Ostrom, the commons, and the anthropology of “earthlings” and their atmosphere

Dan Rabinowitz

Elinor Ostrom, joint winner (with Oliver Wil- who are entitled to use it. Consisting of what liamson) of the 2009 Nobel prize in economic economists label “core volume” (or “stock vari- sciences, was quickly recognized by anthropolo- able”) and “fringe units” (or “flow variables”), gists as an honorary member of the tribe, and as CPRs presents a complex challenge. The extrac- someone whose achievements are a tribute to tion of flow variables must take place without the discipline (see Baumard 2009; Wutich and depleting stocks, and distribution between mem- Smth 2009). A political scientist by training, bers must take place without violating the pre- Ostrom was not formally trained as an anthro- vailing social fabric and its institutional realities. pologist or an ethnographer. This notwithstand- Examples of natural CPRs include huntable game ing, her commitment to empirical field research or mineral deposits situated in a territory asso- and her preoccupation since the early 1970s with ciated with a given group. Examples of man- the role of collective action, trust, and coopera- made CPRs include village wells and cisterns, tion in arrangements designed to enhance the pasture plots set aside for seasonal use, or pre- management of common pool resources (CPRs) constructed communal hunting devices like repeatedly directed her toward populations (in- large scale traps or chase-lines. digenous groups at the margins of states) and Sustainable management of flow units such issues (institutions designed and operated at as the quantity and types of animals hunted, or the community level) usually associated with the amount of water drawn from communally anthropology. owned irrigation systems requires intimate CPRs are natural or man-made systems with knowledge of the resource, its depletion and re- three main characteristics. First, the system must plenishment cycles. Distributing those flow have a valuable resource perceived to belong col- units between members of the community re- lectively to a well-defined community. Second, quires a separate set of skills and sensibilities, the limited size of the resource and the types of including the ability to work within existing in- yields it offers allow the community to effec- stitutional structures and the capacity to adapt tively exclude non-members from accessing it. to them and to expand them further. Miscalcu- This sets it apart from open access resources such lations on either front, whether fueled by greed as oceans, the atmosphere, and mathematical or ignorance, could be detrimental to the long- equations that are universally available to all (see term ability of the resource and the community Rose 2003). Third, being subtractable, CPRs are depending on it to survive. inherently vulnerable to congestion and over- The complexity of these tasks was succinctly exploitation by the members of the community indicated in Hardin’s 1968 seminal article on

Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 57 (2010): 104–108 doi:10.3167/fcl.2010.570108 Ostrom, the commons, and the anthropology of “earthlings” and their atmosphere | 105 the tragedy of the commons. Ostrom, who had ible and gradual sanctions for violators of ac- always been preoccupied with paradoxes and cepted rules; easily accessible mechanisms of ar- contradictions surrounding humans and their bitration and conflict resolution; recognition choices, with a strong commitment to rational on the part of state authorities of the local com- choice theory, became a major player in the de- munity and its jurisdiction over its CPR; and, bate that followed Hardin’s work (see Ostrom et when the system in question is large-scale and al. 1999), and a leading thinker on what has complex, a hierarchical organization of local since been known as institutional behavior. Her CPRs as nested in a multi-layered set of enter- Institutional Analysis and Development frame- prises. These traits, Ostrom suggests, should be work was particularly pertinent to public choice enhanced and cultivated when systems with theory, which tends to view politicians and gov- CPR potential are singled out for further devel- ernment officials as self-interested agents and to opment and funding. analyze their performance as attempts at maxi- Significantly, Ostrom’s CPR research, while mizing personal utility. The balance politicians highlighting local successes, was empirical and tend to strike between personal gain and com- level headed enough to avoid romanticized ide- munal interests is in fact akin to the juggling act alization of indigenous ingenuity. Recognizing that individuals involved in CPRs must per- that small-scale communal management tech- form. In both cases agents walk the fine line be- niques are not immune to failure, and that at- tween immediate individual benefit and long- tempts at CPR management have known to fail