Cross-posted from Shareable. Maira Sutton: A renewable energy cooperative, a community land trust, and a former church building publicly-controlled and used by nearby residents — these are just a few examples of about 500 urban commons projects that are thriving in the Flemish city of Ghent in Belgium. A new research report shows that within… Continue reading
http://teamhuman.fm/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/TH-23-Silvia-Zuur.mp3 Playing for Team Human today is Silvia Zuur. In 2012, Zuur founded Chalkle to reignite adult education in New Zealand. Today, Zuur serves as a director at Enspiral, a social impact network that builds community driven solutions for a diverse set of issues including education, funding, and cooperative organizing. Enspiral is famously home to Loomio, a cooperative… Continue reading
Cross-posted from Shareable. Kristine Wong: Almost everyone who searches for information has used Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia with over 40 million articles (in roughly 300 languages) written and edited by volunteers around the globe. Yet despite the whopping amount of information Wikipedia contains, less than 20 percent of all Wikipedia contributors in 2015 were women, according to the Wikimedia… Continue reading
Jacques Paysan: Scientific and medical research critically depends on being able to observe very small structures that are invisible to the naked eye. Neuroscientists seeking to find cures for injury-induced paralysis, for example, may want to be able to observe the axons of regenerating neurons on coated nanowires. This kind of experiment often requires extremely… Continue reading
Even though Creative Commons licenses have been around for more than a decade, I am always surprised to learn that many progressive-minded activists, artists and academics – the people who should be most enthusiastic about the licenses – know nothing about them or at least don’t use them. A big welcome, then, to a new… Continue reading
Cross-posted from Platform.coop Alexandre Bigot-Verdier, Lieza Dessein and Thomas Doennebrink: The past year has been an exciting one for the platform coop movement. In December 2016, Nathan Schneider launched the “Buy Twitter” campaign. Twitter was for sale and he suggested that its users buy it and to change its legal structure into a cooperative. This would… Continue reading
Quite a few European cities, like Ghent in Belgium, are initiating policies for the temporary usage of empty city spaces by civic coalitions, up until the time when real estate companies start re-developing these urban areas. While offering temporary solutions, this policy does not directly challenge neoliberal real estate speculation and the lack of space… Continue reading
In last week’s episode Upstream explored the theme of economic inequality and looked at how neoliberal policies have impacted many communities, including Frome. This week’s episode asks the following question: How can towns and communities around the world begin to make wellbeing and happiness the ultimate goal of their economy? Upstream takes a look at… Continue reading
Peter Frase. Four Futures: Life After Capitalism (London and New York: Verso, 2016). Frase’s book builds on Rosa Luxemburg’s prediction a hundred years ago in the Junius Pamphlets that “[b]ourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism.” Specifically, he sketches — in very broad strokes — two versions of socialism and two versions… Continue reading
The future of the internet is in peril, thanks to surveillance, net neutrality and other assaults. But there are communities that are building their own. Like many Americans, I don’t have a choice about my internet service provider. I live in a subsidized housing development where there’s only one option, and it happens to be,… Continue reading
By Franziska Sperfeld, Kai Niebert, Theresa Klostermeyer and Hauke Ebert. Originally posted on Degrowth.de Degrowth in Movements: Environmental movement About the authors and their positions The authors are either voluntary or full time active in the environmental movement. Franziska Sperfeld leads projects at the Unabhängigen Institut für Umweltfragen e. V. (UfU) [Independent Institute for Environmental Issues],… Continue reading
#OOS BORDEAUX: Ecological Transition “We wanted Darwin to be about inventing new ways of working, new ways of doing business, new ways of enjoying life. It was about reinventing the city. From the outset, our ambitions came up against the limits imposed by environmental concerns, at a time of major upheaval, resource shortages, and, whatever… Continue reading
In a world that is falling apart (no further elaboration needed), how shall we understand the dynamics of survival and collaboration? How does life persist and flourish in a world that is hellbent on commodifying and privatizing every aspect of human relations and the natural world? For anthropologist Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, the answer is to… Continue reading
Design Global, Manufacture Local (also known as Cosmo-Localisation) projects are blooming everwhere. Audacities promotes Design Global, Manufacture Local in Australia. Efforts are underway to connect with implementers globally and to educate stakeholders about policies that support Design Global, Manufacture Local. Extracted from: http://www.audacities.co/#about-audacities Productive Cities are Prosperous Cities Cities are where the battle for a sustainable, equitable world… Continue reading
Cross-posted from Shareable. Adrien Labaeye: You may have heard of smart cities that use data to improve urban networks like public transportation systems. In the shadow of this well-marketed story is another narrative around data in the city; a story where the right to the city extends to the digital realm. Here are two initiatives where reclaiming… Continue reading
During the 1930s there were hundreds of experiments in the USA and many significant experiments in Europe to deal with the drying up of money. The same problem happened for several years in Argentina between 2000-2003. The LETs monies in Argentina were subject to massive inflation and lost trust and essentially went bust because of… Continue reading