What is our vision of the Commons?

Everywhere in the world are invented and reinvented forms of solidarity and reciprocity, of property and collective governance that follow the pace of technological, demographical, ecological changes of globalization. Our research dynamic is concerned in analyzing and reinventing, including through the analysis table of Commons defined by E. Ostrom and developed under the association spectrum “one resource, on group of actors and one mode of governance”.

A “Commons” claim is built on the legitimacy of the right of access to the goods and services or to their preservation, as means to satisfy equity goals and long term resources, involving cooperation and sharing. It may involve natural and immaterial resources (software, database, IT infrastructure). Free software and seeds, collective housing, co-working spaces…. are different ways of articulating innovative technologies and human needs that allow us to live together today and tomorrow.

These “Commons” strengths, marginalized by capitalism and subject of a grabing by the netarchical digital platforms, share values and methods with the Social and Solidary Economy (SSE) in order to build a more democratic and inclusive society.

Indeed, the SSE make the citizens involved in economic actions based on their involvement and their economic, social and cultural means that they put together, with juridical and institutional forms that make the originality of SSE companies, cooperatives, mutual and associations.