While open access publishing is no longer a novelty, the Radical Open Access Collective believes that much of it has been co-opted or sidetracked over the years by commercially oriented presses and funders. Many universities and foundations are happy to outsource the publishing process to commercial enterprises even though that means unnecessarily high prices, access restrictions, and a growing divide between rich and struggling academic institutions.. 

For the most part, commercial academic publishers have adapted their business models to accept the reality of open networks; they realize they can no longer maintain the total proprietary control they once enjoyed. But the new commercial regimes they've invented, while ostensibly providing open access, still allow publishers to make a ton of money and dictate the ways in which scholarly and scientific knowledge can be accessed and circulate.

OK, so readers are no longer paying as much. Instead, many OA publishers have simply shifted expenses to authors. They often must pay upfront "article processing charges" [APCs] and "book processing charges" [BPCs], which still impedes the circulation of knowledge, albeit in different ways.

The Radical Open Access Collective think there are better ways. That's why it came together in 2015 to form a community now comprised of 70 scholar-led, not-for-profit presses, journals and other open access projects. ROAC is committed to developing and championing “non-commercial, not-for-profit and/or commons-based models for the creation and dissemination of academic knowledge.” 

"What brings the scholar-led projects of the Radical Open Access Collective together," its website declares, "is a shared investment in taking back control over the means of production in order to rethink what publishing is and what it can be.

"One of the ways we try to achieve this is by shifting our unpaid labour away from toll access journals and publishers who do not allow authors to self-archive copies of their work online, or who have high charges for annual subscriptions, APCs [article processing charges] and BPCs [book processing charges]." 

"Research access is a fundamental right," Moore insists.  "It's good for democracy, it's good in many ways for the market.  It's good to have free and accessible research for everything."  The Radical Open Access Collective is one of the key forces trying to show how commoning in scientific and scholarly publishing can actually work.

You can listen to Sam Moore's interview on Frontiers of Commoning here.

While open access publishing is no longer a novelty, the Radical Open Access Collective believes that much of it has been co-opted or sidetracked over the years by commercially oriented presses and funders. Many universities and foundations are happy to outsource the publishing process to commercial enterprises even though that means unnecessarily high prices, access restrictions, and a growing divide between rich and struggling academic institutions.. 

For the most part, commercial academic publishers have adapted their business models to accept the reality of open networks; they realize they can no longer maintain the total proprietary control they once enjoyed. But the new commercial regimes they've invented, while ostensibly providing open access, still allow publishers to make a ton of money and dictate the ways in which scholarly and scientific knowledge can be accessed and circulate.

OK, so readers are no longer paying as much. Instead, many OA publishers have simply shifted expenses to authors. They often must pay upfront "article processing charges" [APCs] and "book processing charges" [BPCs], which still impedes the circulation of knowledge, albeit in different ways.

The Radical Open Access Collective think there are better ways. That's why it came together in 2015 to form a community now comprised of 70 scholar-led, not-for-profit presses, journals and other open access projects. ROAC is committed to developing and championing “non-commercial, not-for-profit and/or commons-based models for the creation and dissemination of academic knowledge.” 

"What brings the scholar-led projects of the Radical Open Access Collective together," its website declares, "is a shared investment in taking back control over the means of production in order to rethink what publishing is and what it can be.

"One of the ways we try to achieve this is by shifting our unpaid labour away from toll access journals and publishers who do not allow authors to self-archive copies of their work online, or who have high charges for annual subscriptions, APCs [article processing charges] and BPCs [book processing charges]." 

"Research access is a fundamental right," Moore insists.  "It's good for democracy, it's good in many ways for the market.  It's good to have free and accessible research for everything."  The Radical Open Access Collective is one of the key forces trying to show how commoning in scientific and scholarly publishing can actually work.

You can listen to Sam Moore's interview on Frontiers of Commoning here.

Most of Furtherfield's projects take place in its green space and gallery in Finsbury Park, London, and in various digital spaces that bring together artists, techies and activists. Local officials have invited Furtherfield to use the park as a participatory canvas for its artistic projects. Traditionalists might call the group an arts center, but Furtherfield playfully calls itself a "de-center" because its work is so outward-looking and network based.

Furtherfield sees itself is a convenor of artistic experiments that engage people in clever, provocative, and playful ways. The explorations are deeply rooted in open source technologies and philosophies while striving to -- in Furtherfield's words -- "disrupt and democratize existing hegemonies" and "re-landscape the terrain."

