Short Abstract:

Exploring the concept of "un/commoning" through the lens of inclusion and exclusion, this panel aims at illuminating meanings, levels, and scales of un/commoning, as well as the conceptual and methodological challenges and enrichments associated with using "un/commoning" as an analytical device.

Long Abstract:

This panel builds on the opportunity the conference theme “Un/commoning” offers and seeks to examine un/commoning through the lens of inclusion and exclusion. One intriguing issue surrounding the term “(the) commons” is its application for seemingly contradictory purposes. It is utilized both to safeguard land, resources, and other assets from economic exploitation and to promote their exploitation under the guise of serving (a sometimes vaguely defined) “common good”. We suggest investigating dynamics and relations of commoning by looking into the uncommons that they comprise of (Blaser and de la Cadena 2021) as well as the processes of inclusion and, notably, exclusion that they generate.

Our aims are twofold: Firstly, this panel aims at illuminating different meanings, levels and scales of un/commoning. This can entail rather classically specific practices and underlying axioms of the contested terrain of resource exploitation or cultural heritage conservation as well as “commons imaginaries”, the rather conceptual dynamics at play in the minds of various key actors (Chua et al. 2021; Walker 2020). Secondly, this panel seeks to explore the conceptual challenges and enrichments that are aligned to using “un/commoning” as an analytical device within social and cultural anthropology. We are therefore particularly looking forward to receiving contributions that, in addition to providing ethnographic insights into processes of inclusion and exclusion in relation to practices of un/commoning, reflect on related methodological and conceptual challenges and innovations.

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