-
Chapters from the paperback
- Introduction
- Ecocriticism
- Optimisation
- Grounded Economic Awareness
- Advertising Awareness
- Transition Skills
- Commons Thinking
- Effortless Action
- Permaculture Design
- Community Gardening
- Ecological Intelligence
- Systems Thinking
- Gaia Awareness
- Futures Thinking
- Values Reflection and the Earth Charter
- Social Conscience
- New Media Literacy
- Cultural Literacy
- Carbon Capability
- Greening Business
- Materials Awareness
- Appropriate Technology and Appropriate Design
- Technology Appraisal
- Complexity, Systems Thinking and Practice
- Coping with Complexity
- Emotional Wellbeing
- Finding Meaning Without Consuming
- Being in the World
- Beauty as a Way of Knowing
- Citizen Engagement
- Re-Educating the Person
- Institutional Transformation
- A Learning Society
- Additional chapters
- Interviews
Home » The Handbook of Sustainability Literacy » Chapters from the paperback » Commons Thinking
Commons Thinking
Commons Thinking: the ability to envisage and enable a viable future through connected action, Justin Kenrick, University of Glasgow, and PEDAL – Portobello Transition Town
____________________
What is Commons Thinking?
The Commons are life-sustaining or life-enhancing resources and services that have not been divided up and assigned a monetary value in the global economy but instead are shared freely among members of a community or group. They range from the air we breath, pollination provided by bees, land that provides food for gathering and sharing rather than selling, to words of comfort given freely and willingly rather than at an hourly rate. Pitted against the Commons, however, are the forces of Enclosure, which attempt to appropriate, own and sell resources that were once freely accessible, often breaking up communities and displacing people in the process. Commons regimes are communities which resist these forces and meet people's needs primarily or significantly through the Commons rather than through monetary exchange, existing both in the forests of the Amazon and in the last remaining tight-knit local communities in cities around the world...This chapter aims to describe one important skill for rebuilding political, community and personal resilience.
