Expanding the Boundaries of Commons Scholarship:The 2008 Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons

Abstract

"The landscapes, seascapes, and institutions of 'the commons' are products of the interactions between humans and their environments, and the IASC conference of 2008 was an opportunity to explore their many dimensions, from the local to the global. This issue of the International Journal of the Commons commemorates that conference, which was the 2008 international meeting of the International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC), held in Cheltenham, England July l4–18, 2008, in the heart of the traditional agrarian 'commons'. John Powell and Chris Short of the University of Gloucestershire organized the meeting and offer reflections on that experience in this issue after this introduction. The conference was held under the aegis of the IASC and was supported by the University of Gloucestershire, the Ford Foundation, the Center for International Forestry Research, the Christensen Fund, and the International Development Research Centre. As with many 'commons', the resources in this one were multiple and diverse, centered on the theme 'Governing shared resources: connecting local experience to global challenges'."