Andreas Röhring (p)

Tanika Join

In face of the ubiquity of renewable energy resources decentralisation is a key catchword of energy transition and often seen as synonymous with new opportunities for regional development. But energy transition from fossil to renewable energies in Germany was mainly incentive driven by the Renewable Energies Act (EEG) provoking an economically rational behaviour of investors. Since 2000 it led not only to a rapid growth of renewable energies but also to intended and unintended impacts at regional commons as well as deficits of acceptance and conflicts. Groups of stakeholder affected by and those actively involved in the development of renewable energies were often not identical.
At the regional level we could found in general two strategies of actors: offering sites for external private investments in renewable energies as an installation landscape or initiating collaborative renewable energy projects and structures of energy governance to tap these decentralisation processes of energy transition as a force for regional development. Renewable energy regions as action arenas with governance structures were initiated about since 2008 with support of the federal or state level in order to improve the acceptance of energy transition. They used the opportunities offered by the liberalisation of energy markets to create renewable energies as new regional commons accompanied by the development of energy consciousness. But they also initiated projects regarding the maintenance of traditional regional commons. In face of the different regional contexts and constellations of public, private and collective actors there is a great diversity of governance structures, cooperative arrangements and key actors with different interests, cooperation experiences and action orientations.
Theoretically the presentation aims at the enrichment of regional science based governance approaches with the concept of common goods by the establishment of action arenas in renewable energy regions in Germany. Although formal spatial planning aims at the protection of public goods and regional governance in a broader sense at collective action, a theoretical-conceptual linkage from geography or regional science to debates about commons from an institutional perspective does not really exist. By examples of Bioenergy-regions and 100% Renewable energy regions in Germany will be discussed how actors define their action arenas spatially, how they manage the relationships between public, private and collective actors, how they act between powerful central institutions and regional requirements, how they ensure participation processes and how they contribute to the reduction of negative external effects of the development of renewable energies.

Tanika Join (p)

Leila Kebir

In Reunion Island, a French overseas department in the south-west Indian Ocean, spaired since now 5 to 10 years, different initiatives and alternatives to defend the the island’s commons. From biodiversity to landscapes or from musical culture to architectural heritage, take place the Reunion’s living-together, as the pillars of the sustainable development of the island. Referring to the Reunion living-together as a common, a set of actors from a muldisciplinary panel and multiple decision-making spheres, rise to build the project of a societal model change for the territory. This common good, around which a diversity of identity, points of view, and speeches can be built, poses the problem of a common project capable of making one in this diversity. This ambition encourages to meet actors for whom the tools of a common work must be drawn and redraw in an iterative process, from the edition to launching project. This project, is the study case on which this communication proposes to return. How do we do to pass from a common speech on the links between science and society to a common action carried by a group of engaged citizens. Will see that the definition of this common, question the actors in place and encourage a restructuring territorial action.

Frédéric Wallet (p), Leïla Kebir (p)

Andreas Röhring

The proliferation of initiatives in the commons movement has been evident for some years. Polymorphic, it affects many areas of activity and is spread over a wide variety of territories, from rural to large cities. However, if we take a closer look, these initiatives do not, far from it, constitute a homogeneous family that strictly corresponds to the canonical definition of commons as it appears in Ostrom's reflections on common pool resources, or in works based on exclusion and rivalry criteria.
In this way, understanding the current success of the commons requires a precise examination of their diversity, which should make it possible to position these initiatives according to an analytical grid highlighting the resources concerned, the mobilized communities, and the developed governance mechanisms, as well as the motivations that drove local actors to engage in these new forms of collective action. Beyond this, there is a need to identify how these operations spread in time and space, and what are there relations with the diversity of coordination mechanisms in place, from the market to interventions, in order to consider their territorial impact and contribution to new forms of urban model.
This paper aims at understanding the diversity of the models of commons. Starting from the presentation of the results of a research program carried out in France on about 150 cases and ten monographs, we elaborated a grid of analysis reflecting the dynamism, the variety, but also of a certain fragility of the initiatives composing the movement of the urban commons. First, we propose a conceptual statement, highlighting the way in which new forms of urban commons lead us to discuss the usual definitions of commons. In a second part we present the method of analysis and the main results, making it possible to establish a typology of urban commons. Finally, we discuss the territorial anchoring of these initiatives and to what extent they contribute, or not, to the emergence of new models of territorial development.

Léa Canevet (p), Leïla Kebir

Frédéric Wallet

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