What are the implications for institutional analysis and governance if commons are (or are believed to be) co-created – including through cooperation, competition, mutual adjustment, social learning, and collective self-regulation – by the choices of multiple types of beings and not only humans? And what if not only humans are considered to have rights, duties, desires, strategies, roles, and other attributes? Could considering some nonhumans as commons actors help regenerate and sustain social-ecological systems by improving understanding and governance?
This paper explores from an Ostromian institutionalist perspective a range of arguments and issues relevant to these questions. In doing so we draw on ideas including from indigenous ontologies, sacred ecology, land ethics, environmental philosophy, rights of nature, (re)wilding, and complexity science, and on empirical findings from the life and cognitive sciences. Reciprocity and strategic behaviour in social-ecological dilemma situations are considered, as are other relationships of interdependence and cooperation including those involving interspecies mutualism, niche construction, and keystone species in ecosystems. Conceptualisation of humans and nonhumans as commons actors is explored from the perspectives of both institutional researchers and those engaged in commoning. Issues and arguments are examined in the context of illustrative cases, including of multispecies cooperation and ecological regeneration. Implications for improving institutional analysis and governance of environmental commons are discussed.
