Urban Commons: Organizing the City Workshop

We have entered the urban age, an era where the majority of the world population lives and works in cities. Against this backdrop, this workshop is interested in discussing how contemporary cities give rise to new modes of urban collectivity and hence inspire new forms of politics and organization. We suggest that Elinor Ostrom’s notion of the commons (developed for entirely different purposes) might serve as a starting point for such a discussion.Based on an assumption of the collectivity is incapable to manage common resources, conventional solutions to the tragedy of the commons (Hardin) have focused on either centralized government regulation or privatization of common pool resources. Challenging established economic theory, Ostrom, however, showed how collectivities (from locals in Africa to Western Nepal) have developed institutional arrangements for effective management of common resources.Extrapolating (and going somewhat beyond) Ostrom’s analysis to the level of cities, it seems evident that the notion of the commons is likely to generate interesting perspectives: How are the boundaries of the commons in an urban context defined? What processes regulate the use of the urban commons? What exclusionary processes are involved in such definitional and regulatory processes, and what organizational and political implications follow in the wake of such endeavours? What are the cognitive, symbolic, technological and material infrastructures that render the commons and citizens visible and hence constitute them as objects for governance, not just individually but also collectively? What conceptions of value(s) constitute the urban commons, and how do managerial technologies (such as branding) organize them? By letting the discussion of cities revolve around the notion of the commons, this workshop hopes to inspire a series of reflections on urban life which addresses issues of political and organizational importance by casting new light on how urban collectivity is composed, transformed and governed.The workshop is organized by the CBS Public-Private Platform cluster Urban Governance and sponsored by the platform. The workshop takes place the15th and 16th of November 2012 at CBS.Download the workshop program: urbancommons_workshop_program.pdf

Time:15th of November 2012: 12.30 - 18.00 and 16th of November 2012: 08.00 - 13.00Place: CBS Kilen, Kilevej 14A, room K4.74Registration: If you would like to attend, please RSVP with Ane Lindgren Hassing < alh.ioa@cbs.dk>.