The Commons in a Glocal World: Global Connections and Local Responses

527 Pages·2019·28.22 MB·English

by  Tobias Haller, Thomas Breu, Tine De Moor, Christian Rohr, Heinzpeter Znoj

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The Commons in a Glocal World
This volume focuses on how, in Europe, the debate on the commons is discussed in regard
to historical and contemporary dimensions, critically referencing the work of Elinor
Ostrom. It also explores from the perspective of new institutional political ecology (NIPE)
how Europe directly and indirectly affected and affects the commons globally.
Most of the research on the management of commons pool resources is limited to dealing
with one of two topics: either the interaction between local participatory governance and
development of institutions for commons management, or a political- economy approach
that focuses on global change as it is related to the increasingly globalised expansion of
capitalist modes of production, consumption and societal reproduction. This volume
bridges the two, addressing how global players affect the commons worldwide and how
they relate to responses emerging from within the commons in a global-l ocal (glocal)
world. Authors from a range of academic disciplines present research findings on
recent developments on the commons, including: historical insights; new innovations
for participatory institutions building in Europe or several types of commons grabbing,
especially in Africa related to European investments; and restrictions on the management
of commons at the international level. European case studies are included, providing
interesting examples of local participation in commons resource management, while
simultaneously showing Europe as a centre for globalized capitalism and its norms and
values, affecting the rest of the world, particularly developing countries.
This book will be of interest to students and researchers from a wide range of disciplines
including natural resource management, environmental governance, political geography
and environmental history.
Tobias Haller is Professor at the Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Bern,
Switzerland.
Thomas Breu is Director, Centre for Development and Environment, and Executive
Director, International Graduate School North- South, University of Bern, Switzerland.
Tine De Moor is a Professor in the Department of Social and Economic History, Utrecht
University, the Netherlands.
Christian Rohr is Professor of Environmental and Climate History, University of Bern,
Switzerland.
Heinzpeter Znoj is Professor at the Institute of Social Anthropology and director of
the Board of the Center for Development and Environment at the University of Bern,
Switzerland.
ii
Earthscan Studies in Natural Resource Management

Southern African Landscapes and Environmental Change
Edited by Peter Holmes and John Boardman
Large Carnivore Conservation and Management
Human Dimensions
Edited by Tasos Hovardas
Forest Management Auditing
Certification of Forest Products and Services
Edited by Lucio Brotto and Davide Pettenella
Agricultural Land Use and Natural Gas Extraction Conflicts
A Global Socio- Legal Perspective
Madeline Taylor and Tina Hunter
Tropical Bioproductivity
Origins and Distribution in a Globalized World
David Hammond
The Commons in a Glocal World
Global Connections and Local Responses
Edited by Tobias Haller, Thomas Breu, Tine De Moor, Christian Rohr
and Heinzpeter Znoj
Natural Resource Conflicts and Sustainable Development
Edited by E. Gunilla Almered Olsson and Pernille Gooch
For more information on books in the Earthscan Studies in Natural Resource
Management series, please visit the series page on the Routledge website:
www.routledge.com/ books/ series/ ECNRM/
ii i
The Commons in a

Glocal World
Global Connections and Local Responses
Edited by Tobias Haller, Thomas Breu,
Tine De Moor, Christian Rohr and
Heinzpeter Znoj
iv
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 selection and editorial matter, Tobias Haller, Thomas Breu, Tine De Moor,
Christian Rohr and Heinzpeter Znoj; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Tobias Haller, Thomas Breu, Tine De Moor, Christian Rohr and
Heinzpeter Znoj to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of
the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
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British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Haller, Tobias, editor. | Breu, Thomas, editor. | Moor, Tine De,
editor. | Rohr, Christian, editor. | Znoj, Heinzpeter, editor.
Title: The commons in a glocal world : global connections and local responses /
edited by Tobias Haller, Thomas Breu, Tine De Moor, Christian Rohr, Heinzpeter Znoj.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2019. |
Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018058038 (print) | LCCN 2019006288 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781351050982 (eBook) | ISBN 9781138484818 (hbk) |
ISBN 9781351050982 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Commons. | Glocalization. | International business enterprises. |
International organizations.
Classification: LCC HD1286 (ebook) |
LCC HD1286 .C638 2019 (print) | DDC 333.2–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018058038
ISBN: 978- 1- 138- 48481- 8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978- 1- 351- 05098- 2 (ebk)
Typeset in Goudy
by Newgen Publishing UK
v
Contents

List of illustrations ix
List of contributors xiv
Acknowledgements xxiv
Introduction: commons in a ‘glocal’ world 1
TOBIAS HALLER, THOMAS BREU, CHRISTIAN ROHR, TINE DE MOOR
AND HEINZPETER ZNOJ
PART I
Key reflections: new theoretical issues on the commons and
their transformations 21

1 Shared ownership as a key issue of Swiss history: common-pool
resources, common property institutions and their impact on the
political culture of Switzerland from the beginnings to our days 23
DANIEL SCHLÄPPI
2 Social causality of our common climate crisis: towards a
sociodicy for the Anthropocene 34
JESSE RIBOT
3 Disruption, community, and resilient governance: environmental
justice in the Anthropocene 54
DAVID SCHLOSBERG
4 A definition of the commons, between human rights, resistance,
and social change 72
ELISABETTA CANGELOSI
5 Towards a new institutional political ecology: how to marry
external effects, institutional change and the role of power and
ideology in commons studies 90
TOBIAS HALLER
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vi Contents
PART II
European examples from past and present 121

