Framework

Commons are often referred to as resources or resource systems that are nurtured and shared by heterogeneous groups of people. Such resources are vulnerable to social dilemmas and require that the community develops various mechanisms and rules to sustain them [13]. From a broader perspective, commoning practices insist on the things that enable our livelihoods [5] and tie us together as human beings [11]. Whereas the theme of the commons has previously concentrated more on the management of shared natural resources [16], commoning practices refer to a wide range of diverse domains such as music, software and urban space or libraries (see [12] for an overview of the new commons, [5] for accounts of activist positions and [9] for infrastructures). There is currently a lively debate hinging on the notion of commons as a principle for alternative ways of organizing society towards more social, ecological, and sustainable forms; or as an infrastructure for non-capitalist politics (e.g. [2]). Commons challenge the basic assumption that private property or centralized control are the only options when protecting and managing shared resources against depletion and waste. Instead, commons-based forms of organizing typically rely on communication, awareness and selfregulation among the contributors, which in turn are dependent on the infrastructures that make visible an eventual abuse of resources — free-riding or vandalism — and the range of reactions available against them.

The cultivation of commons has attracted some attention of design researchers, activists, and practitioners interested in overcoming the limitation of resource scarcity models when working on new ecological, cultural, humanitarian, or educational projects. This interest comes with the increasing awareness of ecological and climate crisis and visibility gained by the widespread use of resources produced in commons such as open source software and hardware, or content licensed with different mechanisms (e.g Creative Commons). At the same time, this increased awareness and visibility of the commons highlights aspects such as the moral responsibility of giving back to the commons, the limitations of intellectual property rights systems and authorship practices, and the pursuit of different paths to confront global challenges. However, how to advance these issues is still not very clear. What can participatory design researchers, activists, and practitioners contribute to commons? How can they contribute to commons-based forms of organizing and commoning activities and what kind of alliances, and between whom, could be formed? Commons activists, such as Bollier and Helfrich are arguing for a new vocabulary, to move away from a fading era based on specific understandings of what it means to be a citizen and to participate, bringing forward new imaginaries of sharing, caring, and commoning [6]. Taking a further step; if these imaginaries are to be relevant for the Global South and the pluriverse [8], they also need to accommodate a plurality of sharing practices that may diverge and to extend or challenge the notion of the Northern commons. Savazoni, for instance, proposes how an emphasis on alterity and bodily relations in shared property, raised by that the Afro-Brazilian terreiro should be explored [19].

Indeed, territories from the Global South have plenty of indigenous practices of sharing that developed through very different cultural paths, typically characterized by the constant struggle with other dominant notions of civilized life. Recognizing such practices and respectfully engaging with the intercultural translation of the epistemologies of the South [18] may contribute to developing a pluriversal discourse of the commons that includes multiple ways of sharing and also the “uncommoning” that might be crucial for giving shape to solid commons [4]. Participatory Design’s enduring tradition of collaborative practices is well positioned to uptake some of those questions and to contribute to a research and activist agenda in an original and specific way [24]. Participatory Design, for example, strives to involve stakeholders in the design of things/Things [22]. With an initial focus on work settings, this approach has raised new issues to the forefront, including lately the role of infrastructures and infrastructuring in our everyday life ([3], [14]), its relationship to commons (See e.g. [15], [21], [10], [23], [17]), and to its transformation as an approach in contemporary capitalism [1]. Despite these advances, there is still a need to re-think some key assumptions, such as: What is the meaning of “participation” in contexts where participation is the defining condition of possibility, such as the one of the commons; is participation (as generically understood, e.g. in PD) still relevant? What would a commons perspective mean for the participatory design community in terms of challenging established notions such as participation, facilitation, empowerment, to name but a few? How can participatory design remain open to multiple ways of sharing in different worldviews? How can participatory design contribute further to theoretical elaboration on and activist practices of commoning?

