Conversing on the commons: an interview with Gustavo Esteva--part 1

Abstract

This is the first part of an edited transcript of an interview with Gustavo Esteva that took place during a Thinkery on the Commons held in Dublin in June 2014, a full version of the recording being available on the journal’s companion website CDJ Plus (http://www.oxfordjournals.org/cdjc/ cdj-events/commons-sense-a-thinkery-on-the-commons). A contributor to the Community Development Journal’s Special Supplement on the commons (Esteva, 2014), Gustavo Esteva is a Mexican commons activist and postdevelopment theorist who describes himself as a ‘deprofessionalized intellectual’. Advocating an understanding of the commons as first and foremost an activity, a way of people relating to each other and the natural world, rather than a thing or a natural resource, Gustavo asserts that certain kinds of contemporary ‘commoning’ are the beginnings of a new post-capitalist society. He has two key sources of inspiration: the ideas of the Austrian-born philosopher and ascetic Ivan Illich (1926‐2002), and the new way of living and governingof the MexicanZapatistas.In hisview,since the 1994uprising of indigenous people calling themselves the Zapatista National Liberation Army, the Zapatistas have practiced radical democracy and redefined the good life (Esteva 1992, 2010). In this first part of the interview Gustavo explains some of the conceptual tools offered by Ivan Illich that can be of use to ‘commoners’. Additionally, he explains why he shares Illich’s rejection of the project of development, and his commitment to interculturality, the possibility of real dialogue between people with fundamentally different worldviews. Emphasizing that social relationships are fundamental to any community organizing and commoning, he elucidates the interactions with others and technologies that Illich argued characterize a ‘convivial’ society. The second part of the interview, which will be published in the next issue of the Community Development Journal(50(4)),exploresdifferenttraditionsofcommonsthinkingandactivism