Description

A new way of thinking is emerging for developing strategic pathways for local to planetary economic and ecological viability. This way of thinking centres around the ideas of “peer to peer production”, “the commons”, and “cosmo-localism”. This course will give participants emerging strategies to address critical development challenges using new cosmo-local and commons-based production strategies and thinking. Cosmo-local development describes the process of bringing together our globally distributed knowledge and design commons with the high-to-low tech capacity for localized production and self-organization. It augurs in an era in which the legacy of human creativity is at the disposal and service of those with the most needs, and in which our systems of production can be sustained within planetary ecological boundaries.

Over 15 cases will be presented on a variety of topics and themes, including:

• Examples in agriculture, for examples Farm Hack, Le A’terlier Paysans and FarmBot
• Examples in manufacturing, including Open Motors, AbilityMade and OpenROV
• Examples in medicine and health, including Fold-it and the Open Insulin Project
• Examples in housing construction, including Hexayurt and Wikihouse
• Examples in the circular economy, including Precious Plastic
• Examples in urban development, including Fabcity and Ghent city as commons
• Examples in water management, including Hack the Water Crisis (Stop Reset Go)
• Examples in crypto-programming, including Holochain
• Examples in disaster response, including Field Ready

The course is run in the format of ‘action learning’. This means that participants will form into groups (5-8 people) based on topics that are meaningful to them, and will engage in a problem solving (anticipatory innovation) process through-out the course. Participant will be introduced to the key ideas and guided through the problem solving in a step by step format, so that the ideas are applied in the context of real development challenges. The course is a unique offering combining anticipatory innovation and systemic futures design thinking that will give participants renewed leverage in generating ideas for positive social change.

Objectives of Course:

• Learn from 15+ examples and cases
• Learn concepts in

1. Peer Production
2. The Commons
3. Cosmo-local production

• Understand cosmo-localism as both

1. A seed form that can be applied and scaled from social enterprise
2. A political economic vision which provides new policy pathways

• Develop networks and connections with others that carry forward momentum
• Develop process skills in applying these models in the context of specific development and organisational challenges

Expected Outcomes of Course:

• A new set of concepts and understanding for development
• An understanding of how these strategies are applied
• A set of examples and cases that clarify how they function
• Ideas developed in the workshop that can be carried forward into the world
• Inclusion in an extended network of people interested in these new development strategies
• A cosmo-local production design canvas that will provide a template for applying the ideas elsewhere (this will be a simple to use canvas that can be printed in an A2 or bigger paper that will be linked to the course content)

The course is being run by Dr. Jose Ramos (Action Foresight), in conjunction with Prof. Shishir Kumar Jha and Raji Ajwani (Indian Institute of Technology – Mumbai) and Michel Bauwens (P2P Foundation).

About the presenter

José Maria Ramos is interim research coordinator for the P2P Foundation, director of the boutique foresight consultancy Action Foresight, is Senior Consulting Editor for the Journal of Futures Studies, and is Senior Adjunct Professor at the University of the Sunshine Coast. He has taught and lectured on futures studies, public policy and social innovation at the National University of Singapore (Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy), Swinburne University of Technology (Australia), Leuphana University (Germany), the University of the Sunshine Coast (Australia) and Victoria University (Australia). He has over 50 publications in journals, magazines and books spanning economic, cultural and political change, futures studies, public policy and social innovation. He has also co-founded numerous civil society organizations, a social forum, a maker lab, an advocacy group for commons governance, and a peer to peer leadership development group for mutant futurists. He holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature, a Masters degree in Strategic Foresight, and a Ph.D. in critical globalisation studies. He has a passion for the coupling of foresight and action, which has included both theoretical work through published articles, consulting work for federal, state and municipal governments, as well as citizen experiments in methodological innovation. He is originally from California of Mexican ancestry. Born in Oakland, he grew up in a very multi-cultural suburb of Los Angeles. After living in Japan and Taiwan, where he studied Japanese and Mandarin, he moved to Melbourne Australia to be with his wife, De Chantal. They have two children, son Ethan and daughter Rafaela. His other great passion is in considering who we are as planetary beings, which includes his ethnographic study of alternative globalizations, writings on planetary stigmergy, and research on cosmo-localization. This line of work connects him to the truth that we are all brothers and sisters inter-dependent with our planet and each other for our survival and wellbeing – our shared commons.

Workshop Schedule

Module Activities DAY 1

Day one (morning)

Deep dive into p2p / cosmo-local ideas and examples.

15+ case studies and examples from around the world

Content: Farm Hack, Le A’terlier Paysans and FarmBot, Open Motors, AbilityMade and OpenROV, Fold-it and the Open Insulin Project, Hexayurt and Wikihouse, Precious Plastic, Fabcity and Ghent city as commons, Hack the Water Crisis (Stop Reset Go), Holochain, Field Ready

LUNCH

Day one (afternoon)

Presentation of principles of cosmo-local production and commons based development.

Content

• The theory of the p2p economy.
• Foundational concepts.
• The theory of commons governance.
• Foundational concepts.

Lectures followed by discussion and Q&A.

Open discussion on participant reflections.

Dive into some of issues and challenges people are grappling with. Break into groups and begin to explore the nature of the problems and issues that they are facing.

DAY 2

Day two (morning) Re-articulation of the key ideas and then groups jump into practical and applied group work.

Content: The anticipatory experimentation method (AEM) steps 1-2

Identify the “used future” and develop a preferred future

LUNCH

Day two (afternoon)

Developing the proposal, articulating ideas to solve the local issues and problems, and developing ideas for real world experimentation.

Content:

• The anticipatory experimentation method (AEM)

steps 3-4

• Ideating solutions and real-world experiments

Presentations and discussing next steps as a network

What is cosmo-localism?

