Engaging and Researching the Commons Globally
The Critical Commons Research Network (CCRN) is an international research collective focused on examining the sharing of digital public knowledge through infrastructural, political-economic, and policy lenses. This network connects researchers to create opportunities for mentorship and collaboration around the (digital) commons.
Research areas
Infrastructure analysis
Infrastructure is famously “stuff you can kick,” but it is also “stuff you can click.” Research in this area often explores the present-but-nearly-invisible nature of the systems, standards, and software that govern who can create, access, and edit the commons.
Policy studies
Codes, laws, policies, and guidelines form the institutional and infrastructural guardrails that ensure longevity and viability of the commons. Research in this area emphasizes regulation, coordination, and norms.
Political economy
The commons are not created just by designating an area of collective use, but also through the labor, maintenance, and attachment of symbolic value. Each of these processes demand an attention to the politics of labor organization and the economics of nonmarket production.
Knowledge commons
Contemporary digital knowledge relies on Wikimedia projects, social media platforms, and AI. These spaces are not simply sources of data to be collected. They are sites of power that require humanistic approaches to understand bias, inequality, and the cultural specificity of knowledge production.
Association of Internet Researchers
Annual Conference
This year’s convenor Zachary McDowell (zacharymcdowell.bsky.social) will be present at the AoIR’s 2025 annual conference this year in Brazil. Please make contact with him to discuss how you can get involved with the research network.
How to get involved
The goal of the CCRN is to establish a
critical mass of research expertise that allows
both collaboration between established
researchers as well as a locus for new
connections and mentorship of new researchers
seeking to establish new research agendas
aligned with the group.
1
Step One: Join our Google group
Our mailinglist is dedicated to share news about upcoming events, share new publications in the area of commons, and to be a forum to discuss the concerns of commons researchers.
2
Step Two: Connect at CCRN events
We will be hosting preconferences, panels, and other events for critical commons researchers to share their recent research, meet fellow critical scholars, and to establish institutional conections.
3
Step Three: Produce research together
This research network is being created to build community connections as well as begin to train, mentor, and establish new research trajectories
for scholars from all over the world. The goal of CCRN is to faciliatate these connections.