Recherche sémantique

Rights in Common aims at documenting the place of law based on commons in the context of the Rio+20 negociations.
During 2011, the preparation of the United Nations conference on sustainable development (Rio+20) with the Rio+20 french collective and the participants of the World Social Forum, lead us to suggest making the rights based on the commons a skyline of social demand at the international scale. But as a prerequisite we’d have to be able to explicit the contents of these rights and forsee how these would be implemented and enforced.
To try to answer this question, a <a href="http://wiki.remixthecommons.org/index.php/Des_droits_bas%C3%A9s_sur_les_biens_communs"> first text </ a> was written by Silke Helfrich and Frédéric Sultan after the Social Forum in Porto Alegre.

The remix project « Rights in Commons » is the continuation of this work by means of video and the remix made from video recordings of the United Nations conference and of the Peoples Summit.

Futur development

The Rights in Commons project move on by the organization of a workshop during the Economics, Commons Conference on May the 22nd 2013 in Berlin. It’s about continuing the ellaboration work initiated and particularly test the underling hypotheses on various domains and use cases, to reach a more global vision.

Collaborators

Frédéric Sultan is coordinator of this project. Emiliano Bazan has taken charge of the video production.

Financing

The Rights in Commons project gets financial support from the « Fonds Francophone des inforoutes » through the project Remix the Commons.

Role of Remix the Commons

Remix the Commons has been a space facilitating cooperation between Communautique and VECAM to produce videos during the Peoples Summit at Rio+20.

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Pour Étienne Le Roy, l’anthropologie est la science de l’homme parce que fondamentalement science de l’autre. « J’ai souvent commenté cette observation de Jean-Jacques Rousseau dans son ‘Essai sur l’origine des langues’, que cite Claude Lévi-Strauss: ‘Quand on veut étudier les hommes, il faut regarder près de soi; mais pour étudier l’homme, il faut apprendre à porter sa vue au loin; il faut d’abord observer les différences pour découvrir les propriétés.’ Au sens de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, découvrir les propriétés, c’est mettre à jour les attributs de l’homme, les critères qui en fondent l’humanité dans leur plus grande généralité. Mais on ne pourra s’empêcher, dans un ouvrage consacré à l’appropriation de la terre et, pour une part, au régime de ‘propriété’ foncière, d’user de l’ambivalence de la dernière phrase (observer les différences pour découvrir les propriétés) et ainsi justifier un point de vue qui use d’un regard sur l’autre pour découvrir le sens que les hommes donnent, généralement mais aussi spécifiquement, au cas par cas, aux rapports de propriété. »

Étienne Le Roy « Le choix d’une démarche anthropologique pour traiter des régimes d’appropriation des terres et des ressources m’a conduit à plusieurs options de méthode et, en particulier, a obligé le lecteur à entrer dans l’étude du droit de propriété par la prise de conscience que cette forme juridique ne fait que traduire procéduralement une représentation du monde, de l’homme et de la nature originale et profondément liée à l’expérience de la modernité en Occident. Pour répondre à la vocation de l’anthropologie de réunir une connaissance valable pour l’ensemble du développement humain, il convenait de traiter analogiquement les autres civilisations et chercher derrière les réponses coutumières ou rituelles les représentations de l’espace qu’elles véhiculaient. »

Dans cette interview réalisée à Paris le 4 mars 2014, Étienne Le Roy, tout en présentant ses travaux sur les régimes d’appropriation foncière synthétisés dans son ouvrage ‘La terre de l’autre », nous introduit au coeur de l’anthropologie du droit francophone qu’il a participé à fondée et éveille notre curiosité de commoner sensible aux mécanismes juridiques et à ce qui les fait advenir dans la société d’interroger autrement, et dans le partage avec d’autres, le monde dans lequel nous vivons.

« L’autre n’est pas un vide à remplir. C’est une plénitude à découvrir. » Christoph Eberhard

The <a href="https://wiki.remixthecommons.org/index.php/Petit_d%C3%A9jeuner_en_commun_(Coll)">Breakfasts in-Common </a>process was initiated by Senegal’s « Centre d’Art Senegalais Kër Thiossane » and Quebec’s « Communautique », as part of the project Remix the Commons.

