Scholarship on the commons has evolved to be nothing less than the Hydra of the academy. The scopeof the ‘traditional’ commons, such as land, forests, grasslands, wetlands, groundwater and air, hasswelled to include ‘contemporary’ commons, such as the knowledge commons, digital commons,urban commons, spiritual commons, cultural commons, and health and education commons, and thereis also the idea of the new and old commons. The study of the commons has thus moved to exploringthe multiple, shifting and contested geographies of the commons that are not ‘out there’, but are sociallyconstructed through a myriad contestations, remonstrations and negotiations. This process ofcommons creation, or ‘commoning’, which shapes socio-spatial structures and dynamics, becomesan emergent, generative dynamic in processes of regional identity-building, place-making and muchelse.
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