(TAPAS – There Are Platforms as Alternatives) is a research program financed by the French Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Solidarities and Health, led jointly by the CEPN (Centre d’économie et de gestion de l’Université Paris 13 – UMR CNRS 7234) and the association, Coop des Communs.

Created in 2016, La Coop des Communs comprises commons and SSE practitioners, as well as researchers and public actors. Its goal is to help build an ecosystem conducive to the emergence of commons. “Allies, Commons and ESS can constitute, not residual solutions, but real pillars for sustainable development in a pluralist vision of the economy” (La Coop des Communs, 2018). La Coop des Communs is organised into work groups, including the Plateformes en Communs (Platforms in Commons) group. This took shape around digital platforms open to sharing practices in order to “bring together a set of emerging or existing actors who share these values, within an open community” and “build a mutualised toolbox aimed at operationality, and enable the appropriation of the new peer-to-peer possibilities offered by digital technology”(La Coop des Communs, 2017). The group’s objective is to create, run and equip the platform community in line with a code of ethics based on five principles: inclusive governance, equitable sharing of value, data ethics, production of commons, and cooperation among members. By cross-comparing several sampling criteria (including diversity of the development levels of the platform’s activity and the sectors of activity), the team selected nine sharing platforms.

The project is based on the empirical study of nine SSE platforms, analysing substantive, social solidarity economy mechanisms they develop. The results will propose a typology of collaborative platforms according to the economic models on which they are based and modes of treatment of the contributors to the functioning of the platform they propose. Emphasis will be placed on the combination of these two dimensions as well as on socioeconomic solutions and innovations to overcome the obstacles encountered by the actors. Description of the project is in French but the results will be available in English as well.

See more (Fr) : https://cepn.univ-paris13.fr/tapas/

The Economy and Management of the Commons Master degree has just opened in Paris 13, dedicated to the political economy of the commons, offering adjusted alternative management training. Fostering a democratic economy, the social solidarity economy is a crucial ally to the development of the commons. Their combination calls for dedicated and appropriate training: this Master is a first step. Commons call for an appropriate governance implementing a bundle of rights that will enable a diversity of stakeholders to take part to the commons; organizational forms and work organisation are to be tailored to the democratic aspiration of commoners. Those different aspects are breaking up with the extreme private property regime of appropriation, self-regulated market competition, and the hierarchical management.

Paris 13 and the CEPN Lab in particular have been dedicated to foster the commons development, actively cooperating with commons initiatives, networks of SSE & commons, alternative digital platforms, etc., through research programs.

Our Commons by Sophie Bloemen and Thomas de Groot features reflections on the enclosure of knowledge and the monopolisation of the digital sphere, stories about renewable energy cooperatives and community foodwaste initiatives and urgent pleas to see the city as a commons and to treat health as a common good. Published by the Institute of Network Cultures, the book is first published online as an e-book, free for all to download and share and as a printable PDF. The book will also be available on a wide variety of print-on-demand platforms.

The conference will take place in Lisbon, on 21-23 November, 2018.

It is organised and will take place at the Instituto Universitario de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL) – Center for International Studies (CEI-IUL)

For more information see (pdf): Call for Papers

The deadline for the Call is May 31, 2018.

21-22 April, Helsinki, Finland

Let’s join our SE forces in the North!

As the struggles about the commons and against an ecological catastrophe intensify, we are in the need for more joint networks based on solidarity, emancipatory learning and nondiscriminatory participation. Finland’s commons.fi and the solidarity economy network together with RIPESS Europe invite activists, defenders of the commons, grassroots organisations and networks to come and join a Northern solidarity economy network meeting to initiate cooperation in the field of commons, grassroots and solidarity action around bottom-up, grassroots economies, common strategies to advocate for another economy.

What to expect:

• Inspiring ideas
• Great people
• Discovering experiences from other places
• Interacting about efforts in Finland on advocating the envisioning of SE and the Commons
• A possibility to try a lovely sauna and locally sourced food
• Planning a future for a network

During the weekend, we will organise an event at the Finnish Social Forum, networking meetings and thematic session(s) around solidarity economy and the commons.

Let’s create a network of solidarity economy actors in the North of Europe! It all starts with us. Therefore, we are looking for the people and organisations that are committed to taking steps towards a better, more equal economy and society, protecting the commons and sharing their knowledge in a collective process.

As a host collective having limited resources, we are not able to host a big group of people, so please send an introduction of yourself to commons.fi[at]gmail.com. We will be in touch with you soon to let you know more about the details and the support that is available for participation. If you have a background organisation that can support your participation financially or if you are able to cover the costs of your own trip, please, mention this, so we might me able to host more people. There is an option for solidarity accommodation for some of the attendees.

The working language of the weekend is going to be English. If you have special needs or requirements that we should take into account, please let us know.

Another Economy is Here and Possible!

