Contribution short abstract:

The Partition of India in 1947 resulted in a massive influx of refugees in both India and Pakistan. Following partition, thousands of East Bengali Hindu refugees left their homes in East Bengal/Pakistan and migrated to Kolkata, West Bengal.

Contribution long abstract:

The refugees fled in destitute conditions, facing profound disruptions in their socio-economic lives. Amid displacement, marginalization, and inadequate government response, refugees engaged in practices of commoning—collaborative and community-driven strategies to reimagine shared resources and social relations. Based on year-long ethnographic research, this paper examines how these practices were shaped by the challenges of displacement, resource sparsity, and cultural and political identity in post-partition Kolkata. It highlights refugees’ solidarity-based efforts to create, sustain, and manage the common good.

Facing inhumane living conditions in the government camps, refugees formed local and central committees and forcefully occupied empty government and privately owned lands, which were later developed into squatter colonies. The refugees organized local cooperative economies and collectively fought for access to essential services like water, healthcare and education. Women, often excluded from formal decision-making processes, contributed massively to fostering community ties and sharing the labour and resources. Nevertheless, the practices of commoning did not take place without internal conflicts as tension arose around caste, class and gender inequalities. This paper explores how the communities navigated these conflicts, revealing the complex intersection between solidarity, equality, and contestation in building communal life within the squatter colonies.

By Situating these practices within the broader theoretical framework of commoning, my paper examines how the East Bengali Hindu refugees addressed the dual imperatives of survival and solidarity. The paper argues that commoning among the refugee communities was not merely a pragmatic response to scarcity but also a political act of asserting collective agency against multilayered marginalization.

Contribution short abstract:

This paper examines the dynamic between common(ing) values and common values in the Catholic Church taking canon law students’ paths from the Global South to Rome and back as an empirical example to discuss how values are (re)generated within the oldest global bureaucracy.

Contribution long abstract:

Throughout its history, the Catholic Church has cultivated various forms of common(ing) both material and ideological values, including monastic life, church taxation, and welfare missions. One reason cited for the Church’s enduring presence as a global organization, despite being one of the most controversial institutions of our time, is its practice of inculturation. This enables the Church to maintain core values globally, even amid diverse cultural contexts, by integrating others within its “paternalistic fold” (Norget 2009: 342). The presentation explores the dynamic interplay between common(ing) values and shared values within the Catholic Church, drawing on fieldwork conducted among nuns, monks, and priests from the Global South who are send by their superiors to Rome to study canon law. This education equips them for leadership positions within the Church’s administration, mainly in their home countries. The paper investigates to what extent the internationalization of canon law students in Rome over the past three decades has contributed to a form of common(ing) church property and examines how these processes contribute to the (re)creation of shared values that hold the global Catholic Church together in the twenty-first century.

Contribution short abstract:

Fragrant oil-bearing rose in Isparta is central for commoning discourses for local imaginations, for sharing common concerns and a future of sustainable value for the community. The commoning narratives nevertheless display tensions between rural growers-urban processors and local-global players.

Contribution long abstract:

Rosa Damascena (fragrant oil-bearing rose) is considered a local agricultural resource in Isparta, Türkiye. It is used for extracting the valuable rose oil, rose water and other rose products, essential for global and national cosmetics and health industries. The local firms compete with one another for buying most of the rose harvest from rose growers, yet at the same time worry about the global price of rose oil, that they will not be able to sell their produce. The local actors within this global chain of rose growers in Isparta to local companies processing rose oil have to common their valuation of the rose and rose oil, yet downplay the competition concerning the prices and harvest. This paper discusses how the local discourse tries to solve this tension between growth, price and value through narratives of commoning the value for the community, the future of Isparta’s rose and the need for sustaining the local wealth, ecology and rural population. It shows how various actors emphasise the common values and partly downplay the ecological degradation and competition for the harvest.

Contribution short abstract:

This paper explores practices of “sharing” seeds in Tucson, AZ as social processes of (un)commoning and diverse value regimes to explore ideas of reciprocity solidarity as practiced, experienced and imagined in everyday life in relation to desired “good life” in the present and future.

Contribution long abstract:

Public discourses on local food in Tucson, Arizona center “sharing” seeds, especially of desert-adapted crops, in order to conserve the unique agro-biodiversity of the Sonoran Desert as well as increase food security, economic and ecological sustainability, and promote cultural diversity and rich culinary traditions. These discourses on “sharing” are perfectly aligned with national and international discourses promoting seed and food sovereignty, fighting the commodification of seeds and corporate enclosures, and emphasizing the rights of the farmers and rural communities, especially Indigenous ones, while uplifting alternative food networks, and diverse, social and solidarity economy of food.

Based on the extended ethnographic field work, engaged anthropological stance and rich anthropological theory of value, this paper examines these practices of “sharing” as social processes of un/commoning and holding "in common" through value ascribed to seeds and the "sharing" itself as seed move via non-market channels among diverse growers, farmers, nonprofit organizations and other SE entities on one hand, and the values motivating and underlying such SE seed flows on the other. As value regimes are always about power, and since concepts such as “commons” and “solidarity” are continuously socially created, maintained and destroyed within larger social, political and economic context, the paper will further explore who has the power and uses the concepts of commons and solidarity, and to what goal, and who is resisting them.

Contribution short abstract:

Karakul sheep farming no longer works as a means for economic value generation. Alternative modes of valuation gain importance in reproducing the community of Karakul farmers but still depend on economic value. As a result, dissonances and frictions between different values and valuations emerge.

