An Open Source Pattern Language (re)generative of Commons
Exploring how to embed into the system the code for its sustainability and renewal. Fostering factors of opportunity and renewal as commons. Leveraging agency and empowering change agents in their own contexts across the board. Helping to achieve convergence of disparate initiatives.
The current space has been set up to discuss and start building a pattern language for transformative action, as part of a strategy for systemic change. It aims to help practioners on the ground build their own solutions and bring about systemic change (re)generative of commons within their own context, by embedding the 'code' of the commons -and therefore sustainability- in the system. It also aims to assess the 'sustainability' of sustainable intiatives both in their intents and in practice over time.
We are a network of people, practitioners on the ground, think tanks, associations currently building, disseminating and implementing solutions to the world's systemic predicaments. We aim to identify, document, formulate and illustrate in manageable chunks and building blocks, the following, such as inspired by Christopher Alexander's Pattern Language, across disciplines, cultures and practices:
- the forces and conditions, structures, behaviors, processes, dynamics, algorithms, mechanisms etc... (natural or artificial, conscious or automatic, intended or not) that affect the system,
- highlighting the interactions between them, how they 'compute' or 'feed' into each other, and the emergent effects they may have,
- taking into account via appropriate inquiry notions of limits and optima beyond which remedies become toxic (when a pattern becomes an anti-pattern),
- extracting from and relating the patterns to experience and practices on the ground, and connecting them to libraries of solutions,
- expressing them using all kinds of media and languages so that changes agents where-ever they are located can
- recognize and use them in their own context and logics of engagement as learning and solution making tool,
- recognize and make sense of what emerges in other contexts and logics,
- assess and readjust initiatives and models
Our goal is to create a living repository of patterns, collaboratively curated and safeguarded, and evolved with inquiry and experience.
We will add structure to this project as we go. Please use the comments for the discussion here or on the general discussion page as they can be changed into patterns and nodes to several kinds of views (graphs, trees, outlines). We will be moving comments from here to the discussion page or relevant section of the map as we go. Using citations for links places them in a library from where they can be 'called back' in any page/document.
Base approach to the model
This pattern language has been called the PLAST for Pattern LAguage for Systemic Transformation. The project was presented at a workshop in November 2014 in Austria in preparation of the PurPLSoc (Pursuit of Pattern Languages for Societal Change) Conference in Krems in July.
Here is the presentation paper.
This draft presentation of an ecology for transformative action and systemic change model underpinnings is a base to start from, as it shows what types of variables we are thinking of taking into account:
This
related paper broadly examines the needs for an inquiry model and pattern language. This paper served as a basis for a work session we held at the June 18-21, 2014 Workshop on the Ostrom Workshop that takes place every five years at Indiana University.
This other article expands a bit on complex adaptive system characteristics, corrupting dynamics and margin of manoeuver for change.
Don't hesitate to provide feedback in the comments!
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