Building Commons Governance for a Greener Economy
Loading...
Date
2015
Authors
Perkins, Patricia E. (Ellie)
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Sense Publishers
Abstract
Description
Much recent work in ecological economics and political ecology, including calls for “de-growth” in the transition towards more sustainable economies, focuses on commons as a promising paradigm for sustainable governance institutions. The vision involves people who depend on or have an interest in a resource or asset, working together co-operatively to use that asset for production, service provision, and exchange which creates value and well-being while integrating ecological care, justice, and long-term planning to the best of diverse communities’ abilities. This includes institutions such as co-ops, land trusts, and non-market or beyond-market collective ways of organizing production, distribution, consumption, and waste or materials
management.Developing such collective institutions requires nurturing the skills and abilities needed to create and maintain them: empathy, communication and listening skills, a sense of shared purpose, creativity, dispute resolution across differences, long-term vision, environmental awareness and stewardship, among others. Transformative education praxis and transdisciplinarity facilitate the growth of these skills and abilities in children and adults, as Paulo Freire and other transformative learning practitioners have shown (Gadotti 2009; O’Sullivan 1999;Gutierrez & Prado 1998). Transformative pedagogy, including both eco-pedagogy and transdisciplinarity, is foundational as human society evolves institutions for sustainability such as commons.
Keywords
governance, economy, ecological economics, political ecology, sustainable governance
Citation
“Building Commons Governance for a Greener Economy,” in Planetary Praxis and Pedagogy: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Environmental Sustainability, edited by Richard Mitchell and Shannon Moore (Rotterdam/Boston/Taipei: Sense Publishers), pp. 133-145