Giulia Spinaci: Commons have turned to be notorious only in recent times, but since they have timidly appeared, there has been literally an explosion of articles, studies and experiments of governance of the commons on field.

When a new phenomenon is taken into consideration, usually, one of the first things to do is its analysis: of its characteristics, of the possible implications and, obviously, its geographical distribution. Since ancient times, the explanatory power of maps has always been extremely helpful in both academic and professional sectors, because of the immediacy of the images in transmitting a message.
The daily routine does not always allow to be aware of what surrounds us and sometimes, we need active and passionate citizens to remind us of it. This is even truer when it comes to the commons. In this sense, a map might be even more powerful than usual, since it helps displaying the richness of a country in terms of places, monuments, traditions and experiments of governance of the commons.
Across Europe and the world, many countries already assimilated this lesson and a lot of associations and organizations produced wonderful maps, offering a glimpse of their variegated national heritage.

The case of “Mapping the Commons.net” is exemplary, because of the transnational nature of the investigation. Through a series of workshops and after a thorough analysis of the parameters to be considered and of the commons to be included, this project elaborated a total of six maps of the commons in as many cities in the world: Athens, Istanbul, Rio De Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte and Quito. The philosophical and theoretical work behind these maps is huge. The map represents the ultimate effort of a sequential process that starts from the definition of the word “common” and passes through the study of the cultural and historical background of each city. In the end, “Mapping the Commons.net” won the Elinor Ostrom Award for research and social intervention linked to the Commons, on the category “Conceptual Approaches on the commons”: a formal recognition for this extraordinary work.

When it comes to Italy, it is a different story. A widespread culture on the commons has developed later than the other European countries and generally, than the rest of the world. Consequently, mapping the Italian commons is only a recent achievement. The attempt made by Zappata Romana is noteworthy, but limited in space (it covers only the city of Rome) and only green spaces are taken into consideration. Another map is the one provided by UNESCO, which on the one hand has the virtue of listing intangible benefits (local traditions), while on the other it obviously lacks a comprehensive classification of all the on-field experiments of governance, by marking only the artistic and archeological sites. We might enumerate all the mapping attempts in Italy. Still, there is not an exhaustive map of the commons and maybe there will never be, given the great variety of the commons.

With the willingness of bridging the gap, LabGov’s latest efforts dealt with this: mapping the Italian urban and natural commons, both the material and the intangible ones, also with an insight of the consolidated governance approaches and of the ongoing experiments on field.

Let us start with the definition of the commons: commons are goods, tangible, intangible and digital, that citizens and the Administration, also through participative and deliberative procedures, recognize to be functional to the individual and collective wellbeing, activating themselves towards them pursuant to article 118, par. 4, of the Italian Constitution, to share the responsibility with the Administration to care or regenerate them in order to improve their public use That being stated, it has been quite easy making a list of the numerous (almost infinite) commons in Italy.
The map distinguishes the various categories with different marks and the classification includes the UNESCO material and intangible sites, the cooperative communities, the consumer cooperatives (water and electricity), but it also offers an updated list of the cities that approved the Bologna Regulation and of the ongoing projects of LabGov. The spatial distribution is homogeneous, even if the consumer cooperatives are concentrated in Northern Italy, for obvious physical characteristics, since they deal with water resources.

Being the project ongoing, the map will never be definitive. Still, it preserves the evocative power typical of images, through the transmission of a message of cooperation in the care and regeneration of the commons.

Photo by RikyUnreal

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The “idea and practice of organizing shared interests in cooperatives” (the German word genossenschaftsidee) has been added to UNESCO’s representative list of Intangible Cultural Heritage after being submitted by Germany.

Originally posted by Rebecca Harvey at Co-operative News.

Co-operation is one of 16 new elements inscribed on the list following decisions by the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, which met in Ethiopia. The representative list includes forms of expression that testify to the “diversity of intangible heritage” and raises awareness of its importance. In 2008 the committee incorporated 90 elements (formerly proclaimed masterpieces) and since then over 200 additional elements have been added. Also incorporated this year were the Korean culture of Jeju Haenyeo (women divers), Beer culture in Belgium and the Egyptian Tahteeb stick game, among others. The full list can be found here.

The German application, jointly submitted by the German Hermann-Schulze-Delitzsch Society e.V. and the German Friedrich-Wilhelm Raiffeisen Society e.V. on behalf of their members, was sent in March 2015 for inspection by the evaluation body. The two societies dedicate themselves to the nurturing and appreciation of the life’s work of Dr Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch (1808–1883) and Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen (1818–1888) respectively. Both men helped shape the idea of co-operation in Germany, and its practical and legal realisation.

As the German submission states:

“A co-operative is an association of volunteers that provides services of a social, cultural or economic nature to members of the community to help improve living standards, overcome shared challenges and promote positive change, […] Based on the subsidiarity principle that puts personal responsibility above state action, co-operatives allow for community building through shared interests and values creating innovative solutions to societal problems, from generating employment and assisting seniors to urban revitalisation and renewable energy projects. Anyone can participate, with members also able to acquire shares in the association and have a say in its future direction.”

In Germany, around 20 million members and about 863,000 employees of co-operatives are actively involved with the daily practice and transmission of the idea. Around a quarter of Germany’s population are members of a co-operative – which, besides farmers and craftspeople, includes 90% of its bakers and butchers and 75% of its retailers.

The application argued that inscripting the idea would show a new facet of intangible cultural heritage:

“[Co-operation] can manifest itself in a form of social self-organisation contributing to structure life in all kinds of groups, communities and even whole societies, […] Inscribing the element would demonstrate clearly the shared asset of intangible cultural heritage to be community-based.”

The inscription would potentially bring to new audiences the idea of safeguarding intangible cultural heritage. It would also show the often transboundary character of intangible cultural heritage as the co-operative practice and its values like solidarity, honesty, responsibility, trust and reliability are shared by members worldwide. Co-operatives are spread worldwide, thus inscription would strengthen the co-operative idea and practice on a global scale. Co-operatives evolved from a dynamic exchange of reformers in 19^th century Europe. As the idea also has its roots in Great Britain, France and some Slavic countries, and has spread to many more countries since, inscription could enhance further co-operation with and between them.

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