Articulating voices from the commons, interpretation, translation, and facilitation: Roles and modes for common property scholarship

Abstract

This article suggests that common property scholarships has a critically important contribution to make to natural resource management, but that it has not been adept in doing so. Its analysis, or interpretive voice, needs to be more multidirectional, polyidiomatic, and reflexively rapid. Beyond this, common property scholarship has a translative role, inserting the voices of the commons into larger decision‐making forums. Thirdly, common property scholarship has a facultative role, encouraging experimental learning and self‐expression in the commons. To fulfill these objectives common property scholarship should change the balance of its incentives and resource allocations to reflect a more participatory coalition between professional research and the commons on which it is based.