Voices Of The Commons: Recent Episodes
Guerrilla Media Collective (GMC)
Welcome to the Voices of the Commons podcast, brought to you by the Commons Transition team. We hear a lot about the Commons these days. But what are they exactly and how can they help us imagine more inclusive and ecologically resilient futures? The Voices of the Commons talks to the leading figures making the commons transition happen today.Stay tuned for more episodes.
In this episode of the Voices of the Commons Podcast we talk with Tom Llewellyn, a lifelong commoner and a core member of Shareable, the web's leading e-magazine on all things sharing, commons and community-oriented.
In this episode Tom Talks about:
- How Shareable tells real life stories of commoning in an accesible way
- How the commons is as "old as humanity and as new as the internet" and is seen today through channels as varied as city policies, self-provisioning, community resilience, etc
- The story of The Response, a book with 137 examples about "walking the talk of the Commons" in today's world.
- How to practice commoning in your daily life - by finding the others
- How the pressing need for commoning is facilitating its comeback worldwide
Be sure to check out The Response, Shareable's free ebook on "Building collective resilience in the wake of disasters" as well as Shareable's other great publications and resources.
This week on the Voices of the Commons, we talk to Polly Robbins, from Outlandish coop. Outlandish is a worker co-operative, owned by its members, and the profits they generate are invested in prototyping and developing new projects for social change. Polly manages Space4, Outlandish’ coworking and events space for digital co-ops and like-minded organisations.
In this podcast, Polly talks about:
- How their worker cooperative build websites and data tools to make the world a better and fairer place.
- Digital commons and radical technology for social impact and
- Their Sociocracy inspired decision-making process and governance within the coop
- Their deep connection with their local area and community
- The coop’s social dynamics and celebration of togetherness
- Outlandish's future vision, which includes training and workshops on digital skills and ethical business
This week on the Voices of the Commons, Stacco Troncoso talks to Nathan Schneider. Nathan Schneider is journalist and professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he is the director of Media Enterprise Design Lab. Nathan has authored books on cooperative enterprises, the Occupy movement, and religion. He is one of the initiators of the Platform Cooperativism movement, co-editing Ours to Hack and to Own (a Platform Coop "mix-tape") and maintaining the Internet of Ownership Directory.
In this podcast, Nathan talks about:
- How coops address accountability crisis of the mainstream economy
- The relationship between cooperatives and the commons
- The vulnerabilities of the Commons when it marginalizes ownership
- How coops radicalize workers across the political spectrum
- The breadth and width of the cooperative economy
- Latest trends in digital and crypto-cooperativism
The podcast was recorded on the same day Nathan Schneider taped an interview with Stacco for Boulder University's Media Enterprise Lab. Both dialogues complement each other well as sides A and B of a record on cooperativism and the commons. You can check out Nathan's interview with Stacco in this link: If I Only Had a Heart: Accounting for Care Work in Organizations.
This week we talk to Sophie Varlow, from Commons Platform. The commons platform is values-based social media, built and owned by everyone, for everyone. It’s a collaborative group of co-creators, of all backgrounds, experiences and skills.
In this podcast, Sophie talks about:
- The challenges of communicating the Commons to everyday people
- How the commons has always existed, predating markets and states
- The reductionism of GDP vs. other value systems
- What's missing in Western society and how the Commons can help us reconnect
Listen to the podcast or download it here.
Welcome to the Voices of the Commons Podcast!
The Voices of the Commons Transition follows from our web interview series, "Commoners in Transition".
The first episode features Free, Fair and Alive authors Silke Helfrich and David Bollier answering the question, "How can people get into the commons?" and much more. They explore ways to relate the narrative of the Commons to everyday lives and circumstances while also exploring possible Commons futures.