Conceptualizing the Commons: Moving Beyond the Goods-based Definition by Introducing the Social Practices of Commoning as Vital Determinant

The paper proposes a practice theoretical conceptualization of commons. The first part of the paper asks the question how a convincing conceptualization of commons could look like. Despite of the increased attention to the concept of the commons different notions thereof exist. Ostrom and her colleagues often define commons as common pool resources, a specific type of good. The underlying classification is based on different degrees of excludability and subtractability. In the paper this is criticized for disregarding the importance of the social processes at hand. It is argued that instead of being a type of good, commons need to be conceptualized taking the relevant social dimensions into account. Commons are hence conceptualized as the social form of (tangible and/or intangible) matter that is determined by commoning. Commoning creates commons. In the second part the social practices of commoning are argued to be voluntary and inclusively self-organized activities and mediation of peers who aim at satisfying needs. The abstractness of the proposed conceptualization allows to aim at the core of the practices, at finding a way to find the common characteristics or dimensions of these practices, without defining away their ever specific way of being and becoming in the concrete.