ABSTRACT
Migration and associated rural changes separate many commoners from their territories and decreases their reliance on territorial resources for livelihood. Migration also makes it more difficult to maintain the place-based social relationships which embed the commons, decreases the perceived value of the commons, and erodes the internal norms shared between resident and absent commoners. All of this reduces commoners’ incentives to maintain commons institutions. Nevertheless, in the cases we examine in Oaxaca, southern Mexico, commoners have avoided an outcome of decommonisation, and have instead engaged in a process of recommonisation involving new uses of the commons and the crafting of novel rules establishing the rights and obligations of migrant commoners.