The P2P Foundation is happy to share its recently completed project, the Commons Transition Primer website, with new and adapted texts by P2P Foundation Members, including Michel Bauwens. With illustrations, infographics, key concepts definitions and case studies , the Primer emphazises the value of P2P and Commons approaches to work, politics, economic, environment and culture. Read more

One of the earliest such maps was TransforMap, a project with origins in Austria and Germany that is using OpenStreetMap as a platform for helping people identify and connect with alternative economic projects. In the US, CommonSpark assembled a collection of “maps in the spirit of the commons” such as the Great Lakes Commons Map (a bioregional map of healing and harm), World of Commons(innovative forms of citizen-led governance of public property and services in Italy), Falling Fruit (a global map identifying 786,000 locations of forgeable food), a map of Free Little Libraries (free books available in neighborhoods around the world), a global Hackerspace map, a global Seed Map, a map of all Transition communities, and several Community Land Trustdirectory maps.

As the varieties of maps proliferate, there is growing concern that the mapping projects truly function as commons and be capable of sharing data and growing together. But meeting this challenge entails some knotty technical, social and legal issues.

A group of mappers met at the Commons Space sessions of the World Social Forum in Montreal last year to try to make progress on the challenge.  The dialogues continued at an “Intermapping” workshop in Florence, Italy, last month. After days of deep debate and collaboration, the mappers came up with a document that outlines twelve key principles for developing effective data and mapping commons. The Charter for Building a Data Commons for a Free, Fair and Sustainable Future is the fruit of those dialogues.

The Charter’s authors describe the document as “the maximum ‘commons denominator’ of mapping projects that aspire to share data for the common good.” If you follow these guidelines,” write the mappers, “you will contribute to a Global Data Commons. That is, you will govern your mapping community and manage data differently than people who centralize data control for profit.”

“The Charter does not describe the vision, scope or values of a specific mapping project.  It is rather an expression of Data Commons principles. It will help you reimagine how you protect the animating spirit of your mapping project and prevent your data from being co-opted or enclosed.” Read more

Between November 15 to 17 – 2016, an important meeting took place inside and outside of the European Parliament in Brussels, that gathered more than 150 people, practitioners and researchers of commons and the affirmation of a new economic and political culture. Please find here a report by Sunna Kovannen and myself, Ruby van der Wekken, of the Finnish Solidarity economy network on the starting up European Commons Assembly (ECA) process: https://commons.fi/2016/11/28/european-commons-assembly/

As you can read in the report, one of the things discussed by participants of the ECA (and several RIPESS members were also involved) is the issue of bringing closer the moblisations around Solidarity economy and the Commons, out of the recognition that the development of solidarity economy, including the increased linking together of actors out of which also new practices are born, is a furthering of our commons and commoning, and in fact that what gives our commons and commoning its solidarity, ethical base.

One of the thematical/policy areas defined to also work under in the future in the ECA process, is then exactly about the links between solidarity economy and the commons, and thus the need for enabling policies in both these areas.

The ECA process is yet to be setting its milestones for the upcoming years, there are currently different proposals on the table. One possibility would be to further develop the idea of holding an ECA also at the Solidarity Economy European congress in Athens in June, promoting the collaboration and envisioning between the strands.

Is that something we are interested in to be advocating and facilitating?

Does your network / organisation have experience with initiatives on the Commons?

We would like to create a working group within RIPESS to discuss and develop ways to connect Solidarity Economy to Commons on both the grassroots and policy levels.

Would you be interested in joining?

Ruby van der Wekken (Commons.fi – Finland)

One of the more complicated, mostly unresolved issues facing most commons is how to assure the independence of commons when the dominant systems of finance, banking and money are so hostile to commoning. How can commoners meet their needs without replicating (perhaps in only modestly less harmful ways) the structural problems of the dominant money system?

Fortunately, there are a number of fascinating, creative initiatives around the world that can help illuminate answers to this question – from co-operative finance and crowdequity schemes to alternative currencies and the blockchain ledger used in Bitcoin, to reclaiming public control over money-creation to enable “quantitative easing for people” (and not just banks).

Download the report from Socioeco.org [pdf]

Read more

The XVI meeting of the Inter-niversity network for social economy and solidarity (RIUESS) was held at the University Paul Valéry in Montpellier. This year the theme was about The « commons » and Social Solidarity Economy. What identities and commond dynamics ?

It is not possible to report here the richness and diversity of exchanges around the concepts which have been quite recently (re) introduced in both economists’ and intellectuals’ discourse and more largely by people who promote initiatives in their territories which they consider a rehabilitation of the Commons.  […]

In the workshops, many issues were discussed (one participant questioned the “myth of localism”), with various focal points. The written contributions (49) were grouped within 18 workshops in four parallel sessions. These contents are available on the website of socioeco.org.

The RIUESS network held the meeting of its General Assembly (the first after the founding one, last November). The network brings together more than 50 researchers from several Universities and members on an individual basis. It elected its Coordination Committee (7 men, 7 women). It announced the  XVII meeting in Marrakech in partnership between the University of Mulhouse and of Morocco. It also decided to renew its membership to RIPESS Europe.