Frontiers of Commoning, with David Bollier

Jan 31 2025 59 ep. 45 mins 135

Frontiers of Commoning, with David Bollier Podcast artwork

A monthly conversation with creative activists pioneering new forms of commoning.

Society & Culture

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Future Natures: On Seeing Commons through Popular Genres

Jan 31 2025 36 mins

Anthropologist Amber Huff, coordinator of the Centre for Future Natures at the University of Sussex in England, explains how popular genres like comic books, zines, social media, podcasts, and video, among others, can illuminate contemporary commons, enclosures, and the disorienting crises of capitalist modernity. What does this moment of crisis and collapse feel like, and how can

Pirate Care as a Revolutionary Act: Valeria Graziano & Tomislav Medak

Dec 31 2024 43 mins

Pirate Care is a term used to describe creative, public acts that challenge the "organized abandonment" of people in need. In the tradition of civil disobedience, pirate care activists intervene to show compassion and social solidarity for ordinary people. Pirate Care also highlights how the state, markets, or patriarchal families have politicized particular types of care by declar

Yuria Celidwen on Applying Indigenous Wisdom Traditions to Modern Challenges

Nov 30 2024 49 mins

Yuria Celidwen, an Indigenous researcher in the Department of Psychology at University of California Berkeley, discusses how contemplative practices in Indigenous traditions can expand mindfulness, heartfulness, compassion, and planetary flourishing. Her new book, 'Flourishing Kin: Indigenous Foundations for Collective Well-Being,' argues that relationality lies at the heart of Ind

Zoe Gilbertson on Bioregional Fibersheds & New Fashion Commons

Oct 31 2024 44 mins

Zoe Gilbertson is a British fashion ecologist who is re-imagining the fashion industry from the ground up, literally. In an effort to curb the ecological harms of fast fashion, global supply chains, and relentless consumption of clothes, Gilbertson is figuring how fiber crops like hemp and flax could be grown bioregionally to produce textiles and, in the process, catalyze localized

Stefan Gruber's Global Portfolio of Urban Commons

Sep 30 2024 42 mins

Stefan Gruber, a Carnegie Mellon University professor of architecture and urbanism, sees cities as a prime site of struggle between capitalism and commons, and therefore an important incubator of just, regenerative, self-determined communities that move beyond the market/state paradigm. The traveling international exhibit, 'An Atlas of Commoning,' which he helped curate, and his co

Brandon Letsinger on Cascadia and Bioregional Activism

Aug 31 2024 53 mins

Brandon Letsinger, a Seattle organizer and cofounding director of the Cascadia Department of Bioregion, discusses the history of bioregional activism in Cascadia and current challenges and strategies. Cascadia consists of three watersheds in the Pacific Northwest extending from British Columbia to northern California. For more than 40 years, Cascadia activists have been in the vang

Bram Büscher: Bridging the Human/Nature Divide through Convivial Conservation

Jul 31 2024 51 mins

Bram Büscher, an activist-scholar in sociology at Wageningen University in The Netherlands, has launched an ambitious international project to invent noncapitalist forms of land conservation. He calls it "convivial conservation." Instead of locking up land as wilderness or using it to make money through ecotourism and genetic patents, "convivial conservation" is about enabling hum

Safouan Azouzi: Lessons of Desert Oases for Eco-Resilient Transformation

Jun 30 2024 49 mins

Safouan Azouzi, a Tunisian scholar of the commons and participatory social design, discusses how cultural traditions in desert oases hold important socio-ecological lessons for the world. For the Global South, long victimized by colonialism and capitalist extraction, oases culture embodies an eco-friendly, alternative vision of development. For the industrial West, oases reveals th

Camila Vergara's Vision of Plebeian Constitutionalism

May 31 2024 53 mins

Chilean political philosopher Camila Vergara boldly argues in her book 'Systemic Corruption' that decay and corruption are inevitable even in liberal, representative systems because oligarchs end up capturing state governance and law. Ordinary people rarely have their own plebeian institutions to express their interests and curb the abuses of the elite. Drawing on ancient Greek and

Cooking Sections Serves Up Art, Eco-Activism & Local Food

Apr 30 2024 47 mins

The artistic duo known as Cooking Sections -- Alon Schwabe and Daniel Fernández Pascual of the Royal College of Art in London -- use their virtuoso visual, performance, and installation artworks to jolt people into new understanding of local ecosystems, capitalism, and food. Their work, shown at prestigious venues around the world to great acclaim, dramatizes how modern diets are