Organized by Raksha Balakrishna, Eve Castille, Leticia Costa, Désirée Schwindenhammer, Lavanya Suresh, and Hita Unnikrishnan
In February of 2023 a group of ECN members was chatting together on a Zoom call, something we started doing more during the COVID-19 lockdowns and have continued to do regularly as a group. We are distributed across countries and timezones, so it only makes sense. We were chatting about how many amazing and boundary pushing ideas the members of the network have and wondered if we could organize a workshop around new and emerging perspectives on the commons specifically extending the Bloomington school of thought, integrating critical perspectives, and creating new disciplinary bridges. We wanted to do it in a way that centered and helped early career researchers and brought in mentorship from established researchers.
From May 27-29, 2024 over 50 early career researchers met to share their in-progress research and get mentorship from senior scholars in their area. The mentors–Charlie Schweik, Inna Kouper, Graham Epstein, Praneeta Mudliar, Diana Ojeda, Everisto Mapedza, Tanzil Shafique, and Dustin Garrick–read 1-3 papers in advance and provided verbal and written feedback in discussion with the early career researchers through small panel discussions. In this way, the attendees could also learn from the technical and substantial feedback on their peers´papers.
Awards
Out of the 17 papers presented, the mentors selected 2 to earn the Commons Trailblazer Award:
Laura Aufrère, Understanding commoning as a professionalization process: the case of artist-run spaces
Leticia Costa, Belonging and Legitimacy in a community of care: the daily negotiations at Gera Juncal Community Garden
We also voted on our favorite video. Mariah Ngutu´s video was the participants’ favorite. In it she explained her paper, Mapping the commons, actors, potential conflicts and negotiations in Kenya’s export horticulture in Laikipia County, Kenya.
Organizing the Workshop
Organizing the workshop was a multi-step process carried out by a team of volunteers from the ECN. The process took over a year from start to finish. Below we share the phases of the process and what we learned in hope that the model can be used by future organizers.
Step 1 – Getting started
Creating the organizing committee
Distributing responsibilities
Step 2 – Promoting your idea
Creating an idea board
Writing the workshop call
Setting up the registration form via IASC
Reaching out within and beyond the IASC-ECN network
Step 3 – Filling your idea with life
Reviewing submissions
Communicating acceptance
Grouping papers to panels
Identifying and contacting potential mentors
Step 4 – Logistics
Preparing Zoom room(s) and links
Creating schedule
Sending reminder emails
Determining structure, communication, and tasks throughout event
Step 5 – Getting serious
Collecting workshop feeds, papers, and videos
Communicating expectations and guidelines to mentors
Communicating format & what-to-expect to panelists/partcicipants
Communicating dates and schedule to everyone
Sharing submitted videos and abstracts with participants
Sending papers to mentors
Step 6 – Running your event
Introductions
Thematic panels (mentor feedback and discussion)
Voting for Video and Commons Trailblazer awards
Daily & overall recap
Awards and recognition
Step 7 – Wrapping up the event
Following up with participants and mentors
Distribution of price money
Documentation
Gathering feedback from participants and mentors
Reflecting on feedback
Feedback from Participants
We asked the attendees for feedback on the workshop. Here’s what they thought went well.
Quality of feedback: Participants found the mentor’s feedback well-informed, detailed, rigorous, and generous. It was well regarded that the mentors presented their perspective on papers, instead of the authors. Those who received written feedback are particularly satisfied.
Engaging and diverse content: Participants found the workshop content engaging and relevant, covering diverse topics, theoretical backgrounds, methodologies, and approaches. They also mentioned watching and getting to know other ECN fellows and mentors as insightful. Some participants mentioned how open it felt even for those who don’t identify as “commons scholars”.
Structure: The environment of conversation and constructive interaction in small groups, giving more space for feedback (and less worry about presentations) was considered good. Respondents were positive about time management, and safe space in the discussion forum. The virtual workshop enabled the participation of most of the group.
Clear communication: Most information was considered clear and issues were promptly solved.
Here are some suggestions for improvement.
Feedback: Some respondents mentioned a written feedback could be sent ahead, so mentees could be prepared to ask for specific help, and that they would like to be more upfront about what they expected from mentors.
Pre-workshop information: Some participants struggled to plan for their participation. It is worth considering how to settle the timetable and send it to attendants earlier, and to include more information about the papers and participants ahead.
Interaction and networking: Some suggestions to improve interaction were to create more time for informal presentations, ice-breaking activities, and smaller group activities as a collective systematization. Some suggestions on pre-conference interaction and thematic groups also appeared.
Organizing this workshop was a group effort culminating in an excellent three day workshop. Over the next year we will propose and prepare a special issue in the International Journal of the Commons that highlights this work and the contributions of the new generation of commons, institutional, and collective action scholars–however they choose to identify. We hope to organize the event biannually with the next one in 2026.
