The institutional arrangements that direct the investment of time and resources for marine and coastal commons are as diverse as the ecosystems and cultural communities they harbour. Traditional approaches for giving in the Indian Ocean Region include civil society and community arrangements for volunteering time, collective fundraising and contributing intellectual and physical labour. These practices now share space with professional non-profit organisations whose influence extends beyond the practice of resourcing for change, to shaping the very idea of commons.
These new shifts include influences from neoliberal strains, advancing market-based solutions that bring in financial resources to communities in exchange for protecting commons. Financial support has also been harnessed to rectify drawbacks in traditional commoning practices, such as gender- and caste-based discrimination. The discourse of the blue economy and blue carbon presents a new environment that state and non-state actors negotiate and reproduce in their practices of giving and taking around commons.
The panel offers an opportunity to curate recent theorising around the constituent social forces that construct and constitute ‘support’ for coastal and marine commons and its diverse environmentalisms. This offers a better understanding of the terrain of contemporary institutional arrangements that sustain or degrade the commons.
We invite papers in this panel that discuss global, national and regional ‘giving’ trends for coastal and ocean commons, focusing on practices of collaboration, volunteering, resourcing, sharing and financing. We encourage funders, scholars and practitioners, particularly in the Indian Ocean region, to present their insights and experiences with different approaches to institutional arrangements with ‘support’ for these commons.
