To encourage reflection on the integration of commons knowledge in the visions and perspectives of the actors involved in the transition, we propose a seminar around the FLOK Society project with Michel Bauwens on 22 and 23 September 2014 near Paris.
The project FLOK Society (Free, Libre, Open Knowledge) is the first attempt to make practical proposals on the scale of a country for a transition to a society based on free and open knowledge. It aims to create the conditions for a simultaneous transformation of civil society, market and government based on the paradigm of commons knowledge.
The FLOK Society project has been developed in Ecuador at the request of governmental institutions. It was directed by Michel Bauwens, leading P2P Foundation, which mobilized around him a large team of researchers and activists in Ecuador, Latin America and worldwide. The work put into perspective the four major mobilizing and producing common knowledge sectors: education and culture, science, industry, agriculture and services, citizenship and participation (ref: http://tinyurl.com/obd9jdh), for brushing an analysis of the effects of changes in the market, the state and civil society, and propose cross-sectoral guidelines and public policies to social knowledge economy which contributes to the emergence of a social, economical and environmental transition. These proposals are the specific recommendations to the Ecuadorian local context of a more general matrix.
Regardless of how they are (or not) included in the public policies by the government or civil society initiatives in Ecuador, the work done within the FLOK Society project provides a corpus of proposals and methodology that deserve be tested in other contexts than Ecuador. This seminar invites to identify and deepen FLOK Society project proposals and put them into perspective with the existing research, experiments and initiatives in the French and European context.
In this context, the actors of the transition are involved in an history and an agenda of struggles, demonstrations and experiments. This seminar aims to help integrate the paradigm of commons knowledge, in a useful and effective perspective, in their political visions by the actors of the transition, such as social movements, trade unionism, and the Social Economy Solidarity.
How reflection on the place of commons knowledge will it inspire? What agendas build or join? In which territories and scale should we mobilize commons knowledge for social, cultural, economic and political change towards a conscious, fairer and more inclusive society in respect of the limits of the planet?
The seminar is structured around three phases corresponding to the three axes objects transformation: the market, the public authorities and civil society. For each of these times, it is to analyze the contributions of commons knowledge in the debates and social and political struggles in progress, to the extent possibilities, develop proposals, clear lines of force and improve the convergence of the sectoral and territorial strategies. These three areas of work will be preceded by a presentation of the project and FLOK Society and followed by a time of assessment of the seminar.
This seminary will take place at Villarceaux, OEcocentre de la Bergerie with the support of Fondation Charles Léopold Mayer – FPH
More information : Frédéric Sultan