term communal welfare. This perspective, and and trigger societal collapse, she and her students the obvious parallels it has with game theory, did well to avoid putting CPR on a pedestal. social choice theory, and decision theory, has Pleasantly surprising as some of her findings in informed Ostrom’s extensive work on organiza- this realm have been, she never claimed that in- tional theory and public administration. digenous CPR management patterns is the one Ostrom’s work on CPRs focused on commu- and only magic formula for sustainable ecosys- nities’ interfaces with their ecosystems and the tem management. internal dynamics that emerge as they endeavor With time, Ostrom’s Bloomington-based In- to secure long-term sustainable yields. This pre- stitutional Analysis and Development Research occupation, combined with Ostrom’s commit- Program became one of the pillars of the New ment to positivism and empirical work, drew Institutional Theory movement. Combining a her and her students to study pasture manage- rigorous interdisciplinary theoretical approach ment in Africa, irrigation systems in Nepal, fish- with hard-nosed empiricism, the program had ermen in Maine, and more (see Acheson 1989; a clear agenda: to reintroduce the original lib- McKean 1992; Singleton and Taylor 1992). eral thought of Locke and Adam Smith, Mon- Governing the commons (1990), the volume tesquieu, Hamilton and Hume, Madison and de that summarizes the first decade of Ostrom’s Tocqueville into the rapidly changing socio- empirical work on CPRs, provides a basic list political context of the twenty-first century. In of institutional characteristics that enhance 2006 Ostrom officially joined Arizona State Uni- successful management of commonly held re- versity’s School of Human Evolution and Social sources. The list includes clearly defined system Change, and became the founding director of boundaries that allow the effective exclusion of the Center for the Study of Institutional Diver- non-members; rules governing resource usage sity. There, faculty and students, many of them that fit local conditions; wide participation of anthropologists, “draw from a wide range of local stakeholders in the design and implemen- methods, including ethnography, experiments, tation of rules and decisions governing the sys- network analysis, mathematical modeling and tem; transparent, effective, and accountable archival research, to understand how institutions monitoring of rules and their compliance; flex- emerge, evolve and endure. Most are working 106 | Dan Rabinowitz on small scale social systems and many are work- Ostrom is not in dispute with Hardin’s belief ing on problems of common pool resources” in rational choice. What she seeks to show is (Wutich and Smith 2009: 24). that terminating the commons is not the only My analytical concern here is not with the option. People, she argues correctly, sometimes extent to which Ostrom and her project could do the right thing (consume common resources or should be labeled “anthropological” or even carefully and sustainably) even on the commons. “ethnographic.” These distinctions, which may And they do it best when they have an institu- be pertinent to debates on inter-disciplinary tional arrangement that convinces them that boundaries, hierarchy, and prestige, are less sig- enhancing the general good serves everybody’s nificant than the debate concerning Ostrom’s personal interest too. This step away from awkward relationship with history and power. Hardin and toward Durkheim is interesting, I argue that her commitment to rational choice but it does not go far enough. It does not open theory, her somewhat disjointed use of ethnog- enough space for another option—that of peo- raphy, and her imperfect theoretical positioning ple doing the right thing on the strength of sol- of scale, all of which have served her well in the idarity, which in the final analysis is inexplicable development of fresh ideas regarding CPRs, are in terms of rationality alone. Moreover, the role precisely those that limit the applicability of her that power gradients, dependency, personal, and ideas to other, more complex, politicized con- familial histories and so on play in shaping peo- texts. These tendencies constrain the potential of ple’s actions vis-à-vis the riddle of the com- institutional analysis to enhance contemporary mons is sidelined in much of Ostrom’s work. efforts to theorize the most important segment This is related to my second point—Os- of our global commons, namely the atmosphere. trom’s fragmentary use of ethnographic evi- Ostrom originally became known for her dence. Generally aware of social and cultural interesting attempt to break the deadlock im- factors, her work often seems to skim the sur- plied by Gareth Hardin’s brilliant essay on the face of observable social and cultural data in a commons (Hardin 1968). Hardin’s view of the linear, mono-dimensional fashion. Unlike ho- commons as