Session 10. 3.

This presentation seeks to deepen the understanding of “commons literacy” as both a conceptual framework and practical approach to building resilient commons-based structures in Amsterdam’s urban agriculture landscape. Through our work with the land commons advocacy initiatives Grond van Bestaan and Voedselpark Amsterdam, we examine how Amsterdam’s current land politics uphold a regime of scarcity. This scarcity, in turn, fosters competition and conflict—often placing urban farmers and entrepreneurs in opposition to one another and to the municipality, creating a fragmented environment that challenges collaboration and shared land management.

Rather than perceiving these divides as intractable political differences, we propose viewing them as openings for collective learning. Our approach reframes conflict as a productive space for dialogue and mutual understanding, integral to the development of commons-based modes of organization. Central to this process is “commons literacy,” which we understand not as a specific skill or capacity, but as a communal practice of discovery, negotiation, and collective “patterns of commoning” that emerge over time.

Through a series of educational initiatives—including lectures, workshops, and collective research sessions led by Natasha Hulst—we have facilitated spaces where diverse stakeholders can come together to explore and gradually define what commons mean in both theory and practice. These gatherings are not only about convening in a shared space but also about fostering a slow, intentional process of co-learning and developing patterns of commoning, such as shared stewardship, collaborative decision-making, and mutual care for land and community resources.

Our findings suggest that commons literacy, grounded in these patterns of commoning, is foundational to the collective establishment of shared values and practices in urban agriculture. Rather than a set of instructions or static knowledge, it represents an evolving process of building a shared understanding and a capacity to navigate complex social and political landscapes collaboratively. Through this presentation, we aim to demonstrate how commons literacy and emergent patterns of commoning can be instrumental in creating sustainable, commons-oriented models for urban land use.

As we enter the Anthropocene, considerations of how we navigate our many crises towards a generative future have precipitated a hypothesis that one feature all the crises have in common is the misuse and the mis-distribution of human social power. Inspired by the author’s experience as a social entrepreneur and reflective practitioner, research was conducted into the literature on governance, organizational development, and individual development which resulted in the identification of a new theoretical framework for power and communication. This was further developed into a meta-praxis for healthy power sharing in all kinds of organizations. Tools for measuring healthy power in organizations and individuals were deployed to identify what changes occurred via the use of the practices. While more research is needed, the preliminary findings indicate that organizations experience an increase in effectiveness and efficiency, including lower employee turnover and better organizational responsiveness to changing conditions both inside and outside of the organization.

With the anecdotal and empirical evidence pointing to the potential of such a meta-praxis for enabling better cooperative coordination, the author posits that our ability to successfully transform our meta-crisis relies on our capacity to create a global coordination system based on the further research and evolution of the meta-praxis through the contributions of the many scholars, researchers, and practitioners invested in understanding and enabling our cooperative capacity as a species.

This talk presents a concept for a "Lonely Planet" travel guide to the commons as part of an organizing strategy. The concept of "the commons" is strange to most people – but, not at all unfamiliar to travelers who have an open mind and eventually bump into something on a vacation that money can't buy. Still, with so many privatized and commercialized places and properties in cities and far-flung rural areas around the world, many people lack the vocabulary or guidance to do anything with that feeling. I estimate that only a few hundred intellectuals are familiar with the commons in history or theory; we write and lecture about the shared and non-exclusive resources like grazing lands for cattle (in ancient times and today) or even photos and videos produced for fair use by all (Creative Commons). This is something that my late professor Erik Olin Wright explored in his work on "Real Utopias" as a larger frame for social progress towards equity and justice, and my elder David Bollier has produced popular writing for self-identifying "commoners," but I've yet to see work interpret or translate the importance of the commons for a large swath of the public – for example, everyday tourists or consumers who might support some kind of true stewardship. As a companion to another paper presentation on "Not-Commons," a satirical photo album of 'commons'-branded enclosed spaces and private property all around us, this talk looks forward with a positive, uplifting guidebook to the real, actually-existing commons around the world.