2025-09-11

The idea of “Knowledge Commons” is opening up very wide for me, and I want to share some of that breadth with others, here. There's a complex background to the concept, including ancient and modern ideas about “the commons”, initiatives like “Creative Commons”, and a couple of projects I'm closely involved in, which are all exploring this idea of knowledge commons without much by way of preconception as to what we mean, or what exactly the purpose of knowledge commoning is. These matters are what I want to address, directly.

But let me first check that we are on the same page around what we mean. I don't want to confuse anyone, so I want to stick with recognisable (if still debatable) meanings of “knowledge” and “commons”. Take “commons” first. I'm thinking and writing in a tradition that is very much alive, as shown by the Wikipedia article, Commons, which include a list of “notable theorists”, old and new. What I think I understand reasonably includes: the ancient practice of common land; the (discredited) “Tragedy of the Commons”; and the works of Elinor Ostrom, Michel Bauwens, David Bollier, Silke Helfrich — all of whom emphasise that the commons is not only a common-pool resource, but also the community that uses, stewards or governs that resource, along with the social systems, norms, rules, etc. involved in that governance. There are numerous definitions that resonate together, with no one form of words being definitive. Recognising that “commons” are more than just resources by themselves, several authors have been using the term “commoning” to emphasise that commons have to be actively created and maintained — and I'm fully in agreement.

For Ostrom and others, this was initially about commons around material resources. As we will see, viewing knowledge as a commons changes things somewhat, but I want the meaning of knowledge commons to stay as close as reasonably possible to other commmons.

Next, what is “knowledge”? The philosophy of knowledge is vast, and don't worry, I'll barely touch on it here. I'll just say that I'm interested here with the kind of knowledge that is useful for good purposes — recognising that what is “good” is a matter of opinion, and what is useful may well change over time. And for knowledge commoning, there's not much point in considering knowledge that is only private. We're interested in knowledge that can be expressed and shared — communicated, and understood by others.

So my motive in this upcoming series is to get beyond the several aspects I have touched on before, over the last 5 years in particular, and to tackle head on the issues that I see as relevant to the two projects I'm closely involved with. In short, what is the nature of knowledge commons that can form a vital part of the support for growing the commons movement in general; and for support for the bioregional movement? Or, to change focus just a little, what do people need to know – what knowledge would be helpful and useful – for people who identify with the commons movement, or who identify with bioregions and bioregionalism?

I could easily extend this into some serious postgraduate research.¹⁾ I really don't need another PhD though, so perhaps I'll limit it to Masters level However, in all this, I'll try to keep putting on my educator hat from time to time, to work towards creating knowledge commons that people can learn from, either self-directed or with a peer group, rather than a dissertation written for other academics.

That implies, to me, a main focus that goes beyond my previous writings on knowledge commons, towards addressing knowledge commons in support of other commons. To do this effectively, I want to cover:

1. what the significant differences are between knowledge commons and other commons — this may involve potentially repeating some of my constructive critique of other people's ideas around knowledge commons
2. pulling together various categorisations of commons topics, and fitting them together into a helpful scheme — for this, I'll be pointing to other people's writings that I find helpful and stimulating
3. making my own categorisation of different commons initiatives, according to how they can related to knowledge commons
4. spelling out in more detail how knowledge commons and knowledge commoning can help these different other categories of commons.

The present series is intended to go beyond what I have written before. So, starting from my three most recent (and I think significant) pieces, this is where I want to venture.

• In 2023-09-09 I set out the view of knowledge commons as the knowledge dimension of a community of practice; and what the potential is in areas that are commercially competitive, and those that are not. Here, I want to extend this to other commons and areas of commoning.
• In 2025-07-27 I outlined steps towards knowledge commoning. Now I want to go into the relationship between knowledge commons and other commons.
• Most recently 2025-07-30 I revisited the tragedy of the knowledge commons, in contrast to the better known “tragedy”. Building on this, I want to point out how we can avoid both tragedies together — indeed, how knowledge commoning can help avoid tragedy in other commons.

Links to more:

• Why does Growing the Commons need a knowledge commons?

• ontological commoning