In Common

In this episode Michael speaks with Bill Fischel, professor of Economics at Dartmouth College. Bill is arguably the global expert on zoning rules used by municipalities in the United States to influence development patterns at the local level. During their conversation, Bill describes a shift from pro-growth to anti-growth approaches to local zoning in the United States (with exceptions being mostly in the South and in the city of Houston, Texas in particular, which has no zoning laws). During this shift, home-owners came to view their houses as investments or financial assets, whose exchange value they needed to protect, in addition to their use value as a home. This was partly because houses were one of the few assets whose value kept up with the rampant inflation in the 1970s, and because of some supportive tax policies.  Observing these trends led Bill to propose the Homevoter hypothesis, in which he argues that home-owners whose housing prices correlate with each other constitute an interest group, and who once they determined that additional housing in their communities would decrease their property values, decided to change zoning laws to prevent such development. This is an example of successful collective action on their part to contribute to a local public good: housing prices. But this is also a story of exclusion: the only way to promote this in-group public good is to exclude outsiders. A final part of the conversation touches on the use of homeowners of environmental policies that also started in the 1970s to fight against development. And in this context homeowners in many areas have expressed what is known as NIMBYism (not in my backyard), who may argue for inclusive public housing policies, as long as it doesn’t happen where they live.   References: Fischel, W.A. 2015. Zoning Rules!: The Economics of Land Use Regulation. Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

This insight episode comes from full episode seventy-seven with Derek Kauneckis. Derek is an associate professor at the Desert Institute in Nevada where his work focuses on the waste commons and technological innovation. Derek talks with Michael about how watersheds can be viewed as an information system, and the importance of designing technology that fits and serves the needs of the system it is used in. Derek’s website: https://www.dri.edu/directory/derek-kauneckis/

In this episode Hita speaks with her colleague, Prof. AbdouMaliq Simone, a Senior Professorial fellow at the Urban Institute of The University of Sheffield. They speak of Maliq’s early life in pre-independence Sierra Leone and its influence on his thinking and his subsequent move from Freetown to Chicago, alongside his shift from pursuing psychology to engaging in developmental practice. Maliq mentions in the interview that his focus on the urban was an organic one and which stemmed from his work in psychology, the developmental sector, as well as what he describes as a long foray into radical politics. They discuss how his interpretation of the urban seeks to explain gaps in conventional definitions of what the urban means, particularly from the perspective of African cities where he noticed that there was a way in which urban economies were being elaborated to address a population that was being urbanized through their own efforts to provide for each other – and oftentimes in situations that were new to them. They speak about Blackness and Black thought, of the field known as Black studies and its slight parallels with African Studies. As an urbanist, Maliq has been particularly influenced by black notions of locality – the extended idea of the locality – rooted within particular histories of the predominantly US based plantation system. He speaks about how black inhabitants of a plantation had to within the contexts of their own subjugation, develop tools and techniques to realize a sense of locality that extended beyond the immediate physical space, and how this notion of an extended locality helped the emergence of processes sustaining a black collective life. They then discuss the limits of using black thought as a methodological approach –focusing on the caution one has to exercise so that the usage of these knowledge systems does not reinforce the horrific forms of subjugation that it emerged from. They next discuss Maliq’s latest book The Surrounds, which refers to those relational, improvised and interstitial spaces which accompany the formal urban as we know it. We discussed the idea of the surrounds in the context of changing and reconfigured relationships people build with ecological commons – especially in contexts where their access to formerly important spaces becomes restricted because of other urban agendas. They discuss how the book contrasts ideas of home and work, especially from the perspective of marginalized communities for whom the home is not a place of settlement – rather it is a place of transient thinking; for whom work may not represent stability, but rather a confinement that restricts their ability to engage with the city. References Simone A.M. 2022. The Surrounds: Urban Life Within and Beyond Capture. Duke University Press. Schmid C. and Brenner N. 2011. Planetary urbanization. Urban Constellations, 1st ed., Gandy, M. Eds. Jovis-Verl: Berlin, Germany, pp.10-13. McKittrick K. 2020. Dear science and other stories. Duke University Press.

In this episode, Michael speaks with Julia Talbot-Jones, Senior Lecture in the School of Government at the University of Wellington. Julia studies how institutions solve environmental and natural resource problems, with a particular focus on rights of nature approaches. Julia collaborates with Erin O’Donnell, who is a previous guest on the podcast and has also written on this topic. The formal rights of nature approach is ideally meant to instill into our laws a more intrinsic value in our treatment of the environment, rather than only viewing it instrumentally. Julia has studied maybe the most famous case of formalized rights to nature, this being the Whanganui River, Aotearoa New Zealand. This has been used as the basis for other rights of river approaches in other countries, but Julia cautions against the application of formal rules without local cultural and context, which cannot be so easily copied. Julia’s website: https://people.wgtn.ac.nz/julia.talbotjones   References: O’Donnell, E. L., and J. Talbot-Jones. 2018. Creating legal rights for rivers. Ecology and Society. Talbot-Jones, J. 2017. The Institutional Economics of Granting a River Legal Standing. PhD Dissertation. The Australian National University. Talbot-Jones, J., and J. Bennett. 2019. Toward a property rights theory of legal rights for rivers. Ecological economics: the journal of the International Society for Ecological Economics 164:106352. Talbot-Jones, J., and J. Bennett. 2022. Implementing bottom-up governance through granting legal rights to rivers: a case study of the Whanganui River, Aotearoa New Zealand. Australasian Journal of Environmental Management 29(1):64–80.