For example, when countless Black Lives Matter protests were rocking the US and cities around the world, many people began to question why slaveholder-businessmen and military generals were honored with bronze statues in public parks. Furtherfield decided to open up a public conversation about who or what should instead be celebrated atop pedastals in the park.

The People's Park Plinth project invited artists to propose new people or things to be honored in the park. The medium for this conversation was the smartphone. People strolling in the park could scan QR codes affixed to trees or pedestals, and instantly watch a video about the spot in the park. In effect, the scheme turned "the entire park into a platform for public digital artworks [that] asks you to pick the one you want for your park," as the project described itself.

Anyone could vote on a number of proposed artworks. The one that won -- 'Based on a Tree Story,' by Ayesha Tan Jones -- won was an artwork that used QR codes on a tree to summon a video of the the tree sprite who lived there.  ("A site specific, sonic augmented reality encounter with a digital tree sprite that tells tales of the tree’s past, present and future.")

The public voting for the artworks was itself quite novel. Rather than tallying just one vote per person for the preferred artwork, each participant was given a number of votes that could be spread among as many artworks as they wished. This scheme, called "quadratic voting," doesn't just calculate which project gets a majority of votes, but rather indicates which ones people feel most passionate about. The system is meant to overcome the "tyranny of the majority" problem that overrides minority voices, and cases in which strong factions act as spoilers.

One of Furtherfield's more intriguing roles has been to host a laboratory and series of debates among artists and techies about how blockchain software could help reinvent the arts in an age of networks. The point was to explore how the cultural sector could develop "pathways to peer-produced decentralised digital infrastructures for art, culture and society – in particular through Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs)...." 

Furtherfield has wanted "to end gatekeeping and elitism in the artworld" and "bring this spirit of deep and radical friendship as a way to build resilient and mutable systems for scale-free interdependence and mutual aid." But it also wanted to move beyond the libertarian individualism that animates so many DAOs in the tech sector. 

Two books have resulted from Furtherfield's convenings: Artists RE:thinking the Blockchain (2017), about critical artistic engagement with blockchain; and Radical Friends, an anthology to be published in May 2022 about the hazards of digital autonomous organizations (DAOs) in the art world and commons-based DAO alternatives. (Furtherfield's alternative goes by the acronym DAOW, which stands for "DAOs with Others.")

You can listen to the podcast conversation with Ruth Catlow here.

Most of Furtherfield's projects take place in its green space and gallery in Finsbury Park, London, and in various digital spaces that bring together artists, techies and activists. Local officials have invited Furtherfield to use the park as a participatory canvas for its artistic projects. Traditionalists might call the group an arts center, but Furtherfield playfully calls itself a "de-center" because its work is so outward-looking and network based.

Furtherfield sees itself is a convenor of artistic experiments that engage people in clever, provocative, and playful ways. The explorations are deeply rooted in open source technologies and philosophies while striving to -- in Furtherfield's words -- "disrupt and democratize existing hegemonies" and "re-landscape the terrain."

For example, when countless Black Lives Matter protests were rocking the US and cities around the world, many people began to question why slaveholder-businessmen and military generals were honored with bronze statues in public parks. Furtherfield decided to open up a public conversation about who or what should instead be celebrated atop pedastals in the park.

The People's Park Plinth project invited artists to propose new people or things to be honored in the park. The medium for this conversation was the smartphone. People strolling in the park could scan QR codes affixed to trees or pedestals, and instantly watch a video about the spot in the park. In effect, the scheme turned "the entire park into a platform for public digital artworks [that] asks you to pick the one you want for your park," as the project described itself.

Anyone could vote on a number of proposed artworks. The one that won -- 'Based on a Tree Story,' by Ayesha Tan Jones -- won was an artwork that used QR codes on a tree to summon a video of the the tree sprite who lived there.  ("A site specific, sonic augmented reality encounter with a digital tree sprite that tells tales of the tree’s past, present and future.")

The public voting for the artworks was itself quite novel. Rather than tallying just one vote per person for the preferred artwork, each participant was given a number of votes that could be spread among as many artworks as they wished. This scheme, called "quadratic voting," doesn't just calculate which project gets a majority of votes, but rather indicates which ones people feel most passionate about. The system is meant to overcome the "tyranny of the majority" problem that overrides minority voices, and cases in which strong factions act as spoilers.

