Synthesis: Can Sharing Enhance the Sustainability and Resilience of Our Society?

Abstract

This book has extended the scope of the sharing paradigm (McLaren and Agyeman, Sharing cities: a case for truly smart and sustainable cities. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2015) beyond urban governance, filling the knowledge gap between sharing economies (which have been increasingly studied in recent years) and sociocultural communal sharing practices (which are less well understood). Previous chapters have provided a wide range of sharing case studies from around the world. This chapter revisits and summarizes all case studies from Chaps. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 and identifies the positive and negative effects of sharing practices on sustainability and resilience. It also proposes three key approaches toward a sustainable and resilient future: (1) combination of traditional knowledge and scientific knowledge/technologies; (2) coexistence of market and nonmarket sharing mechanisms; and (3) new normative metrics for measuring the multiple values of sharing. Along with new information and communication technologies, web-based platforms, and smartphone applications, the sociocultural communal sharing and exchanging of goods and capital can enhance the mutual satisfaction of people’s interests without compromising the sustainability and resilience of social–ecological systems (SES).