SECTION 2.1
Historical approaches
6 Common challenges, different fates. The causal factors of
failure or success in the commons: the pre- modern
Brecklands (England) and the Campine (Southern Low
Countries) compared 123
MAÏKA DE KEYZER
7 For the common good: regulating the Lake Constance fisheries
from 1350 to 1800 141
MICHAEL ZEHETER
8 The commons in highland and lowland Switzerland over
time: transformations in their organisation and survival
strategies (seventeenth to twentieth century) 156
ANNE-L ISE HEAD-K ÖNIG
9 From natural supply to financial yields: the common
fields of the Bernese Civic Corporation since the
seventeenth century 173
MARTIN STUBER AND SARAH BAUMGARTNER
SECTION 2.2
Current commons and innovation issues
10 Universal values and the protection of commons: fighting
corruption with bottom- up process in Mallorca 192
RAMEZ EID
11 Constitutionality and identity: bottom- up institution
building and identity among Coastal Sami in
Northern Norway 210
ANGELIKA LÄTSCH
12 Swiss alpine pastures as common property: a success story of
bottom- up institution- building in Sumvitg, Canton of Grisons,
Switzerland 233
GABRIELA LANDOLT
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Contents vii
PART III
Features and effects of global (e.g. European) investments on
commons in the world 255

SECTION 3.1
‘Land grabbing’ and the commons
13 Impacts of large- scale land acquisitions on common- pool
resources: evidence from the Land Matrix 257
MARKUS GIGER, KERSTIN NOLTE, WARD ANSEEUW, THOMAS BREU,
WYTSKE CHAMBERLAIN, PETER MESSERLI, CHRISTOPH OBERLACK
AND TOBIAS HALLER
14 “They said they were bringing a development project”:
‘best- practice’ large- scale land acquisition or
‘commons grabbing’ in Ghana’s Volta Region? 280
KRISTINA LANZ
15 Grabbing the female commons: large-s cale land acquisitions
for forest plantations and impacts on gender relations in
Kilolo district, Iringa Region, Tanzania 301
DÉSIRÉE GMÜR
16 Gendered impacts and coping strategies in the case of a
Swiss bioenergy project in Sierra Leone 318
FRANZISKA MARFURT
SECTION 3.2
Investments in infrastructure and mining
17 The open cut: mining, transnational corporations and the commons 336
THOMAS NIEDERBERGER, MADLEN KOBI AND TOBIAS HALLER
18 Are green energy investments levelled by the ‘new commons’?
Compensations, CSR measures and gendered impacts of a
solar energy project in Morocco 352
SARAH RYSER
SECTION 3.3
Green enclosures
19 Global changes in local governance of the commons: the case of
the African Parks Foundation engagement in Nech Sar National
Park, Ethiopia 376
GIRMA KELBORO AND TILL STELLMACHER
viii
viii Contents
20 Discourse and entanglement in a transnational conservation
arena: deciphering the ideologies and narratives behind
conservation discourse in the ‘glocal’ commons in Kenya 392
SAMUEL WEISSMAN
21 Rain forest anomy: national parks, REDD+ implementation and
the run to the forest in Jambi, Indonesia 414
HEINZPETER ZNOJ, RAHEL JUD AND YUDI BACHRIOKTORA
PART IV
Commons, privatisation and international law: 
the right to water 435

22 A structured checklist to identify connections between land
grabbing and water grabbing 437
INSA THEESFELD
23 International investment agreements and mega- regionals:
promoting or undermining the right to water? 454
RODRIGO POLANCO LAZO AND AZERNOOSH BAZRAFKAN
24 The human right to water in India: in search of an alternative
commons-b ased approach in the context of climate change 475
BIRSHA OHDEDAR
Index 493
ix
Illustrations

Figures
Part I
Top left: The communal soup kitchen of Ins (Switzerland), oil on
canvas, painting by Albert Anker 1893. Source: Kunstmuseum Bern. 21
Top right: Institutions for the management of the commons are often
contested. Picture by Tobias Haller. 21
Bottom left: Discussing poverty, access to the commons and climate
change in Senegal. Picture by Tobias Haller. 21
Bottom right: A women’s group that is part of the SPP (farmers union)
in Tasikmalaya district, Indonesia, September 2018. Picture by
Elisabetta Cangelosi. 21
1.1 The Federal Diet of Baden (not before 1597). Source: Chronik
von Andreas Ryff, Circkell der Eidtgnoschaft, fol. 173v– 174r,
Musée Historique de Mulhouse, coll. SIM, © photo Ville de
Mulhouse (Christian Kempf). 25
1.2 Carl Franz Kreuel, Distribvtio Oder Deütlich- und ordentliche
Außtheilung der neun Landvogteyen etc. Einsiedeln 1691.
Source: Universitätsbibliothek Basel, Sign. Falk 2947: 33. 30
2.1 Hazards model. 38
2.2 Vulnerability model. 39
2.3 Font- scaled distribution. 41
2.4 Painting by the Senegalese reverse-g lass painter Mor Gueye.
Source: Ribot 2017. 43
5.1 Modelling institutional change. Source: Jean Ensminger
(Ensminger 1992: 10), see also Haller ed. 2010, Haller 2013. 100
5.2 NIPE analysis of irrigation conflict. 111