One of Furtherfield's more intriguing roles has been to host a laboratory and series of debates among artists and techies about how blockchain software could help reinvent the arts in an age of networks. The point was to explore how the cultural sector could develop "pathways to peer-produced decentralised digital infrastructures for art, culture and society – in particular through Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs)...." 

Furtherfield has wanted "to end gatekeeping and elitism in the artworld" and "bring this spirit of deep and radical friendship as a way to build resilient and mutable systems for scale-free interdependence and mutual aid." But it also wanted to move beyond the libertarian individualism that animates so many DAOs in the tech sector. 

Two books have resulted from Furtherfield's convenings: Artists RE:thinking the Blockchain (2017), about critical artistic engagement with blockchain; and Radical Friends, an anthology to be published in May 2022 about the hazards of digital autonomous organizations (DAOs) in the art world and commons-based DAO alternatives. (Furtherfield's alternative goes by the acronym DAOW, which stands for "DAOs with Others.")

You can listen to the podcast conversation with Ruth Catlow here.

The basic challenge, said Arnold, is "to bust the myth of fashion," said Arnold. "Essentially, the whole system is held up by the myths that are projected out to us through marketing." For Fashion Act Now, the industry needs a cultural makeover. It needs to stop marketing fantasies that the latest clothes will bring happiness, sexual satisfaction, social privilege, and protection from real world problems. The industry also needs to wean itself away from "fast fashion" production cycles that produce astonishing quantities of cheap clothing that quickly ends up in landfills.     

Fashion Act Now asks: Why not develop a system that produces durable, high-quality garments that reflect local traditions and needs?

For Sandra Niessen, a Dutch-Canadian fashion scholar and activist, it's important to call out the colonial dimensions of fashion that persist to this day. The industry's exploitation of the global South is most vividly evident in its use of low-paid sweatshop labor. But it is also seen in the dominance of global clothing markets and cultural norms, which inexorably subvert local garment production and customs. To be smart, modern and socially admired, according to the fashion industry, people must reject one's native clothing system and embrace European and American styles of dress (through consumerism, of course).

In her decades of work with Batak indigenous textile weavers in North Sumatra, Indonesia, Niessen has seen the steady decline of traditional clothing designs and practices. "A whole ethnic group and tradition has been turned into a 'sacrifice zone' for capital-F Fashion. Fashion is a huge thief. It steals indigenous peoples' designs. It steals well-being by harming the physical environment. It's stealing the past by glossing it over with its glitzy exterior."

Niessen cites the artificial creation of "coolness" through advertising as an essential pillar of capitalist fashion: "When you think about clothing, do we really need that sense of 'cool'?  That's exactly what the fashion system does, and that's how it co-opts [everything] all the time. When you think about it, fashion is planned obsolescence. It's the movement from one design to the next to the next, and the faster that happens, the greater profits a company can accrue. If you don't have advertising and consumers running after the next thing, you don't have capitalist fashion any more."

The fashion industry can become sustainable only if it comes to terms with this truth, Niessen asserted. Interestingly, Vogue Business, a trade publication, recently offered a sympathetic, well-reported profile of degrowth activists in fashion. The piece, by Bella Webb, pointed to a number of serious degrowth initiatives, such as the 2019 manifesto by Professor Katie Fletcher, "The Earth Logic Fashion Action Research Plan."

Some might worry that degrowth in fashion will result in far less creativity in clothing design. Niessen bluntly rejects this argument: "There are thousands of clothing systems in the world. It's just that the particular clothing system in the West, associated with one economic system, has blown its culture out of proportion and given it a global reach. If you think about degrowth -- shrinking the industry down to size and focusing again on locality -- you will see a return of pluriversality in clothing design," she said. The system will become "so much richer [in creativity] than the existing fashion system." which has turned the entire world into a single, more homogeneous market.

While degrowth initiatives in fashion are still in their early stages, they are offering some remarkably innovative approaches to reduce consumption, encourage repair and re-use of clothing, and promote local self-sufficiency.

For example, the London Urban Textiles Commons provides "regenerative textiles" to clothing makers. Upcycling clothing and repair services for old clothing are emerging, such as Dr. Amy Twigger Holroyd's project, ReKnit, which encourages people to reknit the knitwear in their wardrobes.

Holroyd, a professor at Nottingham Trent University, also hosts a network of makers, curators and academics focused on craft practices, at the Crafting the Commons website.  The Linen Project in the Netherlands is experimenting with small-scale, local agriculture to produce flax, used in making linen cloth, with the goal of producing garments that are homemade, artisanal, and sustainable.