Listen to a conversation that Frank van Laerhoven had with Valentina Fonseca Cepeda . Together with Daniel Castillo-Brieva, Luis Baquero-Bernal, Luz Angela Rodríguez, Eliane Steiner, and John Garcia-Ulloa, Valentina co-authored a recent IJC publication entitled Magical Realism for Water Governance Under Power Asymmetries in the Aracataca River Basin, Colombia, an article on wetlands, water and conflict in the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta wetland complex in Colombia. As many wetlands worldwide, this system is characterized by its high biodiversity and various livelihoods that are closely linked to water. Unfortunately, also as many wetlands worldwide, this system is vulnerable to and affected by many threats and conflict. Valentina and her colleagues unravel and examine this case employing a mix of methods that include a hydrological analysis, semi-structured interviews, and role-playing.   With a background in ecology, Valentina’s work focuses on local communities, more in particular the use of traditional ecological knowledge for the governance of natural resources.  Valentina is affiliated with The Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Colombia, teaching on the governance of socio-ecological systems, among other thing.  At the same time, she works with the NGO ONF Andina where she helps designing and implementing participatory methods with institutional actors and community members to analyze ecosystem services and value chains with the purpose of co-creating alternative scenarios. In case you want to learn more about topics akin to the topic discussed in this episode, we suggest you check out some of the other titles in the International Journal of the Commons that look at water, power and conflict: Chomba, M. J., Hill, T., Nkhata, B., & Nel, A. (2019). A social exchange analysis of adaptive governance in water allocation processes, the Kafue Flats, Zambia. International Journal of the Commons, 13(2). Leder, S., Sugden, F., Raut, M., Ray, D., & Saikia, P. (2019). Ambivalences of collective farming: Feminist political ecologies from the Eastern Gangetic Plains. International Journal of the Commons, 13(1). Olivier, T. (2021). Mechanism Design in Regional Arrangements for Water Governance. International Journal of the Commons, 15(1). Verzijl, A., & Dominguez, C. (2015). The powers of water-user associations: on multiplicity, fluidity, and durability in the Peruvian Andes. International Journal of the Commons, 9(1).

Listen to a conversation that Frank van Laerhoven had with Ilia Murtazashvili. Together with Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, Martin Weiss, and Michael Madison, Ilia co-authored a recent IJC publication entitled Blockchain networks as knowledge commons. Block chains are distributed append-only ledgers. The purpose of blockchains is to share resources – that is, knowledge, data and opportunities to use outputs created by networks. Knowledge commons are characterized by (i) the production of knowledge and information via one or more modes of action, (ii) institutions and other formal and informal structures for sharing these knowledge- and information resources, and (iii) governance processes that depend significantly on openness. In their article, Ilia and his colleagues convincingly show the usefulness of approaching block chain networks as knowledge commons as they rely on collectively managed technologies to pool distributed information. Ilia is affiliated with the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburg. Apart from an interest in block chain and knowledge commons, he is interested in American political development and the challenges of public administration and focuses his research on the relationship governance and legal titling in the developing world. Using the American frontier as an example, he investigates current challenges developing countries face, and how they can improve their prospects for economic development and political stability. In case you want to learn more about topics akin to the topic discussed in this episode, may we suggest you check out some of the other titles in the International Journal of the Commons that look at technology-dependent and knowledge commons, such as: Berge, E., & Kranakis, E. (2011). Technology-dependent commons: The radio spectrum. International Journal of the Commons, 5(1). Henrich-Franke, C. (2011). Property Rights on a Cold War battlefield: managing broadcasting transmissions through the Iron Curtain. International Journal of the Commons, 5(1). Schweik, C., & English, R. (2013). Preliminary steps toward a general theory of internet-based collective-action in digital information commons: Findings from a study of open source software projects. International Journal of the Commons, 7(2). Sen, A., Atkisson, C., & Schweik, C. (2022). Cui Bono: Do open source software incubator policies and procedures benefit the projects or the incubator?. International Journal of the Commons, 16(1). Wormbs, N. (2011). Technology-dependent commons: The example of frequency spectrum for broadcasting in Europe in the 1920s. International Journal of the Commons, 5(1).

