Bija Vidyapeeth: Centre for Learning
Recovery of the Commons
March 15-22, 2004
with Dr. Vandana Shiva
The commons are the spaces and resources shared by all. Commons create culture and economies of non-exclusion. The commons are the most important for the poorest people for whom they often mean the only access they have to vital resources. The first enclosures of the commons occurred in England at the time of the Industrial Revolution. Globalization is creating enclosures of the commons in ways previously unimaginable.
Plants and animal, seeds, cells, and genes have become patent-able “intellectual property,” The private ownership of life itself is threatening our biodiversity and our basic biological heritage. Water privatization is leading to the enclosures of water commons. The information commons is being enclosed through patents and copyrights. In response to new enclosures, new movements are emerging to recover the commons for all of us.
- Navdanya’s movement of community seed banks, Jaiv Panchayat, is recovering biological and intellectual commons.
- Jal Sawaj Abhiyan is recovering the water commons.
- Movements for open source software are recovering the information commons.
The Recovery of the Commons course will both investigate the new enclosures related to globalization, as well as explore creative and innovative ways in which social movements can and will reclaim the commons.
The Course
The course will begin on the Bija Vidyapeeth campus, set on Navdanya’s organic farm (a few kilometers outside of Dehra Dun, Uttaranchal, India).
Faculty
For more details
Coordinator, Bija Vidyapeeth
A-60 Hauz Khas, New Delhi -110016
INDIA
Tel: 91-11-26968077 or 91-11-26561868
Fax:91-11-26562093
bijavidyapeeth@vsnl.net
www.bijavidyapeeth.org