You can listen to my interview with Sara Arnold and Sandra Nissen here.

The basic challenge, said Arnold, is "to bust the myth of fashion," said Arnold. "Essentially, the whole system is held up by the myths that are projected out to us through marketing." For Fashion Act Now, the industry needs a cultural makeover. It needs to stop marketing fantasies that the latest clothes will bring happiness, sexual satisfaction, social privilege, and protection from real world problems. The industry also needs to wean itself away from "fast fashion" production cycles that produce astonishing quantities of cheap clothing that quickly ends up in landfills.     

Fashion Act Now asks: Why not develop a system that produces durable, high-quality garments that reflect local traditions and needs?

For Sandra Niessen, a Dutch-Canadian fashion scholar and activist, it's important to call out the colonial dimensions of fashion that persist to this day. The industry's exploitation of the global South is most vividly evident in its use of low-paid sweatshop labor. But it is also seen in the dominance of global clothing markets and cultural norms, which inexorably subvert local garment production and customs. To be smart, modern and socially admired, according to the fashion industry, people must reject one's native clothing system and embrace European and American styles of dress (through consumerism, of course).

In her decades of work with Batak indigenous textile weavers in North Sumatra, Indonesia, Niessen has seen the steady decline of traditional clothing designs and practices. "A whole ethnic group and tradition has been turned into a 'sacrifice zone' for capital-F Fashion. Fashion is a huge thief. It steals indigenous peoples' designs. It steals well-being by harming the physical environment. It's stealing the past by glossing it over with its glitzy exterior."

Niessen cites the artificial creation of "coolness" through advertising as an essential pillar of capitalist fashion: "When you think about clothing, do we really need that sense of 'cool'?  That's exactly what the fashion system does, and that's how it co-opts [everything] all the time. When you think about it, fashion is planned obsolescence. It's the movement from one design to the next to the next, and the faster that happens, the greater profits a company can accrue. If you don't have advertising and consumers running after the next thing, you don't have capitalist fashion any more."

The fashion industry can become sustainable only if it comes to terms with this truth, Niessen asserted. Interestingly, Vogue Business, a trade publication, recently offered a sympathetic, well-reported profile of degrowth activists in fashion. The piece, by Bella Webb, pointed to a number of serious degrowth initiatives, such as the 2019 manifesto by Professor Katie Fletcher, "The Earth Logic Fashion Action Research Plan."

Some might worry that degrowth in fashion will result in far less creativity in clothing design. Niessen bluntly rejects this argument: "There are thousands of clothing systems in the world. It's just that the particular clothing system in the West, associated with one economic system, has blown its culture out of proportion and given it a global reach. If you think about degrowth -- shrinking the industry down to size and focusing again on locality -- you will see a return of pluriversality in clothing design," she said. The system will become "so much richer [in creativity] than the existing fashion system." which has turned the entire world into a single, more homogeneous market.

While degrowth initiatives in fashion are still in their early stages, they are offering some remarkably innovative approaches to reduce consumption, encourage repair and re-use of clothing, and promote local self-sufficiency.

For example, the London Urban Textiles Commons provides "regenerative textiles" to clothing makers. Upcycling clothing and repair services for old clothing are emerging, such as Dr. Amy Twigger Holroyd's project, ReKnit, which encourages people to reknit the knitwear in their wardrobes.

Holroyd, a professor at Nottingham Trent University, also hosts a network of makers, curators and academics focused on craft practices, at the Crafting the Commons website.  The Linen Project in the Netherlands is experimenting with small-scale, local agriculture to produce flax, used in making linen cloth, with the goal of producing garments that are homemade, artisanal, and sustainable.

You can listen to my interview with Sara Arnold and Sandra Nissen here.

Special attention is paid to six key economic sectors: Land and Housing, Food and Agriculture, Energy, Work, Social Care and Finance, with the following overarching themes:

• resilience over economic growth
• co-operation over competition
• sufficiency over efficiency
• well-being over the right to possess
• fairness and equity over the primacy of markets, trade, and capital
• decentralized and democratic ownership over centralized power and private ownership
• the commons over the rights of private property, and
• our dependence upon nature over our right to dominate it. 

The full fee for the course is CA$140, but for those who can't afford that there is a reduced fee of CA$70, and a solidarity fee to ensure that anyone interested can participate.

