Commons and Public Partnership: Legitimising a Commons Sphere

Join Torange Khonsari as she presents the core principle behind her new book "Commons and Public Partnership” (2026)published by Bloomsbury. On the panel to discuss how commons and community sphere should be legitimised as distinct and autonomous are distinguished guests David Bollier, Charles Schweik and Ramia Maze.

Commons and Public Partnership reimagines the commons as a dynamic third political sphere, one that bridges the gap between the household and the state.Torange Khonsari shows how cultural practices can activate communities, creating neighbourhood-based commons systems that challenge conventional governance and centralised politics. Drawing on local experiences in over 65 communities, Khonsari addresses pressing societal issues, from citizen apathy and institutional distrust, to the lack of awareness around creative practices that can transform political engagement.

By repositioning the neighbourhood as a decentralized arena for decision-making, this book advocates for a commons/public partnership model in place of the dominant private/public paradigm. Rich in theory and grounded in practice, Commons and Public Partnership blends insights from urbanism, public art, architecture, design, psychology, politics, anthropology, and sociology with practical design methodologies-offering a bold, interdisciplinary framework for rethinking civic life.

SPEAKER:
Dr Torange Khonsari
Dr Torange Khonsari is founding director of practice Public Works, a practice widely recognised for advancing participatory urbanism and civic design. She co-founded and directed the Centre for Applied Research in Empowering Society (CARES) at London Metropolitan University, where she led interdisciplinary research addressing civic transformation and socio-ecological urban futures. Her work positions place-based practices within wider debates on democratic governance, investigating how commons-based systems can be designed to reshape relationships between citizens, institutions and the built environment.

PANELISTS:
David Bollier
David Bollier is an American activist, scholar, and blogger focused on the commonsas a new/old paradigm for re-imagining economics, law, social practice, and culture. As Director of the Reinventing the Commons Program at the Schumacher Center for a New Economics [www.centerforneweconomics.org] since 2016, Bollier blogs at Bollier.org,hosts the monthly podcast Frontiers of Commoning,and collaborates with commons scholars, activists, policy experts, and brilliant irregulars worldwide. He has written or edited more than ten books on various aspects of the commons, including Think Like a Commoner, Second Edition(2025) and The Commoner's Catalog for Changemaking(2021). With his late colleague Silke Helfrich, Bollier co-authored Free, Fair and Alive(2019) and co-edited Patterns of Commoning (2015) and The Wealth of the Commons(2012). He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, USA.

Prof. Charles Schweik
Charlie Schweik is Professor (Emeritus) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is multidisciplinary, having a degree in Computer Science (SUNY Potsdam), a master's in Public Administration (Syracuse University) and a PhD in Public Policy (Indiana University) where he trained with Commons scholar Elinor Ostrom. Much of his 30+ scientific career focused on the study of open-source software teams as an example of Internet-based collective action. He is past president of the International Association for the Study of the Commons (2023-2024; IASC-commons.org) and is currently the North American Regional Coordinator for IASC. One of his current projects is studying existing and emerging community-based Fabrication Labs around the world.

PANEL CHAIR:
Prof. Ramia Mazé
Ramia Mazé is Professor in Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London (UAL). At UAL, she is affiliated with the Service Futures Lab. In 2016-2024, she was an editor of the leading scholarly journal Design Issues. Over 20 years, her research has spanned multiple disciplines but centres on design that is participatory, critical and politically-engaged. Pursuing these topics, she has led, published, and exhibited widely through a variety of interdisciplinary and international research projects and cultural initiatives. Methodologically, she specializes in practice-based research as well as critical and feminist epistemologies. She has collaborated with scholars and practitioners in policy-making, sustainable development, and futures studies.