Research Project:
Commonification: transition pathways for urban sustainability (COMMONPATHS)

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crisfund.leadorganizationsInstitute of Geography, Political Urbanism and Sustainable Spatial Development
crispj.coinvestigator.affiliationInstitute of Geography, Human Geography
crispj.coinvestigator.affiliationInstitute of Geography, Political Urbanism and Sustainable Spatial Development
crispj.coinvestigator.affiliationInstitute of Geography, Political Urbanism and Sustainable Spatial Development
crispj.coinvestigator.affiliationInstitute of Geography, Political Urbanism and Sustainable Spatial Development
crispj.coinvestigator.affiliationInstitute of Geography, Political Urbanism and Sustainable Spatial Development
crispj.coinvestigator.affiliationInstitute of Geography
crispj.coinvestigator.affiliationCentre for Development and Environment (CDE)
crispj.coinvestigator.affiliationCentre for Development and Environment (CDE)
crispj.coinvestigator.affiliationCentre for Development and Environment (CDE)
crispj.coinvestigator.affiliationCentre for Development and Environment (CDE) - Just Economies & Human Well Being
crispj.coinvestigator.affiliationCentre for Development and Environment (CDE) - Just Economies & Human Well Being
crispj.coinvestigator.affiliationCentre for Development and Environment (CDE) - Just Economies & Human Well Being
crispj.coinvestigator.affiliationInstitute of Geography
crispj.coinvestigatorsAy, Deniz
crispj.coinvestigatorsAgyekum, Samuel
crispj.coinvestigatorsGuisan, Adrien Olivier Theodore
crispj.coinvestigatorsBassett, Priscilla Pambana Gutto
crispj.coinvestigatorsChoffat, Leandra Maria
crispj.coinvestigatorsLiu, Tianzhu
crispj.coinvestigatorsOberlack, Christoph
crispj.coinvestigatorsGammelgaard, Johanna
crispj.coinvestigatorsMoser, Stephanie
crispj.coinvestigatorsGurtner, Lilla
crispj.coinvestigatorsPedrazzini, Sabina Elisa
crispj.coinvestigatorsAggrey, Vincent
crispj.coinvestigatorsDarkwah, Akosua Keseboa
crispj.coinvestigatorsTola, Miriam
crispj.coinvestigatorsBrown, Amelia
crispj.coinvestigatorsQuick, Ross
crispj.coinvestigatorsDallimer, Martin
crispj.coordinatorInstitute of Geography, Political Urbanism and Sustainable Spatial Development
crispj.investigatorGerber, Jean-David
crispj.investigator.affiliationInstitute of Geography
crispj.partnerouCentre for Development and Environment (CDE) - Just Economies & Human Well Being
crispj.partnerouUniversity of Ghana
crispj.partnerouUniversity of Leeds
crispj.partnerouAustrian Academy of Sciences
crispj.partnerouJohn Cabot University
crispj.partnerouErasmus University Rotterdam
crispj.partnerouInstitute of Geography, Political Urbanism and Sustainable Spatial Development
dc.date.accessioned2025-03-31T08:47:37Z
dc.date.available2025-03-31T08:47:37Z
dc.description.abstractThe growing pace of resource consumption and inequalities in urban areas in the Global North and the Global South poses urgent socio-ecological problems of sustainability. With growing worldwide urbanization, a drastic reduction of resource consumption is necessary to achieve a more just future for all human beings within the planetary boundaries. COMMONPATHS considers how urban commons institutions (UCI) contribute to confronting these challenges in Ghana and Switzerland. UCIs are defined as innovative forms of self-organization among urban resource users which (a) generate collective institutional arrangements supporting shared ownership, shared decision-making, and shared responsibilities, and (b) promote social practices leading to a sense of community (e.g. belonging, engagement, identity), as prerequisites for (c) decommodifying human-nature interactions.Significance. In line with new institutionalism, COMMONPATHS considers sustainability challenges to be institutional issues: the rules of the game emerging in UCIs can potentially provide long-term solutions to sustainable resource management beyond the dichotomy of the state and the market. COMMONPATHS goes one step further and claims that UCIs may even be forms of social-economic organizations that (1) can make transformations toward a postgrowth organization of society socially, ecologically, and economically acceptable, and (2) counteract or reinforce important megatrends impacting urban sustainability. The overarching questions are: how do commonification processes influence urban sustainability by providing new solutions beyond market and state inabilities? Which transition pathways lead to their (un)successful development? And what is their transformative potential as well as limitations?Main goals. COMMONPATHS aims to better understand the emergence, organization, effects, and conditions of success of 3 trends of commonification aimed at (1) greening cities, (2) creating affordable housing and (3) supporting community agri-food initiatives. Focusing on the governance of these 3 resource systems, COMMONPATHS aims to analyse the conditions under which these movements effectively contribute to strong urban sustainability. COMMONPATHS opts for a strong definition of sustainability, which recognizes the potential contradictions between endless economic growth and planetary boundaries.This interdisciplinary analysis will first result in new design principles of sustainable commonification of resource governance in urban settings. Design principles are those features of institutions and resource systems that are associated with strong sustainability. Second, COMMONPATHS will develop a typology of transition pathways toward commonification and interrogate the political-economic dimension of urban commonification. Third, if UCIs are able to create “islands of decommodification” in urban landscapes otherwise dominated by profit seeking behaviours, their study will provide an empirically-grounded contribution to debates on postgrowth organisation of societies.Research approach & implementation. Achieving these ambitious objectives requires an inter- and transdisciplinary approach. We build on the tight collaboration of complementary disciplines: (1) urban geography and institutional analysis, (2) individual behavioural perspectives and transition studies, (3) political ecology and intersectionality and (4) urban ecology. These disciplinary approaches span natural and social sciences, qualitative and quantitative research, individual- and social-focused interpretations, and empirical and theoretical approaches. COMMONPATHS is divided into three main phases. The first one will provide an overview of commonification initiatives aimed at greening cities, creating affordable housing, and providing community-led sustainable food. In a second phase we will perform indepth case studies in Ghana and Switzerland which will provide detailed information on causal relationships between variables and identify key variables, mechanisms, and outcomes. A third phase will use pathbreaking archetype methodology to identify patterns out of the initiatives investigated in phase 1, generate design principles of sustainable commonification, and evaluate generalization (upscaling) potential. Conditions for an urban postgrowth society will be explored in dedicated transdisciplinary workshops, as well as contributions to counteract/reinforce 4 megatrends impacting urban sustainability.
