[JoPP-Public] Call for Papers: Decentralizing the Commons

Mon Dec 14 02:20:52 CET 2015

Call for Papers: Decentralizing the Commons

We are witnessing today a steady growth in the impact of user-generated
content and peer-production on the so-called sharing or collaborative
economy. These emergent practices are an indicator of radical changes in
the mode of production in an age of ‘prosumerism’, characterized by two
main trends. On the one hand, corporations such as Google, Uber or Facebook
are capturing the value created by the actors contributing to the
collaborative economy, in a way that has been described by some scholars as
an exploitation of free labour. On the other hand, projects such as
Wikipedia or GNU/Linux are emblematic of a new model of production that
relies on the contribution of many individuals collaborating to a
collective project that is not owned by any given entity but rather by the
community as a whole (Commons-Based Peer Production or CBPP). These
individuals organise themselves  without relying on traditional
hierarchical and mercantile organisational structures, to produce a set of
commons resources which are made freely available to the public for use and
reuse. In the last few years, CBPP has expanded beyond the field of
software and encyclopedias to also cover the realms of  information
(OpenStreetMap, Wikihow), hardware (FabLabs, Open Source Ecology),
accommodation (Couchsurfing, BeWelcome) and currency (Bitcoin, Altcoins).

The concept of decentralisation is a key requisite for the protection of
thesecommons — from their governance system, including the allocation  of
power and functions in the organisation of labour; to the characteristics
of the socio-technical means  of collaboration, in terms of both the
underlying technical infrastructure and the ownership structure of such
infrastructure. Despite the original design of the Internet as a
decentralized network, with the advent of the Web 2.0, centralized (and
often proprietary) platforms — typically driven by corporate interests —
 have progressively taken over the web. These centralized choke-points can
be used by governments to increase surveillance (as disclosed by the
Snowden revelations), to blackout the Internet (e.g. Egypt, Syria, or San
Francisco’s BART), or to restrict the activities of activist organizations
(such as Wikileaks). It has now become clear that it is not enough to
develop free/libre/open source (FLOSS)alternatives, if we do not as well
endeavor to re-decentralize the Internet. Newdecentralized software tools
may ultimately be useful to support the operation and the long-term
sustainability of CBPP communities.

In view of this, we organised the second FLOSS4P2P workshop
<http://www.p2pvalue.eu/2nd-floss4p2p-workshop> (@Fablab London, supported
by P2Pvalue <http://p2pvalue.eu/>), gathering a wide spectrum of people
working ondecentralized FLOSS projects that could help or support the
activities of peer production communities. Given the success of the workshop
<http://p2pvalue.eu/floss4p2p-workshop-agenda>, we would like to prepare a
book in collaboration with the Institute of Network Cultures
<http://networkcultures.org/> (on the model of the former MoneyLab Reader
<http://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/moneylab-reader-an-intervention-in-digital-economy/>)
to explore the topic of decentralisation in thecommons sector.

We welcome proposals from academics, activists, researchers and
practitioners interested in exploring the topic from a wide set of
perspectives, ranging  from computer science, engineering, sociology,
philosophy, organisational theory, cultural studies, digital studies, etc.
Contributions can cover a variety of topics, including tools for grassroots
communities, commons-based peer production, both online and offline wikis,
maker culture, activism, hacktivism, free culture, citizen science and
hospitality exchange. Contributions can take a variety of formats, e.g. a
story, a sci-fi tale, a comicstrip, a manifesto, a critical essay, an
interview, a study, a poem, a conversation, a debate, a combination of the
former… we would like you to experiment and surprise us!

We invite you to submit an initial abstract (max. 750w; count each image as
200w, if any) explaining your idea by January 30, 2016. Examples of
possible topics are:

   -

      Dynamics of (de)centralization in CBPP communities
      -

      Decentralized software applications for online/offline communities
      -

      Decentralized solutions to tackle specific communities concerns
      -

      Guidelines for developers and/or researchers
      -

      Comparison of centralized/decentralized processes in CBPP (e.g.
      decision-making, infrastructure ownership, value generation, value
      distribution)
      -

      Practical experiences around centralized/decentralized structures (in
      the form of stories, research, interview, etc.)

The more compelling ideas will be selected to be included in the book.

Please upload your contribution using the following Easychair link:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=floss4p2p

If you have further questions about the expected content, format, etc. do
not hesitate to let us know. We look forward to hearing about your ideas!

Primavera De Filippi
Samer Hassan
David Rozas

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