ABSTRACT
Commoning represents a dynamic and emergent means of risk-reduction and livelihood provision which can address the shortcomings of both market and state-oriented economic systems – increasingly relevant as climate change threatens human subsistence worldwide. This paper brings together international examples of responses to climate-related threats that are collective (not privatising), to provide preliminary empirical evidence about how and in what circumstances people may develop equitable communal institutions rather than ones that worsen community fragmentation. The examples include traditional and new forms of commons which help to meet local subsistence needs and develop communities’ social, political and economic resilience in the face of climate change, exploring how climate justice – improving the local and global equity of climate change impacts and processes – can advance in parallel with commons development.
Drawing on the literatures of ecological economics, political ecology, community development, equity studies, disaster management, psychology, ecofeminism, and Indigenous studies as well as the work of commons practitioners and theorists to situate these ideas, this paper advances a framework for comparing communities’ climate resilience in terms of collective “commons-readiness”. The indicators involved in this framework include the community’s openness/boundaries, historical experiences and aptitudes with collective governance, social networks and social learning, political and economic interdependence, diversity, income distribution, and cultural factors.