dc.description.sponsorshipCentre for Development and Environment (CDE) - Just Economies & Human Well Being
dc.description.sponsorshipJohn Cabot University
dc.description.sponsorshipUniversity of Leeds
dc.description.sponsorshipInstitute of Geography
dc.description.sponsorshipCRED - Geographie
dc.description.sponsorshipInstitute of Geography, Human Geography
dc.description.sponsorshipInstitute of Geography, Political Urbanism and Sustainable Spatial Development
dc.description.sponsorshipInstitute of Geography
dc.description.sponsorshipCentre for Development and Environment (CDE) - Just Economies & Human Well Being
dc.description.sponsorshipCentre for Development and Environment (CDE)
dc.description.sponsorshipUniversity of Ghana
dc.description.sponsorshipErasmus University Rotterdam
dc.description.sponsorshipUniversity of Bern
dc.description.sponsorshipAustrian Academy of Sciences
dc.description.sponsorshipInstitute of Geography, Human Geography
dc.description.sponsorshipCentre for Development and Environment (CDE)
dc.description.sponsorshipCentre for Development and Environment (CDE)
dc.identifier.urihttps://boris-portal.unibe.ch/handle/20.500.12422/208417
dc.language.isoen
dc.relation.funding209446
dc.relation.publicationWho engages in commons? Analysis of socioeconomic characteristics and motivations
dc.relation.publicationWhat Motivates Individuals or Groups to Engage in Commons Initiatives? A Scoping Review
dc.relation.publicationRapport de la réunion transdisciplinaire du projet Commonpaths pour les partenaires de recherche
dc.relation.publicationHow can commons contribute to a transformation towards degrowth? A literature review
dc.relation.publicationHousing as commons? A scoping review (1990-2023)
dc.relation.publicationHousing as a commons? Self-governance and decommodification as the foundations of a new common good.
dc.relation.publicationNavigating Challenges in Commoning Processes: Understanding Individual Dynamics
dc.subject.ddc900 - History::910 - Geography & travel
dc.subject.keywordsCommons
dc.subject.keywordsSustainability
dc.subject.keywordsTransition
dc.subject.keywordsDecommodification
dc.subject.keywordsCity
dc.subject.keywordsResource
dc.subject.keywordsConsumption
dc.subject.keywordsGlobal North
dc.subject.keywordsGlobal South
dc.subject.keywordsInequality
dc.titleCommonification: transition pathways for urban sustainability (COMMONPATHS)
dspace.entity.typeProject
local.fakeitemtrue
local.submitter
oairecerif.acronymCOMMONPATHS
oairecerif.amount3199999
oairecerif.amount.currencyCHF
oairecerif.funderSchweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung
oairecerif.funding.endDate2027-03-31
oairecerif.funding.startDate2023-04-01
oairecerif.fundingParentCommonification: transition pathways for urban sustainability (COMMONPATHS)
oairecerif.identifier.urlhttps://data.snf.ch/grants/grant/209446
oairecerif.project.startDate2023-04-01
unibe.additional.sponsorshipInstitute of Geography, Human Geography
unibe.additional.sponsorshipInstitute of Geography
unibe.additional.sponsorshipCRED - Geographie
unibe.contractorouInstitute of Geography, Political Urbanism and Sustainable Spatial Development
unibe.funding.accesstypePublic
unibe.funding.creditholderGerber, Jean-David
unibe.funding.fundertypePublic
unibe.funding.fundrefdoihttps://doi.org/10.13039/501100001711
unibe.funding.fundrefid501100001711
unibe.funding.typePublic Grant
unibe.manager.affiliationInstitute of Geography
unibe.primaryconductorUniversity of Bern
unibe.primarycontact.affiliationInstitute of Geography
unibe.project.expectedcompletionDate2027-03-31
unibe.project.managerGerber, Jean-David
unibe.project.primarycontactGerber, Jean-David

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