This talk considers some of the challenges of grassroots design commons research and practice drawing on field research undertaken over the last decade. Trends towards investing in formal applied methods that circumscribe commons spaces (e.g., holocracy or sociocracy) often obfuscate struggles to navigate power dynamics within organizations, because ‘slippage’ between regulated and unregulated contexts where power plays emerge is persistent and indeed inevitable. Various theorists of commons understand that commons are not bracketed off from other forms of social cooperation, but rather are diffuse and co-exist (e.g., with capitalism) and understanding this as constitutive of our daily lives seems prescient. Furthermore, a long history of feminist theory has sought to problematize the construction and enactment of these types of boundary conditions, inside/outside spaces, implying design commons research and practice needs to take stock and aim to recentre these feminist foundations.

1. Ecopolitics of the Design Commons
Dr Sharon Prendeville
Institute for Design Innovation, Loughborough University, London
In Common Symposium, City Hall London, London Festival Architecture
07 June 2023

2. /design research on/with commoning groups,
urban commons communities,
open design peer production

3. Un/sustainable
Economics
Excesses of
Pragmatism
Ecopolitics
of the
Commons

4. Un/sustainable
Economics
Formalisation of a
transnational collective
such that all members can
derive value from shared
resources produced
Excesses of
Pragmatism
Ecopolitics
of the
Commons

5. Un/sustainable
Economics
Formalisation of a
transnational collective
such that all members can
derive value from shared
resources produced
volunteerist problematic
towards commoning for
shared productive value
Excesses of
Pragmatism
Ecopolitics
of the
Commons

6. Un/sustainable
Economics
Formalisation of a
transnational collective
such that all members can
derive value from shared
resources produced
volunteerist problematic
towards commoning for
shared productive value
Excesses of
Pragmatism
profusion of consent-based
decision-making (holocracy,
sociocracy etc. (Ostrom))
inadequately accounts for
charisma in the room, or power
plays ‘outside’ regulated space
Ecopolitics
of the
Commons

7. Un/sustainable
Economics
Formalisation of a
transnational collective
such that all members can
derive value from shared
resources produced
volunteerist problematic
towards commoning for
shared productive value
Excesses of
Pragmatism
profusion of consent-based
decision-making (holocracy,
sociocracy etc. (Ostrom))
inadequately accounts for
charisma in the room, or power
plays ‘outside’ regulated space
paradoxically,
combined with a
commons idealism
Ecopolitics
of the
Commons

8. Un/sustainable
Economics
Formalisation of a
transnational collective
such that all members can
derive value from shared
resources produced
volunteerist problematic
towards commoning for
shared productive value
Excesses of
Pragmatism
profusion of consent-based
decision-making (holocracy,
sociocracy etc. (Ostrom))
inadequately accounts for
charisma in the room, or power
plays ‘outside’ regulated space
paradoxically,
combined with a
commons idealism
Ecopolitics
of the
Commons
Emphasis on
design outputs as
opposed to
Eco-social
implementation

9. Un/sustainable
Economics
Formalisation of a
transnational collective
such that all members can
derive value from shared
resources produced
volunteerist problematic
towards commoning for
shared productive value
Excesses of
Pragmatism
profusion of consent-based
decision-making (holocracy,
sociocracy etc. (Ostrom))
inadequately accounts for
charisma in the room, or power
plays ‘outside’ regulated space
paradoxically,
combined with a
commons idealism
Ecopolitics
of the
Commons
Emphasis on
design outputs as
opposed to
Eco-social
implementation
Typologies delink
ecological impacts
(digital commons
is not non-

10. “…often signifying an ontology that
merely needs the world to create
infrastructures to catch up to it.
Although the commons claim sounds
like an uncontestably positive aim, the
concept in this context threatens to
cover over the very complexity of social
jockeying and interdependence it
responds to by delivering a confirming
affective surplus in advance of the
lifeworld it’s also seeking…”
Berlant, Lauren. "The commons: Infrastructures for troubling times." Environment and
Planning D: Society and space 34, no. 3 (2016): 393-419.

11. / Bounded spaces of agency “inside/outside” spheres e.g.,
private/public spheres (Nancy Fraser interpenetrated
state/civil society, gendered norms of public acceptance)
/ Depoliticism through volunteerism and cooptation of
commons (Silvia Federici on Cameron’s ‘Big Society’)
/ Deep contextualisation in situ (Susan Leigh Star, Lucy
Suchman)... necessity of site-specificity yet the contradiction
of needing historical and transversal links between projects
Commoning and stewardship

12. /many commons models struggle to translate into a
continuous production of social value,
/realities of verticalism, persuasion, magnetism of social
skill, and power plays
/Nietsche’s will to power,
/”the iron law of oligarchy” (Robert Michels, 1911)
/vulnerability to external threats (even far right
recruitment)
/ Pervasive, persistent, exclusionary, patriarchal practices
Prendeville, S., & Kohtala, C. (2023). From rhetoric to
realpolitik : The optimism of design commons discourse.
Presented at the Commons in Design conference, Basel,
Switzerland, February 15-17, 2023. Retrieved from
http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-205239

13. https://www.londonclt.org
https://p2p-left.gitlab.io/statement/

14. “...I think we all manipulate each other all
the time. I think we’re just a bit more
aware of doing it with our siblings because
it’s more… with your family you’ve got that
safety so it’s kind of more okay for it to be
on the surface but I actually think we’re all
doing it to each other unconsciously, but all
the time, and that it’s just we don’t really
talk about it because it’s such a scary thing.
It seems like such an evil…kind of word… I
also wonder if the sibling dynamic, or the
fact that we had family in the organisation
caused so much and continues to cause so
much tension and complexity. And I also I
wonder if it created a foundation for quite
intimate relationships in the workplace…”
Interviewee,
Counter-Framing Design project

15. —there is merit in convivial community
building and aiming to build a movement,
while procedures and processes easily become
proxies for relations
Prendeville, S., & Kohtala, C. (2023). From rhetoric to
realpolitik : The optimism of design commons discourse.
Presented at the Commons in Design conference, Basel,
Switzerland, February 15-17, 2023. Retrieved from
http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-205239

16. Funded by the Arts and
Humanities Research Council

17. / The needs that democratic communities share across
these four themes
/ The gaps between intention and practice

19. Dr Sharon Prendeville
Institute for Design Innovation, Loughborough University, London
www.design-dissonance.org
www.counter-frames.org
@sharmarval