Comments on: FLOK Society: Pro-commons in Ecuador (a conversation with Michel Bauwens)

By: Michel Bauwens

Michel Bauwens — Mon, 07 Jul 2014 01:36:11 +0000

Agreed, but wasn’t that the case. We came because we were invited and funded by the elected governed ? And the idea was not to bring external solutions but to work together between global (which are often local, just somewhere else and local commoners. That it wasn’t entirely done as we expected is another issue. But there was never any intention for externals to dictate any proposals. In other words, while the reality felt short, the concept itself as participatory. It can happen the other way around to .. I heard from Vicente that a huge internal and local process took place for the Science plan, and it was just shelved ..

By: Quiliro Ordóñez

Quiliro Ordóñez — Sat, 05 Jul 2014 15:23:46 +0000

To accept external proposals is not a bad. What I refer to is that the decision about the route to take should be born inside the local community and not from externals. External solutions are very useful elements for this quest. But when those elements decide what to do instead of how to do what has been previously decided by the locals becomes conquest. The use of non-local expertise for achieving local decisions becomes a great collaborative partnership.

By: Michel Bauwens

Michel Bauwens — Sat, 05 Jul 2014 13:41:30 +0000

Personally, I don’t agree with the outside / inside dichotomy. Cultures and countries have not been isolated for a very long time, and what matters is not where the solution comes, but whether it is autonomously and freely adopted. The locals know best what their problems are, but that they know all the solutions without learning from the outside, seems to me a dangerous proposition. But is a theoretical discussion, in practice, the isolated locals are extremely rare (I’m thinking of the isolated tribes in Ecuador, but most indigenous communities are very eager to learn from others, as I witnessed on numerous occasions).

By: Quiliro Ordóñez

Quiliro Ordóñez — Mon, 30 Jun 2014 12:23:01 +0000

FLOK project was led by exclusion and censorship. It did not live by its own standards.

Another problem is the perceived idea that outer solutions provide better fixes than local ones. It is true that sharing makes the best solutions. But only one knows better what is best for our own life and not people from outside.