Occupying the Commons

The third issue of The Future of Occupy is out. FoO is an excellent compilation of the best writing and analysis around Occupy.

The issue has five sections:

Section 1: Reports from #OWS’s “Making Worlds: A Forum on the Commons” – blogs, videos and interviews reporting back on all the action from a seminal meeting between the International Occupy and Commons Movements.

Section 2: Essays on the Commons – from dedicated commons activists and occupiers trailblazing new connections in the commons and between occupy and the commons.

Section 3: Commoning in Europe – we take a tour around Europe to discover initiatives that give voice to the unheard 99% and educational initiatives for making radical, systemic change.

Section 4: Voices of the Movement – In this section we explore the creative side of the commons in poetry and song.

Section 5: Activist News – News from Occupy London and Vancouver, International survey of Commons Activism, reflections on an emerging open source civilisation, and reports on an exciting commons game and the potential of serious games for occupiers.

The editors write in their introduction:

“In the kindergarten there were colorful building blocks and putting them on each other in various combinations fascinated some of us. Until, it didn’t. At that point, we withdrew legitimacy from it holding a steady sway on our attention. Ok, we didn’t know the fancy word “legitimacy,” but now that we have your attention, why not look into what it takes to withdraw together the legitimacy from systems of governance and ownership that don’t serve us anymore.

This issue of The Future of Occupy is an invitation to look into that question, together. Assuming that the “how-to” of that collective withdrawal interests you as much as it does us, we invite you to use this issue as a ticket for a passionate learning journey. As you read the reports, blogs, poems, and interviews, as you watch the interviews, hold in the back of your mind the question, to what extent can they help us to switch allegiance together from modes of organizing, thinking, and working, which are not life-affirming and inspiring the best in us to those, which are.

Two growing forces that are the drivers of the Big Switch are the Commons and Occupy movements. In this issue we celebrate their beautiful relationship. The concept of the Commons and the horizontal structure of the Occupy movement are two aspects of the same idea: as human beings, we share common resources (this planet, its air, water, soil and genetic diversity; our heritage of cultural creations—art, technology, ideas), and we share a common future. Put another way, focusing on the Commons is a way of articulating what the Occupy movement actually stands for: an open, horizontal, equitable, sharing of our social, economic, and ecological resources.

The Occupy movement has, from its opening ambit, been calling for a new commons—a new agora upon which we can all express and address our commonness—as well as trying to embody and practice commoning (the people’s library, free food, free medical attention, etc.). Occupy recognizes that what it opposes is a continuing—even an amped-up—enclosure of the commons, as well as the fact that the solutions to this enclosure are to be found in the commonality of “the 99%.”

The Commons is also an ideal focal point for a web-magazine with the title The Future of Occupy, as the future is, in many respects, the ultimate Commons. It is a space of possibility that is not enclosed, but which is always under threat by the Market and State intent on reckless growth and wreaking environmental havoc that threaten the life of future generations.

The Future of Occupy, which began as a simple website in October 2011 and launched the FoO newsletter in January of this year as a newsletter, has with this issue undergone a considerable transformation, evolving into a fully-fledged electronic magazine. But even more than that, as we attempt to create a more interactive—indeed, a more common space for the movement’s collaborative sense-making—we hope that with your active participation The Future of Occupy continues to evolve into an increasingly useful platform for our emergent, collective intelligence and wisdom.

We hope you enjoy reading and discussing the ideas shared in this issue as much as we enjoyed putting it together. Please spread the word and occupy the commons!”

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