The workplace commons: towards understanding commoning within work relations

One of the most important focuses in social theory within the last decade has been upon the commons. We contribute to the emerging scholarship on the commons. We point out that this literature tends to neglect the workplace. We then argue that the workplace should be included as a potentially important arena of commoning. Going to studies of the workplace, we find that scholarship has implicitly found key emergent elements of commoning within the social relations of work. We develop a concept of the workplace commons, and consider arguments that the workplace commons is merely a fix for capitalism

After-progress: commoning in degrowth

What does it mean to live with the threat of extinction? We make a case that living with the threat of extinction logically can only mean that we have to abandon the modernist ideology of progress. We review ideas of societal progress and note the decline in arguments relating to progress in the writings of political and social commentators. However, alive and well, and hidden in plain sight, is the current dominant ideology of progress – the central policy goal of governments to achieve growth in Gross Domestic Product. We must abandon this twisted ideology of progress. We point to two interrelated elements of a political economy of after-progress – degrowth and commoning. Currently, there are rich and vital literatures on degrowth and on commoning, but rarely do writers in these fields come into explicit dialogue with each other to see and develop a shared logic. We outline a political economy of degrowth as one centred on sustaining the commons, and contrast this with current arguments for green capitalism, centred on the idea of a Green New Deal. Competitive individualism is the central social relationship of capitalism, and is a social relationship that leads to the destruction of the commons. By contrast, commoning should be seen as the central social relationship of a degrowth economy. It is simultaneously a social relationship and an ecological relationship. It is a social ecological relationship to sustain the commons within a degrowth economy

BVOC ecosystem flux measurements at a high latitude wetland site

In this study, we present summertime concentrations and fluxes of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) measured at a sub-arctic wetland in northern Sweden using a disjunct eddy-covariance (DEC) technique based on a proton transfer reaction mass spectrometer (PTR-MS). The vegetation at the site was dominated by <i>Sphagnum</i>, <i>Carex</i> and extit{Eriophorum} spp. The measurements reported here cover a period of 50 days (1 August to 19 September 2006), approximately one half of the growing season at the site, and allowed to investigate the effect of day-to-day variation in weather as well as of vegetation senescence on daily BVOC fluxes, and on their temperature and light responses. The sensitivity drift of the DEC system was assessed by comparing H<sub>3</sub>O<sup>+</sup>-ion cluster formed with water molecules (H<sub>3</sub>O<sup>+</sup>(H<sub>2</sub>O) at m37) with water vapour concentration measurements made using an adjacent humidity sensor, and the applicability of the DEC method was analysed by a comparison of sensible heat fluxes for high frequency and DEC data obtained from the sonic anemometer. These analyses showed no significant PTR-MS sensor drift over a period of several weeks and only a small flux-loss due to high-frequency spectrum omissions. This loss was within the range expected from other studies and the theoretical considerations. <br><br> Standardised (20 °C and 1000 μmol m<sup>−2</sup> s<sup>−1</sup> PAR) summer isoprene emission rates found in this study of 329 μg C m<sup>−2</sup> (ground area) h<sup>−1</sup> were comparable with findings from more southern boreal forests, and fen-like ecosystems. On a diel scale, measured fluxes indicated a stronger temperature dependence than emissions from temperate or (sub)tropical ecosystems. For the first time, to our knowledge, we report ecosystem methanol fluxes from a sub-arctic ecosystem. Maximum daytime emission fluxes were around 270 μg m<sup>−2</sup> h<sup>−1</sup> (ca. 100 μg C m<sup>−2</sup> h<sup>−1</sup>), and during most nights small negative fluxes directed from the atmosphere to the surface were observed

Carbon budget estimation of a subarctic catchment using adynamic ecosystem model at high spatial resolution

A large amount of organic carbon is stored in highlatitude soils. A substantial proportion of this carbon stock is vulnerable and may decompose rapidly due to temperature increases that are already greater than the global average. It is therefore crucial to quantify and understand carbon exchange between the atmosphere and subarctic/arctic ecosystems. In this paper, we combine an Arctic-enabled version of the process-based dynamic ecosystem model, LPJGUESS (version LPJG-WHyMe-TFM) with comprehensive observations of terrestrial and aquatic carbon fluxes to simulate long-term carbon exchange in a subarctic catchment at 50m resolution. Integrating the observed carbon fluxes from aquatic systems with the modeled terrestrial carbon fluxes across the whole catchment, we estimate that the area is a carbon sink at present and will become an even stronger carbon sink by 2080, which is mainly a result of a projected densification of birch forest and its encroachment into tundra heath. However, the magnitudes of the modeled sinks are very dependent on future atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Furthermore, comparisons of global warming potentials between two simulations with and without CO2 increase since 1960 reveal that the increased methane emission from the peatland could double the warming effects of the whole catchment by 2080 in the absence of CO2 fertilization of the vegetation. This is the first process-based model study of the temporal evolution of a catchment-level carbon budget at high spatial resolution, including both terrestrial and aquatic carbon. Though this study also highlights some limitations in modeling subarctic ecosystem responses to climate change, such as aquatic system flux dynamics, nutrient limitation, herbivory and other disturbances, and peatland expansion, our study provides one process-based approach to resolve the complexity of carbon cycling in subarctic ecosystems while simultaneously pointing out the key model developments for capturing complex subarctic processes

What are communities of practice? A comparative review of four seminal works

This paper is a comparative review of four seminal works on communities of practice. It is argued that the ambiguities of the terms community and practice are a source of the concept's reusability allowing it to be reappropriated for different purposes, academic and practical. However, it is potentially confusing that the works differ so markedly in their conceptualizations of community, learning, power and change, diversity and informality. The three earlier works are underpinned by a common epistemological view, but Lave and Wenger's 1991 short monograph is often read as primarily about the socialization of newcomers into knowledge by a form of apprenticeship, while the focus in Brown and Duguid's article of the same year is, in contrast, on improvising new knowledge in an interstitial group that forms in resistance to management. Wenger's 1998 book treats communities of practice as the informal relations and understandings that develop in mutual engagement on an appropriated joint enterprise, but his focus is the impact on individual identity. The applicability of the concept to the heavily individualized and tightly managed work of the twenty-first century is questionable. The most recent work by Wenger – this time with McDermott and Snyder as coauthors – marks a distinct shift towards a managerialist stance. The proposition that managers should foster informal horizontal groups across organizational boundaries is in fact a fundamental redefinition of the concept. However it does identify a plausible, if limited, knowledge management (KM) tool. This paper discusses different interpretations of the idea of 'co-ordinating' communities of practice as a management ideology of empowerment

The employee as 'Dish of the Day’:human resource management and the ethics of consumption

This article examines the ethical implications of the growing integration of consumption into the heart of the employment relationship. Human resource management (HRM) practices increasingly draw upon the values and practices of consumption, constructing employees as the ‘consumers’ of ‘cafeteria-style’ benefits and development opportunities. However, at the same time employees are expected to market themselves as items to be consumed on a corporate menu. In relation to this simultaneous position of consumer/consumed, the employee is expected to actively engage in the commodification of themselves, performing an appropriate organizational identity as a necessary part of being a successful employee. This article argues that the relationship between HRM and the simultaneously consuming/consumed employee affects the conditions of possibility for ethical relations within organizational life. It is argued that the underlying ‘ethos’ for the integration of consumption values into HRM practices encourages a self-reflecting, self-absorbed subject, drawing upon a narrow view of individualised autonomy and choice. Referring to Levinas’ perspective that the primary ethical relation is that of responsibility and openness to the Other, it is concluded that these HRM practices affect the possibility for ethical being