Abstract 

As different manifestations of the mainstream growth and development paradigm prevail, communities across the globe continue to face a multiplicity of challenges in their efforts to build meaningful, sustainable, more-than-human lives. Interrelated climate, health, and economic crises deepen injustices and inequalities; societal fabrics and sustainability of social-ecological systems are threatened. Through exemplary cases from Wisconsin to Bengaluru, in our collective keynote consisting of five individual yet interrelated talks we take the audience through some of the social-ecological challenges we observe and study in our research. We present how a selection of affected communities responds to these challenges. We thereby focus on the role of commons and institutional approaches in communities’ efforts to navigate equitable social-ecological transformations that are aligned with their lifeworlds.

This is the first talk that members of the IASC-Early Career Network give jointly. While we come from multiple backgrounds and pursue diverse research interests, we are unified in our passion for commons research and institutional diversity. In this talk, we want to stress the ever-growing importance of commons research and work in rethinking collective goals and governing shared resources.