Coordinator:
Francesco Mirra (University Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne)

Description: 
Amid the multiple socio-ecological crises characterising our age and the growing difficulty of national and supranational actors in tackling them, two approaches combining theory and practice are gaining ground. On the one hand, commons theory, following the work of Elinor Ostrom (1990, 2005), offers an alternative to the dichotomy between state and market, arguing that, contrary to the thesis of an inevitable “tragedy of the commons” (Hardin 1968), collective governance of natural resources can support their sustainable management. On the other hand, following Carol Gilligan (1982) and Joan Tronto (Fisher & Tronto 1990), interest in the ethics of care has grown. It calls for recognising practices of attending to others’ needs and taking responsibility for responding to them as a foundation of social life, bringing visibility to forms of care work carried out mainly by women. Environmental care highlights efforts to respond to the needs of the more-than-human world (Puig de la Bellacasa 2010, 2017; Laugier 2023; Silberzahn 2024).

Few attempts have brought these potentially complementary approaches together, yet care practices and collective labour may constitute material foundations for the governance and restoration of the commons (Federici 2004; Sato & Soto Alarcón 2019; Tummers & MacGregor 2019; Dengler & Lang 2021; Samanani 2024). Care makes visible the everyday practices that sustain shared governance, while also revealing how responsibilities and burdens may be unequally distributed, reproducing inequalities.

This Working Group asks: to what extent does a care perspective reveal the hidden labour and inequalities underpinning commons governance? Against the backdrop of renewed conflicts over natural resources, particularly water, and of emerging technologies, particularly AI – whose infrastructures rely on both hidden human labour and intensive water and energy use – it invites contributions to explore forms of collective governance beyond the traditional common-pool resources approach and the relations of care they entail.

Type of call:
Call for papers / abstracts / posters / other forms of communication

Participation mode:
Hybrid (in person in Helsinki or online via Zoom).
The Working Group is open to students, researchers, and activists.

Submission details:
Regardless of the format chosen for the Working Group, applicants must submit an abstract of no more than 300 words.

The abstract should include the following elements:
– Research question
– Proposed approach (theoretical or empirically based)
– Format of the final presentation (e.g. a conference presentation, a poster, etc.). We particularly encourage proposals for alternative presentation formats. In such cases, the abstract must include details about the objectives and feasibility of the proposed format.
– Three keywords

The deadline for abstract submissions is 25 November 2026. Applicants will be notified of the outcome by 4 December 2026.

Accepted participants must submit either a text of no more than 2,000 words or the final version of their chosen presentation format (e.g. a poster).

Abstracts should be sent to the coordinator at francesco.mirra@etu.univ-paris1.fr

Funding note:
Unfortunately, the Working Group cannot provide funding for participants’ travel or accommodation expenses. Participants must cover all associated costs themselves.

Contact:
Francesco Mirra, Francesco.Mirra@etu.univ-paris1.fr