COMCRIS Commoning in Crisis: Collective Voice and the Reimagining of Rural Resilience. Emma Bell, USMB.
Project Description
The COMCRIS project (Commoning in Crisis) investigates how practices of commoning can help build resilience in rural and mountainous areas facing political, social and environmental crises. It is grounded in the idea that these crises are intertwined with longer histories of land dispossession, enclosure, and shifting forms of governance. The project examines how local communities engage in acts of commoning, understood as the creation of shared spaces, resources, and forms of governance, allowing them to respond to crisis in imaginative ways through acts of solidarity and self-organisation. It focusses in particular in how they collectively manage land and resources, while also giving voice to non-human actors such as ecosystems and species. By doing so, it explores how commoning practices respond not only to environmental challenges, but also to crises of political representation and social fragmentation.
Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the research combines sociology, political science, law, and history to analyse these dynamics across multiple European contexts. It is based on a strong citizen science methodology, involving civil society actors at all stages of the research process. Through comparative fieldwork, the project seeks to understand how commoning fosters environmental awareness, collective voice, and new forms of governance. Ultimately, COMCRIS aims to show how locally grounded practices can contribute to broader processes of ecological transition and institutional transformation, offering new pathways for reimagining rural resilience.
The project is associated with the Chaire VALCOM: Projet Valcom – Valoriser les communs fonciers
Team leaders
Filippo BARBERA, Full Professor of Economic Sociology, Department of Cultures, Politics and Society, University of Turin
Vlad BOTGROS, Assistant Professor in Political Studies, Department of Governance Sciences, West University of Timișoara
José-Miguel LANA BERASAIN, Full Professor in Institutions and Economic History at the Department of Economics of the Public University of Navarre
Alcides MONTEIRO, Full Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, University of Beira Interior
Local researchers
USMB: Lauren BRANCAZ-MCCARTAN ; Marc-Philippe BRUNET ; Olivier CHAVANON ; Aurélien DEMARS ; Jean-François JOYE ; Nuria LLORENTE-BELDA (PhD) ; Jean-Louis MARIN-LAMELLET ; Síofra NIC RISTEáIRD (PhD) ; Hélène SCHMUTZ ; Julio ZARATE
UBI: Anabela DINIS
UNITO: Isabel OBERLIN (PhD) ; Susanna MARCHINI (PhD) ; Luca BISERNA (PhD)
UVT: Bianca LUCACI ; Lucian VESALON
Navarra:
Civil society partners
IRELAND: Save Leitrim (Home - Save Leitrim), Gaelic Woodland Project (Gaelic Woodland Project - People-Powered Reforestation), Community Action for a Regenerative Environment (Microsoft Word - CARE Project Description Summary Long MCF_CP 2025), Climate Action Louisburgh Locality (callclimateaction.ie – not-for-profit voluntary group)
ITALY : Città metropolitana di Torino (www.cittametropolitana.torino.it); SEACoop (https://seacoop.com/); SocialFare (https://socialfare.org/)
PORTUGAL: Cova da Beira Converge initiative (https://covadabeiraconverge.pt/); Baldios de Unhais da Serra, Guardiões da Serra da Estrela (https://guardioesse.wixsite.com/guardioesestrela); Associação de Agrupamentos de Baldios – Estrela Sul (https://www.baladi.pt/agrupamentos/estrela-sul/); Prout Research Institute Portugal (https://prip.pt/)
ROMANIA: We Re-Create
SPAIN: Governing Board (Junta General) of the Roncal Valley, Spain (https://vallederoncal-erronkaribar.com/la-junta/)
Events
Workshop Chambéry 3-5th September 2026
The workshop will bring together academic partners and civil society stakeholders involved in commoning initiatives in France, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Romania. Conceived as a space for dialogue and co-production, the workshop will enable participants to present their respective projects, share experiences, and collectively reflect on the challenges and opportunities associated with commoning practices in rural and mountainous contexts. Particular emphasis will be placed on identifying common research priorities, refining methodological approaches, and strengthening collaboration between researchers and local actors. The programme will also include a field visit to a local initiative in the Bauges mountain range, providing an opportunity to ground discussions in a concrete case and to foster exchange between participants and practitioners.
