Bronwen Morgan

How can we have a more inclusive and ecologically sustainable vision of a shared future?

Allens Hub member Professor Bronwen Morgan was recently invited to help launch the recent publication of The Politics of the Common Good by Jane Goodall at Gleeboks in Glebe. Together with Tim Hollo of the Green Institute and the author, a lively dialogue unfolded to a packed house of about 80 people on the evening of August 14th. The book argues for a politics of change that runs much deeper than contemporary political debates between our main parties. It explores, in Jane’s words, “principles at stake that are fundamental to our democracy and to our ‘common wealth’ in the widest and most enduring sense of that term”.

The conversation at the launch explored a range of ways and ideas about how the commons could help to re-energise a more inclusive and ecologically sustainable vision of shared futures than our current politics seem to support. The discussion was wide-ranging, beginning with the importance of access land and public space, and building on this to explore how the effects of digital technologies could potentially help to bolster shared public access to a range of important public goods.

Professor Morgan drew on her recent work on platform cooperativism to illustrate some of the possibilities, such as the possibility of redesigning Airbnb-like approaches to sharing accommodation with more of an emphasis on affordable housing and benefits to local communities: very much the aim of FairbnB which will launch in September 2019.

Professor Morgan was also able to draw on the work she has been doing over the past 6 months with the emergent Sydney Commons Lab, which is helping to build links between commons-based approaches to urban policy and the City of Sydney’s local community strategy Sustainable Sydney 2050