REFERENCES

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[2] Berlant L. (2016). The commons: Infrastructures for troubling times. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 34, 3: 393–419. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775816645989

[3] Björgvinsson, E, Ehn, P & Hillgren, P 2012, “Design things and design thinking: contemporary participatory design challenges.” Design Issues, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 101–116.

[4] Blaser, M., & Cadena, M. de la. (2017). The Uncommons: An Introduction. Anthropologica. https://doi.org/10.3138/anth.59.2.t01

[5] Bollier, D., & Helfrich, S. (Eds.). (2012). The Wealth of the Commons: A World Beyond Market and State. Levellers Press.

[6] Bollier, D., & Helfrich, S. (2019). Free, fair and alive. The insurgent power of the commons. New Society Publishers.

[7] Botero, A. & Saad-Sulonen, J. (2018). (Challenges and Opportunities of) Documentation Practices of Self- Organized Urban Initiatives. In Devisch, O; Huybrechts L and De Ridder R (eds). Participatory design theory: using technology and social media to foster civic engagement. UK: Routledge.

[8] Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the pluriverse: Radical interdependence, autonomy, and the making of worlds. Duke University Press.

[9] Gil, N., & Baldwin, C. Y. (2014). Sharing DesignRights: A Commons Approach for Developing Infrastructure (Working Paper No. 14-025). Harvard Business School.

[10] Hakken D, Teli M, and Andrews. B (2015). Beyond Capital: Values, Commons, Computing, and the Search for a Viable Future. Routledge, New York.

[11] Hardt M and Negri. A (2009). Commonwealth. Belknap Press, Cambridge, Mass

[12] Hess, C. (2008). Mapping the New Commons. In Governing Shared Resources: Connecting Local Experience to Global Challenges. Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons, University of Gloucestershire, England.

[13] Hess, C. and E. Ostrom (Eds.) (2007). Understanding Knowledge as Commons. Cambridge, Ma: The MIT Press.

[14] Karasti, H 2014, “Infrastructuring in Participatory Design,” in Proc of the 14th Participatory Design Conference, Windhoek, Namibia, pp. 141–150.

[15] Marttila, S., Botero, A., & Saad-Sulonen, J. (2014). Towards Commons Design in Participatory Design. In Proc.of the 13th Participatory Design Conference Volume 2 (pp. 9–12). New York, NY, USA: ACM.

[16] Ostrom, E. (1991). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge University Press.

[17] Poderi, Giacomo. 2019. ‘Sustaining Platforms as Commons: Perspectives on Participation, Infrastructure, and Governance’. CoDesign 15 (3): 243–55.

[18] Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. (2018). The end of the cognitive empire: The coming of age of epistemologies of the south. Duke University Press.

[19] Savazoni, R., & de Andrade, O. (2019). The Crossroads of the Commons: Citizen Laboratories in Transit. In: Proc. of the XVII International Association for the Study of the Commons. Lima, Portugal.

[20] Sciannamblo M, Lyle P, and Teli M. (2018). Fostering Commonfare. Entanglements between Participatory Design and Feminism. In Proc of DRS 2018 International Conference: Catalyst (DRS 2018), 458– 471. https://doi.org/10.21606/dma.2018.557

[21] Seravalli, A. (2014). Making Commons: Attempts at Composing Prospects in the Opening of Production. Doctoral Dissertation, Malmö University.

[22] Simonsen, J., & Robertson, T. (Eds.). (2012). Routledge Handbook of Participatory Design. New York- London: Routledge.

[23] Teli M, Di Fiore A, and D’Andrea V. (2017). Computing and the common: a case of Participatory Design with think tanks. CoDesign 13, 2: 83–95. https://doi.org/10.1080/15710882.2017.1309439

[24] Teli M, Tonolli L, Di Fiore A, and D’Andrea V. (2019). Computing and the common. Learning from Participatory Design in the age of platform capitalism. Università degli Studi di Trento, Trento, Italy. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3228359

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