48 episodes

A monthly conversation with creative activists pioneering new forms of commoning.

Frontiers of Commoning, with David Bollier The Schumacher Center for a New Economics, David Bollier

    • Society & Culture
    • 4.9 • 19 Ratings

A monthly conversation with creative activists pioneering new forms of commoning.

    WIll Ruddick on 'Commitment Pooling' to Build Economic Commons

    WIll Ruddick on 'Commitment Pooling' to Build Economic Commons

    Will Ruddick, development economist and founder of Grassroots Economics, has spent the past 16 years in Kenya developing innovative "community inclusion currencies" for dozens of poorer communities. By combining ancient mutual aid practices with credit vouchers (circulating as a kind of money) and digital ledger technologies (to expand the scale of exchange), people are able to develop their own economic commons to meet everyday needs. Ruddick credits the success of the currencies to "commitment pooling" protocols that have long been used by Indigenous and traditional communities. Blog post: https://www.bollier.org/blog/will-ruddick-commitment-pooling-build-economic-commons

    • 52 min
    Kathryn Milun: Sharing the Sun's Energy through Solar Commons

    Kathryn Milun: Sharing the Sun's Energy through Solar Commons

    Kathryn Milun, a community-engaged scholar, writer, and energy democracy advocate at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, has spent the past 15 years developing the innovative Solar Commons model. This powerful prototype uses decentralized solar arrays to generate steady revenue streams to build community wealth. Through partnership agreements, four Solar Commons trusts are now channeling funds to low-income neighborhoods, rural communities, regenerative farming, and Native American food sovereignty. More about Solar Commons: www.solarcommons.org More about commons: www.Bollier.org.

    • 42 min
    Jennifer Brandsberg-Engelmann's Project to Reimagine Economics Education

    Jennifer Brandsberg-Engelmann's Project to Reimagine Economics Education

    Appalled by the dismal state of economics education for young people, Jennifer Brandsberg-Engelmann, an international secondary school educator, has launched an open, collaborative project to develop a comprehensive Regenerative Economics syllabus. Instead of framing "the economy" as a growth-obsessed machine standing apart from society and nature, Brandsberg-Engelmann showcases alternative economic approaches such as 'Doughnut Economics,' the circular economy, and feminist critiques of care, as well as value-creating sectors like households and commons. The project has attracted strong international attention and will likely debut in September 2024. (More at www.regenerativeeconomics.earth.)

    • 40 min
    Aaron Perzanowski on Bottom-up Creativity & the Right to Repair

    Aaron Perzanowski on Bottom-up Creativity & the Right to Repair

    Professor Aaron Perzanowski of the University of Michigan Law School explains how many artistic communities flourish as commons, without copyright protections that privilege private ownership and marketization. Tattoo artists, fashion designers, chefs, and stand-up comedians are among the communities that don't strictly own their primary creative works. This ethic of bottom-up collaboration and sharing also flourishes in many repair commons, where resourceful people have created pools of shared knowledge and peer-support to fix broken products. Corporate manufacturers are trying to suppress the "right to repair" movement, but repair-commoners are making significant gains these days.

    • 51 min
    Shane O'Donnell: The Breakthrough Insulin Device Developed by Commoners

    Shane O'Donnell: The Breakthrough Insulin Device Developed by Commoners

    Shane O'Donnell, a sociologist and researcher, has been at the forefront of the "device activism" and #WeAreNotWaiting movement, a globe-spanning community of techies and people living with diabetes who have pioneered patient-led innovations in medical devices and healthcare. Outflanking a stodgy, risk-averse medical device industry, the movement has relied on commoning to develop the Tidepool Loop device, the first open source, interoperable, and automatic insulin-delivery system, and Nightscout, a collectively managed data system for treating diabetes more effectively.

    • 41 min
    Mihnea Tanasescu on the Need for 'Ecocene Politics'

    Mihnea Tanasescu on the Need for 'Ecocene Politics'

    The best term for this era of geological history is not the Anthropocene, says Mihnea Tănăsescu, a research professor at the University of Mons in Belgium, but the Ecocene. "The increasingly frequent intrusion of ecological processes into political life” requires us to shed our anthropocentric notions, and recognize our deep, entangled relationships with nature and other living beings. In this interview, Tănăsescu talks about his book 'Ecocene Politics' and explains what it means to unlearn the modern mindset and cultivate a relational ethics of reciprocity, cooperation, and care for living beings. We must learn to renovate our legacy forms of political economy and culture, and develop the infrastructures and practices to support mutualism.

    • 43 min

Customer Reviews

4.9 out of 5
19 Ratings

19 Ratings

Denise Attwood ,

Frontiers of Commoning

This podcast is so inspirational and full of vision of a future that works for a healthy planet and a healthy minded humanity. I couldn’t recommend it more highly! Ganesh Himal

honeyoliv ,

Must listen for everybody

I heard of this podcast from the Ralph Nader radio and I must say this will be a must listen for my family and friends!!!

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