Remix the Commons is an open and intercultural space for sharing, co-creating and remixing documents and projects on commons, based on the recognition of a culture of sharing, inclusive and emancipatory participation.

Remixthecommons enables commoners to carry out research and mediation projects on the commons, and to disseminate and advocate for the recognition of practices of sharing and common self-organisation. The role of Remix is to publicise these initiatives, their practical applications and to support their transformation into policy proposals that can be taken up by the commoners in the public sphere.

Remixthecommons is a platform or shared production space at the service of the commoners' movement. It supports the commoners in their efforts to put in tension their actions and collaborations towards a politicisation of the commons. This platform - shared project space - allows the identification, collection and invention of the mechanisms that constitute the engineering of the commons. It enables the knowledge produced by the commoners to be preserved by structuring the information, in particular through semantic web tools and by making visible a grammar of collective solidarity action.

Remixthecommons is a french-speaking space that researches and explores the modalities of interaction with other linguistic and cultural spheres.

Remixthecommons is in and of itself a complex and articulated set of tools or actions.One of the critical challenges for the commons’ movement and for Remixthecommons is to make tangible the place of the commons’ economy, so far invisible through the distinction between the formal and informal economy. 

Remixthecommons is involved in action-research projects such as those conducted by AAA on Agrocities and R'urban. In collaboration with the Australian researcher K. Gibson, this work will eventually lead to the development of calculators capable of highlighting the scale and scope of this invisible economy. This work is a continuation of the Remix pioneering approach to the analysis of legal tools (the charters of urban commons) begun in 2015, which can be used as a basis for thinking about the governance of commoning complexes. In the long term, it intends to contribute to the multiplication of methods, tools and indicators that will enable public institutions to recognise triple bottom line evaluations.

Remixthecommons mobilises activists and researchers around operational projects that bring the experience of commoning to life while at the same time equipping the commons movement with new methodological and technical tools. 

Meeting formats (a.o. Appel en commun, Commons Camp) for collective publication (a.o. Dossier Remix, Cahiers Politiques des communs, Horizons communs), tools for co-managing resources (open budgets) and multi-linguism (WSFTE, Commons camp, meet.coop) are original, co-constructed tools that are being re-appropriated by the actors of the social movements that revolve around Remixthecommons. In the continuity of this dynamic, Remix continues to develop a shared infrastructure of commons based on the models of the federation (Fediverse) and cooperative platforms, the first bricks of which are the digital konbit and meet.coop. Remixthecommons is seeking the conditions for an inclusive federation of media players on the Commons to open up a space for computational communication at the service of projects and the Commons movement, based on values of digital sovereignty, ecology and ethics.

Remixthecommons's initiatives are also the privileged terrain for building alliances within social movements with actors engaged in redefining public space (intermediary places, third places,...), especially those who are bearers and explorers of the territorial question. Remixthecommons operates in this place as a resource space for activists and their collectives, with no desire to enroll them, creating a space for cooperation that crosses national, disciplinary and sectoral boundaries. These spaces are the focal points for the deployment of self-supporting (self-managed) activities by collectives, both face-to-face (such as the Commons Camp) and conceived as asynchronous and distant online devices.

Remixthecommons is committed to the emergence of a Commons movement in Europe. The European Assembly of Communes (ECA), followed by the Commons Camp (Grenoble, Marseille), allowed a collective project to mature. This dynamic presents itself as a space of alliance between activists and their organisations to deploy the project of the commons in its translocal European dimension. After the masterful success of the Grenoble (2018) and Marseille (2020) commonscamps, a working space is opening up and is structured around projects, the most notable of which are: the European laboratory for mutual legal assistance of commons, whose initial activities are financed by Fundaction, Meet.coop, the international cooperative for video-conferencing services being set up following the COVID19 health crisis, and the international multimedia publication Horizons Communs, which deals with the challenges of the commons movement in the context of the WSFTE. 

Remixthecommons is a commons. Its governance is collective and collaborative: governance means a process of reflection, decision-making and evaluation based on an open and enlightened partnership between the various actors and stakeholders in the project, both locally and globally and in an intercultural dynamic.

The governance of Remixthecommons is horizontal. The decisions and orientations of Remix are taken by the general assembly of users who wish to be members of the Remix collective. The Remix collective meets at regular intervals. Decisions are updated through digital tools whose archives are public. They are adopted by consent or on the principle of one man/woman equals one vote.

Truly open governance. Remixthecommons respects the principles of communication and public participation.  Remix ensures that it provides truly accessible means in terms of ergonomics, accessibility to people and limiting technical requirements.

Remix the commons is a collective founded in 2009 by 5 French-speaking organisations Communautique, VECAM, LARTES-IFAN, Ker Thiossane and FMAS - Forum des alternatives Maroc, on the proposal of Alain Ambrosi. Remix the commons was formed following the first meeting of the World Forum for Science and Democracy (WFSD). Remix the commons aimed to create a space for a better understanding of commons and their relevance to civil society and social movements. At the beginning of 2018, Remix de commons was set up as an association in order to institutionally support the project set up by the collective since 2010.

Remix the commons has carried out numerous activities through Communautique, VECAM and Gazibo (successively institutional partners of the collective). They contribute to producing and structuring knowledge on the notion and experience of the commons, and to reinforcing exchanges between the families of actors involved in the commons movement in order to create the conditions for strategic cooperation. During the first 10 years of its existence, Remix has met and collaborated with a large number of friends, partners and allies on more than 70 different projects. Remix the commons contributed to the preparation of the Economics of the Commons Conference (ECC) in 2013 in Berlin. The aim was to mobilise French and French-speaking commoners for this event and to document the meeting with interviews conducted for the Remix The Commons website (wiki).

Following the Conference, in September 2013, Remix the commons carried out a work programme on three parts: a practical handbook of the commons, a glossary of common goods, an overview of the issues/proposals to feed the political agendas of the commons. While making progress in these three areas, Remix the commons plays a coordinating role within the French-speaking network of commoners. This discussion list has become a reference on the subject of commons.

Since 2014, the French-speaking network is a recognised space for reflection and the development of proposals that actors can take up in their own context, local authority, association or academic environment.

Remix the commons has piloted or contributed to the realisation or publication of projects, dossiers and studies or to the translation into French of Pouvoir du voisinage (a work published in Switzerland by PM). In addition to these publications, a range of activities in the form of conferences, training on the commons with Terre de Liens, in-depth seminars and the organisation of symposia (Cerisy 2016 and 2017).

Finally, in 2016, Remix the commons is committed to the constitution of the commons movement in Europe by proposing the organisation of a first meeting: CommonsWatch (April 2016) which led to the constitution of the European Commons Assembly  (ECA). This assembly met in Brussels (November 2016) in the European Parliament and then in Madrid in October 2017.

What Remix the commons is not:

Remix is not an encyclopaedic library on commons.

Remix is not a multimedia production company.

Remix is not a collection space for all media managed as commons

Remix is not a substitute for Wiki Commons or Archives.org for example.

Remix the Commons - CC BY Frédéric Sultan