commoning
- noun
- /ˈkɒmənɪŋ/
- Specialized
- The residents successfully implemented commoning practices that allowed them to manage their local park collectively for everyone's benefit.
- the work of commoning
Examples
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Many communities engage in commoning to ensure everyone has access to shared resources like water and land.
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The work of moles is depicted as a kind of commoning that creates a larger multispecies community: it provides nutrient-rich soil.
Academic text (2017) -
Peter Linebaugh argues, "commoning is embedded in a labor process; it inheres in a particular praxis of field, upland, forest, marsh, coast."
Academic text (2017) -
In its representation of resilient, thriving "vermin" in agricultural space, "The Mole" gestures towards a continuing tactic in the work of commoning after enclosure.
Academic text (2017) -
Clare's post-enclosure poetry insists that the work of commoning is not undertaken by humans alone, but also by cooperating with the "silent work" of non-human animals, plants, and natural processes.
Academic text (2017) -
The speaker goes so far as to define himself as the "guest" of the mole, thus inverting the relationship between "vermin" and human, and in doing so, models a kind of radical commoning practice: a relational multispecies commons in which animals guide humans in mutual thriving.
Academic text (2017) -
Even more importantly, the mole-catcher spreads his commoning knowledge: he is described as a "walking almanac" for the village women, shepherds, woodsmen, and ploughmen who consult him (lines 20-27).
Academic text (2017) -
Through commoning, the villagers were able to establish a system of resource sharing that improved their overall quality of life.
Synonyms
Working together with other people to reach a common goal
Dividing something so several people each get part
A life where people share a home, chores, and costs
A way of living where people share property, work, and daily needs
Making housing, facilities and resources shared and used by a community
How Communal
Surface Forms
Morphology
commoning = common (semi-transparent) = common + ing
Formed from the verb 'common' + -ing; the action of making or using things in common is derivable from 'common', but the specialized practice and legal/traditional sense may not be obvious to all learners.
Etymology
Commoning comes from common, meaning 'shared by all', with the ending -ing that turns it into an activity. It links to the idea of the commons and community, so commoning is the practice of people managing and sharing resources together.