Unsettling the Concept of Scale and the Commons: A Review of Scalar Ontology and Directions for Future Research

Abstract

"Scale is a powerful concept, offering a lens that shapes how we perceive problems and solutions in common-pool resource governance. Yet, scale is often treated as a relatively stable and settled concept in commons scholarship. This paper reviews the origins and evolution of scalar thinking in commons scholarship to intentionally unsettle the concept of scale and suggest new directions for future research. Beginning with seminal texts on scale and the commons, this paper traces the emergence of an explicit scalar ontology—one that orders both spatial and conceptual relationships vertically, as hierarchical nested levels. This scalar ontology underpins a shared conceptualization of common-pool resource systems and serves as an analytic lens that inevitably illuminates certain kinds of relationships and questions while simultaneously obscuring others. Both the advantages and limitations of the commons scalar ontology are reviewed in light of debates over the concept of scale in critical geography, where commonplace assumptions about scale have long been debated. Drawing on examples from our own research on small-scale fisheries governance in Tanzania and Mexico, we highlight alternative viewpoints that become possible by relinquishing certain scalar assumptions. We argue that the intersection of literature on the social construction of scale and the commons can generate needed attention to everyday experiences of scale along with under-studied sites, forms of difference and mobility, enlivening our understanding of the dynamic nature of the commons."