The Commons

The Commons is embraced by many researchers investigating the importance of social and public space, collective use and ownership, participatory design and creative collaboration and participation. The Commons is an old idea of collective use, access and ownership, which is revisited by every generation to create new frameworks for rethinking how we can work together. The practices of commoning have evolved from resisting enclosures and colonisation to practices of biodiversity and sustainability and further to the digital commons and open access publishing. The ideas of the commons reflect the values of UmArts as an undisciplined network for rethinking how we work together and helping to understand that democratic freedoms come with social responsibilities. Focusing on the practices of commoning and care (The Care Collective, 2020) creates a political space for thinking about the world otherwise (Dardot and Laval, 2019).