Conference:
Abstract: "The program committee has chosen the theme 'Reinventing the Commons.' Commons have existed throughout all recorded history as an integral part of the resource management of local communities. With the emergence of the modern state and the capitalist economies, the commons of local communities around the world found themselves in a losing battle with advocates of state ownership or individual ownership. The traditional knowledge embodied in the well-established institutional frameworks was not cast in a form understandable to the bureaucrats of the state even in the cases where the bureaucrats might be willing to consider them on their merits. And often enough they were not cast in a form which made them adaptable to a changing environment. To survive, the practical knowledge of the benefits of commons have to be recast in the analytical language of academic disciplines.
"However, there is another reason which makes the them doubly appropriate for a conference on the commons located in Norway. The Norwegian government has recently aptly demonstrated how the loss of old institutions is a creeping ill no one is immune to. In 1992 the Norwegian Parliament repealed a more than 800 year old law of Norwegian Commons. During a major revision of the text of the Commons Act, its older and most profound part was deleted. A part of our cultural heritage is gone. This loss needs to be mourned. But the change of words is significant..."