Born from a research dynamic about endogenous definitions of commons, Breakfasts in-Common bring occasions to think collectively about what commons mean, from an artistic approach. The goal of these meetings whether in Dakar or Montréal is not only to understand but also to feel the meaning difference that exists between my « I » and the « we » of a collective process. A sensitive approach that allows to craft stories able to give some meaning to the fact of living together. Stories that help maintain the community in motion and give a purpose to one’s own existence and thriving.

First light in Dakar

From January 2012, in Dakar, in a violent pre-election context, in the midst of doubts about the constitution and the rise of citizenship awareness in all Senegal, Kër Thiossane started an exploratory work around Commons by organizing Breakfasts in-Common in a monthy cycle.

Three Breakfasts in-Common were organized between January and April 2012 on the subjects « The commons in African cities » ; « Commons and space » and « Languages and knowledge ».

These Breakfasts in-Common were moments of gathering and exchanges constituting by themselves a practice of the « in-Common », where each participates in sharing knowledge in a horizontal dynamic.

Each Breakfast started by viewing a film produced by the Kër Thiossane team on an artist and his or her questioning about one aspect of the Commons in the Senegalese society.

Some of the films and extracts from the breakfasts recordings are available online on the Kër Thiossane website, along with a toolbox of books, texts, interviews that anyone is welcomed to enrich with their own contributions via a wiki or at a breakfast in-Common.

Afropixel Festival
This material, accumulated since early 2012 and the thinking initiated among the artistic community and the inhabitants was used to prepare a variety of activities, residences, workshops and performances at the time of the Afropixel festival as part of the theme « Creation, culture and knowledge in Common », that took place in may 2012.

Among this diverse and rich programming, Kër Thiossane gathered great African thinkers and artists to elaborate collectively on the question of « Artistic responsibility in the construction of the in-Common ».

All around a glass of tea, Achille Mbembe, Simon Njami, Ken Bugul, Kan-Si, Felwine Sarr, Thiat and Ibrahima Wane took part in what was not an expert group but rather a meeting where everyone’s expertise was to profit the collective thinking that was woven along the talks.

Kédougou, until where is your place ?

In 2013, the Breakfasts in-Common keep on with the collaboration of the collective « La companyía (http://www.lacompanyia.org/). They delocalize with a first breakfast outside Dakar in March as part of the « Night of the stars » festival organised by the Multimedia Community center of Kédougou.

Taking the same theme as the festival, « Kédougou, until where is your place ? », we investigated on the problematic of the Kédougou region associated with Commons. The opening of the question « where is your place » allowed to approach the questions about managing natural resources in a boundary region rich in gold and ore, as well as belonging and building of communities.

Futur development

The Breakfasts in-Common and the Afropixel festival organized so far have drawn a great interest, as much from artists and members of the civil society as from citizens, in Senegal. Seeds were sown and a real awareness of the stake of Commons invites us to continue these meetings in an even more open way, about other aspects of Commons, with the objective to enable and widen this collective thinking space.
In 2013-2014, Kër Thiossane would like to organize other breakfasts at regular intervals and repeat more of the delocalised experiments, outside Dakar, in partnership with Senegal’s community radios network.

These experiments with continue to be filmed, documented and shared with Communautique in Montréal and other partners, actors of commons elsewhere in the world (Finland, Colombia…). Videos and other documents from these with be posted online on the Remix the commons platform.

Collaborators

Marion Louisgrand Sylla (Ker Thiossane). Susana Moliner – Marta Vallejo Herrando ( La Companiya),

Financing

The Breakfasts in-Common receives financial support from the « Fonds Francophone des inforoutes » through the project Remix the Commons.
The production of the Breakfasts in-Common in Dakar was made possible thanks to the financial support from Arts Collaboratory and the « Organisation Internationale de la Froncophonie in Kër Thiossane.

Contribution of Remix the Commons

Remix the Commons contributed in the onset of the project and spread the word of it’s existance among commoners. Remix the Commons supports formalisation of the process and the deployement of a network of similar practices.