Knowledge Swaraj, Agriculture and the New Commons: Insights from SRI in India

Abstract

"This paper seeks to discuss ideas around Knowledge Swaraj and explore how knowledge commons can further the idea of autonomy of communities and the agenda of promoting justice (including cognitive justice), sustainability and plurality. We suggest that discussions on knowledge commons and innovation have hitherto been restricted to the digital commons and the open source movement and need to be explored more fruitfully in other traditional domains such as agriculture. What, if any, are the new commons in agriculture and what would be the public policy implications of taking new commons in agriculture seriously? Can the new commons in agriculture open up spaces for democratizing science and innovation policy? We seek to explicate this through the case of the SRI India community and explore the importance of designing and co-evolving, both online and offline, an architecture of participation in digital communities. We suggest that while tools such as Social Network Analysis or SNA can be helpful in understanding networks, especially online communities, it is important to link these studies to the broader discussions on knowledge as commons and the potential of communities to work towards knowledge swaraj."