[Open Design + Hardware] Call for Papers: Commons in a “Glocal” World: Global Connections and Local Responses

[Massimo Menichinelli]

Dear all,
here's a call for papers that may be interesting for you:

Commons in a “Glocal” World: Global Connections and Local Responses

Venue: University of Bern, Main Building

Date: 10-13 May 2016
Deadline for submitting paper abstracts is February 5, 2016

More information:
http://conferences.iasc-commons.org/index.php/iasc/IASC_Europe_Bern2016/schedConf/cfp


Main theme: Global Connections and Local Responses.

Research on the commons deals either with the development of 
institutions for the management of the commons, or with issues related 
to global change. While the latter mainly focusses on drivers and 
effects of global expansion of capitalist modes of production, 
consumption, and societal reproduction, research on institutions for the 
management of the commons deals with collective action and the effects 
and reactions within local action arenas. However, the entangled 
institutional processes through which global and local arenas – referred 
to as “glocal” – interlock are not yet addressed in a systematic way.

Europe has been a major driver of “glocal” processes. Therefore, the 4th 
Regional European Meeting of the IASC is devoted to global connections 
and local responses. It provides a space to advance our understanding of 
ongoing “glocal” processes and to analyse historically how commons in 
Europe have evolved and adapted to “glocal” changes. By integrating 
political ecology with approaches of New Institutionalism and Critical 
Theory in Anthropology, Human Geography, Political Science and History, 
we propose to investigate the impacts of external changes on the 
perception and evaluation of resources by actors related to the commons. 
This raises the question of local bargaining power, ideologies and 
discourses, and of the selection and crafting of institutional designs, 
which in turn affect the access to common-pool resources, as well as the 
distribution of benefits related to the management of these resources.

This conference therefore aims to look at the interfaces between local 
and global processes in order to bring together research arenas that 
have often been kept quite separate until now. We therefore call for 
contributions focussing on:

* how global players such as multinational companies and organizations 
affect local governance of the commons worldwide
* the role of international law and global trade in shaping the 
interface between global actors and institutional processes of local 
commons governance
* the impacts of external economic and political changes on the 
perception and evaluation of resources and areas by actors related to 
the commons
* local resistance and the development of political strategies 
countering the transformation of collective into private or state-based 
property rights as a consequence of economic and political changes
* the local crafting of institutional designs in global and local 
arenas, and how these affect access to and distribution of natural 
resources and related benefits among local to global actors using the  
commons
* how the encounter of global and local processes affect bargaining 
power, ideologies and discourses of global and local actors in governing 
sustainability trade-offs.

We especially welcome contributions that aim to address the above 
mentioned themes through novel forms of integrating theoretical 
approaches. In addition, the focus of the conference will be on a 
dialogue among representatives of different academic disciplines (e.g. 
geography, social anthropology, history, development studies, economics, 
political science, and law) and between academics and non-academic 
actors (e.g. practitioners, business representatives, policy makers, or 
NGOs).*
*

Br,

Massimo

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Massimo Menichinelli
mobile: (ESP) +34 657341068
mobile: (ITA) +39 3402971655
Skype: openp2pdesign.org
https://es.linkedin.com/in/massimomenichinelli

Aalto University
School of Art, Design and Architecture
Department of Media
Media Lab Helsinki
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