Panel 10.7. Heightened states: Emergency as an accelerator of commoning practices
Chair: Sophie Jerram
Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington
As is often said, there are no commons without commoning. Commoning practices vary throughout the world but are often based on awareness of shared resources, shared constraints and the need for conviviality and cohesion in the group. This awareness is heightened during periods of emergency, or natural disaster (earthquakes, floods, storms, fires, landslides, tornadoes etc), when people are forced to come together in states of collectivity with other people that are not usual community members. The usual rules of individual ownership are forgone in the light of this temporary state of emergency response.
Some communities prepare for this collectivity during 'normal' states of operation and others are less prepared. What does our increase in weather and natural disaster events mean for our practices of commoning? What can we learn from the heightened state that is created by the sudden change in our environment and personal circumstances, for our future planning and commoning?
Wednesday, June 18, 2025 03:00:00 – 05:00:00 Hasbrouck Hall HAS 138
Disaster Theatre: Disaster at Vogelmorn (a Case Study)
online
Sophie Jerram1, Alex Bonham2, and Chris Berthelsen3
1Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, 2Independent, New Zealand, 3Ehime University, Japan
In a 2024 community based production, Disaster at Vogelmorn, in Wellington New Zealand, The Playful Revolution practised with theatre technologies to bring artists and non-artists together to rehearse for a disaster. Theatre was central to bringing people toward a sense of shared need, of timely actions, of Yamori’s notion of intrafestum, to produce what we call convivial commoning.
What does this case study of community theatre environment teach us about practices of sharing resources, including labour, for a non-disaster context? We will discuss the immediacy of disaster and the states of resource sharing before, during and after the production.
Wednesday, June 18, 2025 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM Campus Center 162
Vogelmorn: Wellington Commoning Practices 6 Years on (Please Use This Version)
online
Sophie Jerram
Te Herenga/ Waka Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
At IASC Lima, in 2019, the paper "Bicultural practices? - self determination and hyperlocal planning in Vogelmorn, New Zealand" was presented. As an embedded, affective ethnographic researcher I laid out a philosophical perspective, weaving Maori and Pākeha histories of New Zealand, and aspirations for a commons-designed community asset. In 2019 Vogelmorn's community had already begun to form around a former bowling club in the southern part of Wellington city with some support from Local Government. In 2025, Vogelmorn will celebrate ten years of community management and ownership and this moment offers chance for reflection.
Vogelmorn's ethos was influenced by European movements including the European Assembly of the Commons in Brussels and the Fearless City movement in Barcelona (both 2016); IASC papers plus subsequent author visits to Grenoble, Brussels, Naples and Turin to understand similar spaces and practices 2017-2019. This paper aims to ask and answer how the aspirations of Vogelmorn have developed from a practice analysis: how well bicultural goals have been met; how Vogelmorn's distributed decision making has influenced city-thinking in Wellington; how market and private forces work within the community centre and how cultural independence has fared. This paper is based on interviews and reflections with city and community makers in and around the centre.