an inherently unstable—hence listic ethnographic projects, in Ostrom’s work tragic—situation is inextricably linked to his the search seems to be for specific types of find- rigid belief in humans’ propensity for rational ings—signs of an institutional reality that fosters choice. Each member of the community, when an effective CPR regime. This tendency to look faced with a common resource available for ex- only at what is under the spotlight does not nec- ploitation, will seek to do what he or she feels essarily mean that the results are false. They do they are legitimately entitled to do: maximize suggest however that certain types of data are personal gain by exploiting the resource as in- privileged, and that alternative explanations of tensively as possible. When many individual the end result (sustainable use of CPR) might members have made that choice for long enough, be overlooked. an inevitable moment comes when the resource The commitment to a-political rational choice is depleted to the point of collapse. And it is at and the rather flat ethnographic viewpoint that that moment that everyone concerned, includ- characterize institutional analysis could par- ing those who used the resource responsibly tially explain an interesting phenomenon: CPR and frugally, suffers existential crisis. Hardin’s analysis has been most promising for better practical conclusion was that what ensues is a understanding successes on small-scale, local simple deadlock. The common resources will commons. One in fact suspects that Ostrom’s survive either by being subject to a draconian remarkable success in positioning CPR systems regulatory system operated by an almighty state, as effective alternatives to the neoliberal view which he rightly claims is hardly practical; or by that sees privatization as the only avenue to cost- privatization of the commons—that is, by carv- effective and sustainable resource husbandry ing it into individually owned segments. was a major reason behind the decision to award Ostrom, the commons, and the anthropology of “earthlings” and their atmosphere | 107 her the Nobel. Yet when one looks at the contri- a side effect of various industrial processes— bution of institutional analysis of CPR systems that is most relevant. Oblivious to the limits of to contemporary attempts to theorize the global the atmosphere’s capacity to absorb CO2 and commons, and in particular the atmosphere, other greenhouse gases, humans have always the results are disappointing. treated the “great aerial ocean” as an unbounded The gap, it must be said, is not necessarily an sink, an endless frontier. Now, as the amounts indication of the deficiencies of institutional of CO2 deposited in it are intensifying the green- analysis. It has more to do with the immense house effect, changing the planet’s heat balance, complexities associated with the global com- the need to better understand the atmosphere mons. and to politicize its history and future becomes The diagnostic science and prognostic tra- acute. jectories associated with the physical aspects of Breathing is probably the most immediate and what I call the post normal climate condition frequent link we have to the biosphere. Concep- (Rabinowitz 2009) are robust, not least through tually, however, it remains abstract. The physi- the sustained effort on the part of the UN’s In- cal connections that shape it are too complicated tergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC to grasp. Their traction on social constructions 2007). It is the social context of the crisis that of reality is too abstract to communicate. A space still begs for more effective theoretical analysis. taken for granted, the atmosphere remains so- A better understanding of the social context cially fragmented, hence difficult to signify and of climate change requires new ways to analyze be imbued with meaning. the macro-interface between humanity and the At least two obstacles are in the way of at- biosphere. Modernity almost convinced us that mospheric social science. One is that we under- nature, and human vulnerability toward it, are take it under pressure, during an impending quaint remnants of a pre-modern past. Now, as climate crisis—a syndrome whereby the need to nature seems to be returning with a vengeance, intervene might get the better of careful theo- if we insist on clinging to “the social” as an iso- retical analysis. The other is that three decades lated category, in and of itself, detached from of efforts to gain theoretical insight into the ab- other planetary entities, we do so at our peril. stract syndrome we call globalization produced Instead we should start tracing social relation- unsatisfactory results. Latour’s (2007) exasper- ships, economic interdependencies, and politi- ated exclamation that “we have no globe to cal assemblages all the way to their point of work with” prompted an attempt based on his impact with the biosphere and the life