Date archives "July 2016"

Commons Open Calls Urban Commons

Call for Papers – Commons Reloaded: Potentials and Challenges in Urban and Regional Development

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Call for Papers – Commons Reloaded: Potentials and Challenges in Urban and Regional Development

The Public Sector is an open access e-journal published by the chair of Public Finance and Infrastructure at the Department of Spatial Planning, TU Wien. The journal particularly invites young academics to submit. Abstracts (max. 500 words) should be sent to: [email protected]. Abstracts should include research questions, theoretical background, used methods and expected results. The… Continue reading →

Featured Video Food and Agriculture Media

Towards Regenerative Agriculture: The Unbroken Ground documentary

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“The ‘Unbroken Ground’ is a compelling new film that explores four areas of agriculture that aim to change our relationship to the land and oceans. Watch the film and hear from a panel of speakers – including filmmaker Chris Malloy and Birgit Cameron, Director of Patagonia Provisions- and taste Patagonia Provisions’ organic food sourced from… Continue reading →

Activism Commons Commons Transition Open Calls Open Government P2P Cultures and Politics P2P Development Politics

Call for a European Commons Assembly

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Call for a European Commons Assembly

Civic and community initiatives are working to vitalize our urban, rural, scientific and digital commons, and promoting a future guided by democratic participation, social equity and environmental sustainability. At the heart of these acts of “commoning” are satisfying, joyful social relationships that regenerate our interpersonal and physical surroundings. We reject the idea that we are… Continue reading →

Collective Intelligence Culture & Ideas Open Coops & Sustainable Livelihoods P2P Cultures and Politics P2P Lifestyles P2PF network articles

About knitting and stitches: Enspiral as a close-knit relational network

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About knitting and stitches: Enspiral as a close-knit relational network

Michel Bauwens: “I wish everyone could read this and understand what peer to peer is really about … it’s not about technology and machines, but about human relationships, and this expresses that thought and reality beautifully. At best, and this is what the P2P Foundation is about, technology can scale the capacity for relating in… Continue reading →

Building the Open Source Circular Economy Commons Commons Transition Culture & Ideas Featured Video Open Coops & Sustainable Livelihoods P2P Cultures and Politics P2P Theory P2PF Articles

Bauwens Explains the Great Value-Shift of Our Time

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Michel Bauwens recently spoke at the Harvard Berkman Center to give his big-picture analysis of the economic and social transition now underway.  The hour-long video of his talk provides a clear explanation for why peer production is flourishing and out-competing conventional business models and markets.  It’s all part of an epochal shift in how value… Continue reading →

P2P Cultures and Politics P2P Labor P2P Theory Politics

For progressive transition majorities, we need to move beyond the culture wars

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For progressive transition majorities, we need to move beyond the culture wars

I have just finished four months in the U.S., in Madison, Wisconsin, where the ‘culture wars’ have succeeded in mobilizing rural resentment against the cultural elites in order to fuel one of the most regressive state policies, one that actively dismantles social and environmental protections in favour of the real financial elite. This is happening… Continue reading →

Economy and Business P2P Money P2P Public Policy

Money should be tethered to a physical resource

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Money should be tethered to a physical resource

* Proposal: Establishing sustainable units of value ($Z), by Shann Turnbull PhD, [email protected]; Co-founding member: Sustainable Money Working Group Shann Turnbull argues: “The purpose of this note is to suggest how to connect the value of money to the natural environment to allow both society and the environment to exist together on a symbiotic perpetual… Continue reading →

Commons Transition Cooperatives Ethical Economy Open Coops & Sustainable Livelihoods P2P Cultures and Politics P2P Public Policy Videos

John Restakis on the Cooperative Experience in Emilia-Romagna and What It Means Today for Transformational Change

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This was a keynote presentation earlier this year, for the Transform/er conference in Montreal, an event for and by young cooperative activists in Quebec, which was organized at Concordia University, by Ben Prunty, Laurent Levesque, and Jessica Cabana. and which has a prominent student cooperative food service coop with over 4000 members. In this talk,… Continue reading →

Anti-P2P Cognitive Capitalism Copyright/IP P2P Cultures and Politics

The Gatekeepers Aren’t Gone: How Viral Content and Big Business Coerce P2P

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The Gatekeepers Aren’t Gone: How Viral Content and Big Business Coerce P2P

Viral content seems democratic. But it’s still mostly controlled by big media companies Marta Figlerowicz, writing for Jacobin, lays out the duplicitous realities of Netarchical Capitalism… The first YouTube video went live in 2005. The following year, the site began seeing its first viral hits. Judson Laipply’s “Evolution of Dance,” posted in 2006, reached seventy… Continue reading →

Building the Open Source Circular Economy P2P Ecology P2P Manufacturing P2P Research

How green is peer-to-peer material production in the fablabs?

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How green is peer-to-peer material production in the fablabs?

These are choice excerpts from the great PhD research by Cindy Kohtala, which we featured before. Cindy Kohtala writes and concludes her investigations on the ecological impact of fabrication labs: * From the introduction: “Increasing numbers of citizens have access to digital fabrication equipment via devoted spaces known as Fab Labs, makerspaces and hackerspaces, which… Continue reading →

Cooperatives Featured Video Open Coops & Sustainable Livelihoods P2P Cultures and Politics P2P Labor Sharing

Jeremy Rifkin on how to transform unions and coops for the digital age

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Unions and cooperatives should start focusing on millenials and adapt to distributed governance, and if they do, they will win from the new monopolies, argues Rifkin in this interview for the European Trade Union Congress (ETUC/ ETUI). Rifkin is sometimes accused on not problematizing the transition to the zero-marginal cost society, but in this interview,… Continue reading →

Commons Events Open Calls

Summer School – Political Philosophy & Public Policy: Exploring the Commons

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Summer School – Political Philosophy & Public Policy: Exploring the Commons

An event organized by the Political Theory Group of CEHUM, University of Minho (Braga). Professors: Axel Gosseries Maxime Lambrecht Karl Widerquist When: 18-20 July 2016 Where: Auditório novo do Instituto de Letras e Ciências Humanas (ILCH), University of Minho, Braga (Portugal) Course Description: In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in issues… Continue reading →

P2P Cultures and Politics P2P Governance P2P Public Policy

The Network Europe 21 proposal: Europe as an Interconnected Transnational Republic of Cities and Regions

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The Network Europe 21 proposal: Europe as an Interconnected Transnational Republic of Cities and Regions

Must-read article that carries a profoundly renewed vision of Europe, that is entirely compatible with the p2p/commons vision, reproduced from the blog of Jaap van Till but in the original full version at Eurozine. Excerpted / republished from Ulrike Guérot: “National borders come and go, basically they are a man-made artefact of history, a fiction,… Continue reading →