From Lobsters to Universities: The Making of the Knowledge Commons

Use the link to access the full text article from St. Anthony’s International Review, “the only peer reviewed journal of international affairs at the university of Oxford,” available from IngentaConnect. The abstract reads as follows: “Philosophers and social scientists from Hobbes to Hayek have debated the necessary and sufficient conditions for the making of states and markets, but there has been a remarkable lack of interest in the making of commons. This terra nullius of discourse is especially problematic when considering the making of the all important knowledge commons. In this paper I explore the making of a functioning commons off the coast of Maine (‘the lobster commons’) and draw lessons from this process in exploring what would be the conditions for the making of the knowledge commons and the role universities can play in this making.”