Commoning the governance: a review of literature and the integration of power

Abstract

The concept of commoning is continuing to gain scholarly interest, with multiple definitions and interpretations across different research communities. In this article, we define commoning as the actions by groups with shared interests towards creating shared social and relational processes as the basis of governance strategy. Perhaps it can be more simply defined as collective ways of relating and governing. This article addresses two specific gaps in the commoning literature: (1) to bridge disparate strands of literature on commoning by briefly reviewing each and arguing for integration through epistemic pluralism, and (2) to explicitly examine how power is manifest in commoning processes by bringing in a framework on power (i.e., power over, power with, power to, power within) to understand the links between power and commoning governance processes in two case studies. The two cases are tourism governance on Gili Trawangan, Indonesia and aquatic food production systems in Bulacan, Philippines. We preface this analysis with the argument that power is an integral part of the commoning concept, but that it has yet to be analytically integrated to applications of the broader institutional analysis and development framework or within the networks of action situations approach. We argue that by making explicit how an analysis of power can be coupled to a network of action situations analysis in a qualitative way, we are advancing a key feature of the commoning concept, which we introduce as rooted in epistemic and analytical pluralism in the analysis of governance. In the discussion, we expand on how each case study reveals each of the four power dynamics, and how they improve the understanding of commoning as a pluralistic and perhaps bridging analytical concept.