Contribution long abstract:

How do farmers derive value from their activities at a historical moment when economic value generation from farming is failing? Based on ethnographic fieldwork among Karakul sheep farmers in Namibia, I argue that in the economic crisis situation, alternative modes of valuation gain importance, not only as individual motivations but also as a means for the community of Karakul farmers to reproduce itself. This community is haunted by its colonial past, its complicity with colonialism and apartheid and by its potential disappearance in the near future.

Karakul stud ram auctions are community events and valuation arenas, in which the shared quality criteria of what sheep are good sheep for breeding are translated into economic value, into cash. Building on Nancy Munn’s concept of value as relational, I examine the emerging frictions between different scales of valuation through the example of stud auctions.

In the Karakul industry, the relations of price and value, economic value and meaning-making value are complex. Economic gain by itself does not explain why people still farm with Karakul. However, Karakul sheep farming will no longer exist as the industry and the farming community it is today if it is not able to generate at least some form of economic value. The result is increasing friction between different forms of valuation and a feeling of dissonance among farmers.

Contribution short abstract:

In China, migrant factory workers excluded from formal social benefits join membership-based associations—neither unions nor charities—seeking side hustles and community support. These market-driven networks foster solidarity while risking the commodification of collective care.

Contribution long abstract:

Migrant factory workers in contemporary China often find themselves navigating limited social welfare provisions and the privatization of social responsibilities. In response, many turn to membership-based associations that are neither formal unions nor purely charitable organizations, but market actors stressing side hustles, alternative incomes, and entrepreneurial ventures. These associations help workers forge meaningful connections and build informal support systems in the face of precarious factory work and exclusion from state-run benefits—particularly pronounced for those on flexible contracts.

By pooling resources, arranging group discounts, and offering training for small-scale business opportunities, these associations fulfill needs that the formal social safety net neglects. They also cultivate an affective engagement grounded in shared hardships, as members unite around their aspirations for improved livelihoods. Yet, even as they enable new forms of solidarity, such associations may appropriate workers’ collective struggles for commercial gain or reinforce hierarchies by favoring those better positioned to invest in side enterprises.

Nevertheless, the sense of community emerging from these market-driven strategies is not inconsequential. Mutual care and peer support become central to workers’ efforts to secure healthcare, housing, and financial security. Such networks can alleviate some of the burdens of alienating factory conditions and social exclusion, while simultaneously exposing the fragility of relying on market-based solutions. Ultimately, this case illustrates how, in China’s industrial zones, migrant workers creatively assemble multiple strategies to cope with systemic neglect—revealing the paradoxical interplay between community formation and the commodification of collective care.

Contribution short abstract:

Drawing on ethnographic work in a German packaging factory, this research investigates how labour, worth, and belonging are relationally negotiated in migration and factory work, raising ethical and political questions about "value", “commonness” and "human worth".

Contribution long abstract:

Earlier analyses have demonstrated how in the context of East-West mobilities, European colonial history, racism, and neoliberal policies have disproportionately relegated migrants from Europe’s East to low-status jobs, exposing them to exploitation in the labour market. But how do these racialised hierarchies of worth and structural inequalities shape people’s sense of self, belonging, and human value? How are these dynamics reflected in the understandings of “proper, valuable work” in contrast to notions of social waste and disposability?

Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in a male-dominated German packaging factory, this study examines how precarity affects the ways men from “Europe’s East” perceive and navigate their social status, as well as their ideas of sociality and commonness. Frequently dismissed by local German managers as an unfamiliar “subculture” lacking a genuine work ethic and undermining proper labour norms, these factory workers remain rooted in their positions while negotiating their perceived insignificance. They do so by upholding a morality centered on hard work and ingenuity, constructing alternative conceptions and hierarchies of human value that embody their own ambiguous forms of belonging.

By analysing the notion of “disposable bodies”, narratives of “feeling less than human”, and the strategies employed to cope with these experiences, this ethnography contributes to ongoing discussions on the gendered and racialised dimensions of belonging, commonness, and human value in precarious labour contexts.

Contribution short abstract:

Uganda's Karamoja region exemplifies resilience through traditional practices like Etamam. This vital mechanism among Karamojong pastoralists illustrates, reflecting on common values, the importance of sharing resources for living well and upholding a shared notion of the good.

Contribution long abstract:

Uganda's Karamoja region, where 61% of the population lives in poverty, exemplifies resilience through traditional practices like Etamam—a vital mechanism among Karamojong pastoralists for negotiating resource access during times of need.

Etamam, meaning "sending the message," has evolved as an institutionalized process to ensure access to critical resources, fostering cooperation and peace among different pastoralist communities. The Kobebe grazing area in Moroto district is a key example, supporting multiple pastoralist groups with its rich resources. The practice of Etamam not only facilitates resource sharing but also strengthens traditional governance and enhances resilience against climatic stresses.

Detailed stories and reflections from pastoralist voices are addressing issues of gender, government interaction, and sustainable development goals.

Reflecting on common values, the practice of Etamam illustrates the importance of sharing resources for living well and upholding a shared notion of the good. These values are held in common, transcending projections of sameness and difference, and fostering a sense of unity and mutual support among diverse communities. By fostering dialogue and negotiation, pastoralist communities in Karamoja showcase resilience and the importance of cooperation in facing environmental and social challenges. This narrative underscores the necessity of established mechanisms like Etamam for managing resource access and mitigating the impacts of climate change, contributing to a broader understanding and support of sustainable pastoralist practices.

The proposed paper would be a result of the partnership of the organisations Karamoja Herders of the Horn (KHH) from Moroto, Uganda and the Institute of Ecology and Action Anthropology (INFOE) from Cologne, Germany.