This insight episode comes from full episode seventy-six with Hillary Angelo.  Hillary is a professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz where she works as a historical sociologist focused on the relationship between the environment and large-scale transformations in urban contexts. Hillary talks with Michael about the term social imaginary and how it allows an understanding of a certain set of social shared ideas about nature. They discuss Hillary’s recent book, “How Green Became Good: Urbanized Nature and the Making of Cities and Citizens,” in which Hillary argues that there is a social imaginary that she calls "urbanized nature" that can be traced and studied over time.   Hillary's website: http://www.hillaryangelo.com  

In this episode, Divya speaks with Sharachchandra or Sharad Lele, Distinguished Fellow in Environmental Policy and Governance at ATREE (Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment) in Bangalore, India. They discuss two of Sharad’s books, “Democratizing Forest Governance in India” which he co-edited with Ajit Menon, and his other book titled “Rethinking Environmentalism: Linking Justice, Sustainability and Diversity,” which he co-edited with Eduardo Brondizio, John Bryne, Georgina Mace, and Joan Martinez-Alier. Divya and Sharad use the discussion on the books as a way to unpack some of the fundamental questions like why are rights necessary, what is the meaning of democracy, and what is the role of state in the current context. They also talk about colonialism and its imprints on forest governance in postcolonial India. Sharad argues that, in the context of India, a country that has been traditionally hierarchical and where the state or the federal agency has all the powers, there are still colonial structures that are embedded in the system that reinforces those hierarchies. He suggests that recognizing citizens’ rights and their ability to exercise them fully is one way to break away from colonial and hierarchical mindsets.  Towards the end, Sharad shares that the commons is an arena with enormous scope for interdisciplinary work, yet academia and its various disciplines tend to fragment those spaces. He suggests that people working on the commons need to be alert to such tendencies and break away from the confines of a discipline by continuously asking how and in what ways their work can produce knowledge for meaningful change.   References:  Sharad’s bio: https://www.atree.org/users/dr-sharachchandra-lele 1. Agarwal, Anil, and Sunita Narain. "State of India's environment, 1984-85. The Second Citizens' report." (1985). 2. Lélé, Sharachchandra M. "Sustainable development: a critical review." World development 19.6 (1991): 607-621. 3. Lélé, Sharachchandra, and Richard B. Norgaard. "Sustainability and the scientist’s burden." Conservation biology 10.2 (1996): 354-365. 4. Lele, Sharachchandra Madhukar, and Ajit Menon, eds. Democratizing forest governance in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014. 5. Lele, Sharachchandra, et al., eds. Rethinking environmentalism: Linking justice, sustainability, and diversity. Vol. 23. MIT Press, 2019. 6. Lélé, Sharachchandra, and Richard B. Norgaard. "Practicing interdisciplinarity." BioScience 55.11 (2005): 967-975. 7. Wutich, A., Cardenas, J. C., Lele, S., Pahl-Wostl, C., Rauschmayer, F., Schleyer, C., ... & Zwarteveen, M. Integrating Sustainability, Justice, and Diversity?. 8. Lele, Sharachchandra, et al. "Adapting to climate change in rapidly urbanizing river basins: insights from a multiple-concerns, multiple-stressors, and multi-level approach." Water International 43.2 (2018): 281-304.  

In this episode, Michael speaks with Mehana Blaich Vaughan, associate professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management in the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources. Mehana is an environmental social scientist whose work focuses on indigenous and community-based natural resource management. Michael asks Mehana about her book, Kaiaulu: Gathering Tides. In this book, Mehana describes the relationship between Hawaiian people and their land and water. Throughout this book Mehana describes how Hawaiians view nature as a partner rather than as a resource. The book is a guide to important Hawaiian concepts such as Kuleana, embodying the idea that access to the environment is partnered with obligations to it and to the one’s community. Mehana talks with Michael about this and other related terms that form a network of understanding for a worldview that is quite different from the dominant bureaucratized, westernized position. During their discussion, Mehana also talks about the land dispossession that Hawaiians have faced, and how some Hawaiian communities have been trying to reassert their environmental traditions in the context of Hawaiian state bureaucracy. Mehana’s website:http://mehanavaughan.huiainamomona.org/ Website for Kipuka Kuleana: https://www.kipukakuleana.org/ References: Vaughan, M. B. 2018. Kaiaulu: Gathering Tides. Oregon State University Press. Diver, S., M. Vaughan, M. Baker-Médard, and H. Lukacs. 2019. Recognizing “reciprocal relations” to restore community access to land and water. International journal of the commons 13(1):400.

This insight episode comes from full episode seventy-five with Graeme Cumming.  Graeme is a Professor at James Cooke University in Townsville, Australia and the Director of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. Graeme talks with Stefan about the lack of methodological transparency in many datasets and the implications of this. Graeme discusses two of his past projects, one on the spread of avian influenza and the other on marine park permitting, to illustrate the importance of understanding and using scale correctly when doing research.   Link to scale mismatch on GBR paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590332220303511  University page: https://www.coralcoe.org.au/person/gscumming In Common Website: https://www.incommonpodcast.org  Connect with us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/InCommonPod Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/incommonpodcast