The Synergia Co-operative Institute is an international network of experienced practitioners and educators who are focused on catalyzing system-change. The Institute was cofounded by three Canadians -- John Restakis, Michael Lewis, Mike Gismondi -- and American money and finance expert Pat Conaty, each of whom has extensive experience with co-operatives, community development, and community education.

More info at the Synergia website or at synergiainstitute /at/gmail.com.

Special attention is paid to six key economic sectors: Land and Housing, Food and Agriculture, Energy, Work, Social Care and Finance, with the following overarching themes:

• resilience over economic growth
• co-operation over competition
• sufficiency over efficiency
• well-being over the right to possess
• fairness and equity over the primacy of markets, trade, and capital
• decentralized and democratic ownership over centralized power and private ownership
• the commons over the rights of private property, and
• our dependence upon nature over our right to dominate it. 

The full fee for the course is CA$140, but for those who can't afford that there is a reduced fee of CA$70, and a solidarity fee to ensure that anyone interested can participate.

The Synergia Co-operative Institute is an international network of experienced practitioners and educators who are focused on catalyzing system-change. The Institute was cofounded by three Canadians -- John Restakis, Michael Lewis, Mike Gismondi -- and American money and finance expert Pat Conaty, each of whom has extensive experience with co-operatives, community development, and community education.

More info at the Synergia website or at synergiainstitute /at/gmail.com.

As an adolescent, I was rocked by The Whole Earth Catalog because it showcased dozens of gritty, obscure, back-to-the-earth experiments. It was also empowering. It said in effect, “You can be more than a passive consumer or anonymous onlooker. You can do cool and significant things yourself, and bring about serious change by heeding your own intuitions and mobilizing your talents. Here’s what other ordinary people are already doing, right now!” 

And so, in this new Catalog, I have tried to call attention to notable peer-driven projects, organizations, websites, books, movements, and individuals. They are a cultural vanguard that more people need to know about. After all, these initiatives are going to help us get through the transitions being driven by unsustainable and unjust market extractivism, relentless economic growth, and climate change.

We may know about one or another example, but it's the broad sweep of such projects that is so amazing.Your entire perspective changes when you can see how community land trusts can open up land to more eco-minded farming and more affordable housing -- how open source platforms and platform cooperatives are empowering workers and users -- how Indigenous models of land and water stewardship offer guidance to us -- and how artistic commons are helping artists reclaim control of their creativity and livelihoods.

I like to quote the Belgian designer Thomas Lommée, who declared, "The next big thing will be a lot of small things." This should be the rallying cry for remaking politics and government, whose fragile, centralized power is increasingly dysfunctional, unjust, cruel, and incapable of dealing with distributed complexity.

If you're already a commoner, or know of folks who would love to learn more, please help spread the word about The Commoner's Catalog. We need to hoist up some new visions of change beyond those declared by the market/state, start some new discussions, find each other, begin new collaborations, and take the commons to a higher level.

As an adolescent, I was rocked by The Whole Earth Catalog because it showcased dozens of gritty, obscure, back-to-the-earth experiments. It was also empowering. It said in effect, “You can be more than a passive consumer or anonymous onlooker. You can do cool and significant things yourself, and bring about serious change by heeding your own intuitions and mobilizing your talents. Here’s what other ordinary people are already doing, right now!” 

And so, in this new Catalog, I have tried to call attention to notable peer-driven projects, organizations, websites, books, movements, and individuals. They are a cultural vanguard that more people need to know about. After all, these initiatives are going to help us get through the transitions being driven by unsustainable and unjust market extractivism, relentless economic growth, and climate change.

We may know about one or another example, but it's the broad sweep of such projects that is so amazing.Your entire perspective changes when you can see how community land trusts can open up land to more eco-minded farming and more affordable housing -- how open source platforms and platform cooperatives are empowering workers and users -- how Indigenous models of land and water stewardship offer guidance to us -- and how artistic commons are helping artists reclaim control of their creativity and livelihoods.

I like to quote the Belgian designer Thomas Lommée, who declared, "The next big thing will be a lot of small things." This should be the rallying cry for remaking politics and government, whose fragile, centralized power is increasingly dysfunctional, unjust, cruel, and incapable of dealing with distributed complexity.

If you're already a commoner, or know of folks who would love to learn more, please help spread the word about The Commoner's Catalog. We need to hoist up some new visions of change beyond those declared by the market/state, start some new discussions, find each other, begin new collaborations, and take the commons to a higher level.