support- earlier work concerning science and modernity ing systems it provides. (1993) to establish “radical empiricism” as a Attempts to grasp the interface between hu- means to expand the restricted modernistic no- manity and the natural world are not new to the tion of the social. Corresponding with Love- social sciences. Many of them, including Os- lock’s (2006) The revenge of Gaia he proposes trom’s contributions, are preoccupied with spe- “earthlings”—a term consciously borrowed cific populations and their interfaces with their from science fiction—as a generic term for hu- immediate local environments. What seems to be mans, which underscores our species’ tendency lacking are means for conceptualizing complex to assault the planet. What I find useful in this biospheric systems such as the atmosphere— science fiction trope is the implicit suggestion the ultimate Lefebvrian space—as a socially con- that humanity is not necessarily tantamount to structed, politicized place. modernist definitions of the social, which so The atmosphere, by definition, is an open heavily depend on the dichotomy with the nat- access, universal commons. The resources that ural world.“Earthlings” could well imply “things” it offers are diverse. When it comes to climate (Appadurai 1986) with social life. Naming hu- change, however, it is the atmosphere’s capacity mans “earthlings” suggests our species is not the as sink—a depository for pollutants emitted as only one defining what the social is. Conse- 108 | Dan Rabinowitz

quently, humans are not totally social, or no elinor-ostrom-nobel-prize-in-anthropology- longer social, and perhaps have never been as 2009&catid=37:nicolas&Itemid=34 (accessed 28 truly social as they tend to believe. February 2010). Ostrom’s work, like that of other institu- Hardin, G. 1968. The tragedy of the commons. Sci- tional analysts, is admirably effective in shed- ence 162: 1243–48. IPCC. 2007. Climate Change 2007: The physical sci- ding light on the dynamics governing the ence basis. Working Group 1 contribution to the interface between local groups and their imme- fourth assessment report of the IPCC corporate diate commons. But when the scales and levels author intergovernmental panel on climate of complexity are altered, we are left with a re- change. http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1- strictive definition of the social that fails to make report.html. (accessed 11 January 2010). the leap from Ostrom’s concrete notion of the Latour, Bruno. 1993. We have never been modern. local commons to the breathtaking diversity and Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. inter-connectedness of the atmosphere as sink ———. 2007. A plea for earthly sciences. Keynote and of climate as a global system. lecture for the annual meeting of the British So- ciological. Association, East London, April. Lovelock, James. 2006. The revenge of Gaia: Why the Dan Rabinowitz is a socio-cultural anthropolo- earth is fighting back—and how we can still save gist affiliated with the departments of sociology humanity. London: Allen Lane. and anthropology at Tel-Aviv University and at McKean, Margaret. 1992. Success on the commons: Central European University. His recent books A comparative examination of institutions for include Coffins on our shoulders (with Khawla common property resource management. Jour- Abu-Baker, 2005), Mixed towns, trapped minori- nal of Theoretical Politics 4 (3): 247–81. Ostrom, Elinor. 1990. Governing the commons: The ties (co-editor, 2007), and Here it comes: How do evolution of institutions for collective action. we survive climate change (2009, in Hebrew). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. E-mail: [email protected]. Ostrom, Elinor et al. 1999. Revisiting the commons: Local lessons, global challenges. Science 284: 278–82. References Rabinowitz, Dan. 2009. Here it comes: How do we survive climate change? Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz Acheson, James M. 1989. Economic anthropology Hameukhad (in Hebrew). and the management of common property re- Rose, Carol. 2003. Romans, roads and romantic cre- sources. In Economic Anthropology, ed. S. Plattner, ators: Traditions of public property in the infor- 351–78. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. mation age. Law and Contemporary Problems, Appadurai, Arjun. 1986. The social life of things: Winter/Spring: 89–110. Commodities in cultural perspective. Cambridge: Singleton, Sara, and Michael Taylor. 1992. Common Cambridge University Press. property, collective action and community. Jour- Baumard, Nicolas. 2009. Elinor Ostrom: Nobel Prize nal of Theoretical Politics 4 (3): 309–24. in Anthropology! International Cognition and Wutich, Amber, and Michael Smith. 2009. Anthro- Culture Institute website, October 12. http:// pologists cheer Ostrom’s nobel. Anthropology www.cognitionandculture.net/index.php? News (December): 24. option=com_content&view=article&id=526: