The Commons

The Commons

Explore stories, ideas and experiences on enclosures, commoning and ecologies. Use the filters to browse by theme and type of content.

Comic: Future Natures

Future Natures

Introductory comic from Future Natures about modern crises and the radical potential of commoning.

Seeding the commons in Argentina

Anoushka Zoob Carter

Podcast episode with Almendra Cremaschi of Bioleft, a seed commoning initiative based in Argentina.

Unsettling enclosures

Anoushka Zoob Carter

Anoushka Zoob Carter asks what the unsettling of enclosures looks like on the land in three different contexts.

Video: JT Roane on ‘Dark Agoras’ in Philadelphia

Future Natures

Full video of JT Roane’s talk about Black urban placemaking in twentieth-century Philadelphia.

How could land in England be reformed for the commons?

Future Natures

Elise Wach explores the proposals from various social movements for changing how England’s rural spaces are governed.

Food that’s not for sale

Anoushka Zoob Carter

A conversation with Sam Bliss on the practices that can decommodify food and ‘re-common’ the food system.

Video: Crisis, development & ecologies of the new commons

Future Natures

Watch a discussion about commoning and responses to crisis, drawing on examples from Argentina and the UK.

Commoning in refugee camps: In conversation with Yafa el Masri

Anoushka Zoob Carter

In this audio interview, Future Natures sits down with Yafa El Masri to discuss commoning and the commons in refugee camps.

Geothermal meets pastoral livelihoods in Kenya

Jeremy Lind

Masters in Commons Administration: new taster course in 2023

Future Natures

Details of a three-day taster course on the commons, to be held in January 2023 in North-West England.

Encountering the commons in The Pluriverse of Eco-social Justice

Anoushka Zoob Carter

The history of enclosure in Portugal can be found in the art world and forest worlds. Connecting the two are ongoing struggles to recommon these spaces…

How to make a mini-zine

Nathan Oxley

This handy guide provides a quick and easy way to make your own mini-zine.

Call for aid: Cooperation Jackson and the city’s urgent water crisis

Future Natures

As their city confronts a severe water crisis due to infrastructural collapse, Cooperation Jackson has issued an urgent fundraising appeal for their autonomous relief effort.

Hopping over the fence

Nathan Oxley

How mass trespassers in England are venturing on to fenced-off lands to reconnect with lost commons.

Join our online workshop for POLLEN22

Future Natures

Cultivating the garden of your mind

Anoushka Zoob Carter

Bioleft: open seeds

Future Natures

Bioleft is a community that builds an open seed exchange and breeding network.

Trespass, Commons and the Right to Roam

Anoushka Zoob Carter

In this podcast episode, Nick Hayes challenges the inequalities of land ownership and property rights and discusses the Right to Roam movement in the UK.

Treating food as commons, not commodities

Anoushka Zoob Carter

Jose Luis Vivero Pol explores new ways of democratising the governance of food systems and how (re)commoning food in society requires challenging dominant norms that value food as a commodity.

Course: Pathways to Sustainability

Nathan Oxley

Seeing Pastoralism

Nathan Oxley

An online exhibition about pastoralists and their relationship to commons, as they face many different uncertainties.

On the Promise of the Commons

Anoushka Zoob Carter

In this podcast episode, Vandana Shiva tells the story of historical struggle against colonialism and neoliberal capitalism that involves the commodification of seeds. She explains how re-commoning of seeds is a defence of a shared ecological and human diversity.

Comic: The Killing Famine

Future Natures

Comic: Weird Ecologies

Future Natures

‘Sedentist’ bias and the pastoral commons

Future Natures

Pastoralists are often marginalised from common land and resources, even by policies that claim to help them. Policies are based on a bias towards fixed, formalised land ownership.