Yara Al-Salman on The Commons – at Wageningen University

The debate about the economy is often polarised between favouring state influences on one side and favouring the workings of the market on the other side. What often is forgotten that the economy also includes commons. The commons are all resources, social structures, businesses and assets that are shared and held in common.

Tuesday the 22nd of January at THUIS Wageningen Frank van Laerhoven (UU) and Yara Al Salman (UU) will explore the role of commons in our society. Frank is an assistant professor at the UU in the field of Environmental Governance. He will explain the commons design principles of Elinor Ostrom and what factors play a role in preventing a ‘tragedy of the commons’ to happen. We will also look into whether commons can lead to more sustainable use of resources.

Yara Al Salman will explore with us how commons influence democracy and autonomy in our society. Yara is a PhD candidate in Political Philosophy at the University of Utrecht. In her research, she investigates when a good should be governed by a common property regime. Common property regimes are arrangements where a group shares the property rights to a resource, and group members have an equal stake in the governance and use of it.

There will be plenty of opportunity to discuss the topic together. We will dive into questions such as: ‘What is a common? Is it only when a small group governs a natural resource? Or can the sky, the water, the soil also be a common?’ and ‘Is it ethical for the market to govern our natural resources?’ and ‘What does it mean that common used resources are on the rise such as Wikipedia, car sharing, food sharing, and CSA farming?’

And since we are meeting at THUIS, we can also discuss if we view THUIS Wageningen as common used resource.

You are welcome to be there at THUIS on the 22nd to share ideas on this topic.