation challenges faced by a local community. Ideally, the results of this project work will become shared/shareable information for other communities facing similar challenges.

• Select action research community partners and establish community GIS lab.
• Community research partners generate map sets and develop an action plan in consultation with university research team (i.e., my research assistants, myself).
• Semi-structured interviews and surveys to gain insight into participants’ (presumably) evolving sense of common interest and shared responsibility among themselves and with other community stakeholders who become involved with the project.
• University research team recruits volunteers and begins interviews centered on naming and valuing cooperative and non-capitalist economics. My research design would emulate some of Gibson-Graham’s work in Australia’s Latrobe Valley region.

STAGE TWO: INITIAL EXPANSION (1-2 years)

• If not already established during Stage One, identify and establish a second research community and project with challenges/objectives similar to those of the first. Make formal introductions between both communities.
• Develop structured information sharing channels between the two community GIS labs. Assess the efficacy/utility/impacts of different approaches to information sharing, including research diaries and “pen pal” relationships using modern technologies.
• Semi-structured interviews and surveys to gain insight into participants’ (presumably) evolving sense of common interest and shared responsibility among themselves, other community actors relevant to the projects, and across the geographical divides between the differently situated community GIS lab groups.
• University research team recruits volunteers and begins/continues interviews centered on naming and valuing cooperative and non-capitalist economics. My research design would emulate some of Gibson-Graham’s work in Australia’s Latrobe Valley region.

   

STAGE THREE: NETWORK BUILDING (ongoing)

• Using assessments and other research results from Stage Two, identify and establish another community GIS action research site at a more distant location. This could involve working with a partner institution out of country.
  • Presuming that Stage One and Stage Two take place in communities easily accessible from the university, preference would be for an action research community in the “global south,” more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and perhaps perceived as more likely to benefit from any “green transition” undertaken by wealthier nations.

• Identify areas of common interest between research teams and develop the next iteration of the action research plan together.
• Ideally, this research stage will not only generate new knowledge about how a sense of common interest can be cultivated across significant differences, but also actually result in such a sense of common interest among participants. Moreover, the outcomes of the community GIS projects, it is hoped, will include real world benefits through local policy changes and/or consciousness raising in service to an accelerated “green transition.”
• By this time, the various action research teams involved will actively consider whether or how to support the creation of new, ongoing community GIS laboratories for information sharing, networking and, perhaps, spreading a sense of common responsibility for the commitments, sacrifices, and changes necessary for any “green transition” to succeed.

Overall, then, this research plan encompasses meaningful action towards sustainability goals in local communities, learning from the social processes involved in such action, and using that learning to strengthen the sense of common interest across traditionally disconnected social groups through continuing solution-based community-driven action research. If successful, it could constitute a kind of praxis-based “virtuous spiral,” if you will.

Moreover, academic publications will follow naturally from the need to examine the social processes involved in the work, in order to better achieve the “action” goals of the research project. In this scenario, the academy enters into an alliance with grassroots organizers building power in their community to support sustainability. The publications, with their rich meta-analytic content, become useful tools for the organizers themselves to reflect upon and refine their own approaches. Ultimately, some of these action research projects will have political impacts, hopefully in service to a more successful green transition.

This kind of multipurpose, win-win-win scenario building is a hallmark of my thinking, and will be present in my research, as well as my collaborations with colleagues.

One final observation: the cost of supporting this kind of project could be very modest. Working spaces could be set up in libraries, public schools, community organization offices, or on the university campus. Computers are cheap, and there is now excellent open source GIS software available for free. Graduate research assistants contributing to this project will develop new technical skills and share in research credits in exchange for their skilled work. While I will certainly seek grant funding, I could easily get the project going with very little.