Cosmo-localization describes the process of bringing together our globally distributed knowledge and design commons with the high-to-low tech capacity for localized production. It augurs an era in which the legacy of human creativity is at the disposal and service of those in need within ecological planetary boundaries. It is based on the ethical premise, drawing from cosmopolitanism, that people and communities should be universally empowered with the heritage of human ingenuity that allow them to more effectively create livelihoods and solve problems in their local environments, and that, reciprocally, local production and innovation should support the wellbeing of our planetary commons.

“Cosmo-localization is a new paradigm for the production and distribution of value that combines the universal sharing of knowledge (cosmo), but the ‘subsidiarity’ of production as close as possible to the place of need (‘local’), essentially through distributed local manufacturing and voluntary mutualization. The general idea is not to impede technological progress though intellectual property, in an era of climate change where we cannot afford the 20-year lag in innovation due to patents; and to radically diminish the physical cost of transport through local production. Cosmo-localization is based on the belief that the mutualization of provisioning systems can radically diminish the human footprint on natural resources, which need to be preserved for future generations and all beings of the planet.” Michel Bauwens

“what is light (knowledge, design) becomes global, while what is heavy (machinery) is local, and ideally shared. Design global, manufacture local (DGML) demonstrates how a technology project can leverage the digital commons to engage the global community in its development, celebrating new forms of cooperation. Unlike large-scale industrial manufacturing, the DGML model emphasizes application that is small-scale, decentralized, resilient, and locally controlled.” –Vasilis Kostakis and Andreas Roos, Harvard Business Review

More information

Links to cosmo-localization:

• Peer Production and the Commons

• From redistributive urban commons to cosmo-local production commons

• Cosmo-Localization And Leadership For The Future

• Cosmo-localism and the Anthropocene

The post Futures of Production Through Cosmo-Local and Commons-Based Design appeared first on P2P Foundation.

In Mumbai, the right to water in people’s settlements (known as slums) was revoked in 1996 when the Maharashtra Urban Development Department instructed all municipal corporations to stop water infrastructure being installed in them.

Since then, the right to water and sanitation has been deeply neglected in these communities. An estimated three million people in Mumbai have no access to water and lack of sanitation forces 70% of them to defecate in the open. Those living in people’s settlements buy expensive, low-quality water from private suppliers – a time-consuming activity, especially for women, young girls and children.

Photo credit: Pani Haq Samiti

Against this backdrop, Pani Haq Samiti (PHS, Committee on the Right to Water) came about. Its members included people’s settlement residents, activists, academics and non-governmental organisations. It relied on voluntary donations while other institutions and organisations helped with technical expertise, research support, advocacy strategies, strategy and legal support, all of which helped mobilize people.

As the mobilisation took off, people demanded greater transparency, and this coalesced into the Pani Haq Abhiyaan (Right to Water movement), creating widespread awareness of water privatization by raising it with political parties, elected officials, members of the Legislative Assembly and Parliament.

Eventually, widespread agitation and fierce campaigning across the city resulted in denial of water to people’s settlements being shelved, and two state judges stating that whether homes are deemed ‘legal’ or ‘illegal’, Article 21 of the Indian Constitution – the right to life – intrinsically implies it is the responsibility of the government to provide water to all. On 9 January 2017 a circular was issued to all municipal officials to implement the policy.

The judgment and subsequent policy change have been the campaign’s biggest achievements. People have been the biggest beneficiaries of this as water connections will be available to them, irrespective of the ‘legality’ of the settlement. Moreover, water provided will be through the Municipal Corporation, and not expensive private sources.

Exhibition on Mumbai’s water by Pani Haq Samiti at Marine Drive. Photo credit: Pani Haq Samiti

“The transformation from successfully fighting against privatisation into a broader water rights movement, concerned with the denial of rights to the most vulnerable people and communities is remarkable. The positive court decision to defend water access for all would not come about without strong social mobilisation.”

– Satoko Kishimoto

Would you like to learn more about this initiative? Please contact us.

Or visit panihaqsamiti.org

Transformative Cities’ Atlas of Utopias is being serialized on the P2P Foundation Blog. Go to TransformativeCities.org for updates.

The post Mumbai: People’s Campaign for Right to Water appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Mill workers of Mumbai have a 150-year tradition of struggle. When the mills went into decline in the 1980s and 1990s, they continued to fight, first for their jobs, and when mills closed anyway, for their right to live in the city. Six hundred acres of mill lands belonging to 50 or so textile mills had become prime real estate and was developed into luxury offices, apartments, clubs and malls. This was land that had been given to mill owners over a century ago solely for industrial purposes. Workers demanded a part of the land for workers’ housing. The struggle resulted in legislation granting rights over a portion of the land. 8,000 apartments have been offered so far and construction of a further 18,000 units is ongoing. The government says it is looking for more land to meet the target of 100,000-150,000 units. The struggle continues.

GKSS, an independent mill union/committee set up in 1990, organised demonstrations, occupations, lobbying with parliamentarians, negotiations with government, media advocacy, street barricades, sit ins, and marches. The state overtly and covertly supported the mill owners. What worked in the end was dogged persistence, an effective strategy of broad and multiple alliances, the political and electoral importance of mill workers, and the sympathy of lower level police and bureaucrats who were from mill families.

This struggle is unique for its strategies, and the importance of fighting for concrete gains for the constituency and for the broader community.

Would you like to learn more about this initiative? Please contact us.

Or visit the Mill Workers Action Committee’s Facebook

Transformative Cities’ Atlas of Utopias is being serialized on the P2P Foundation Blog. Go to TransformativeCities.org for updates.

The post Mumbai: Winning textile workers’ housing rights appeared first on P2P Foundation.