COMCRIS
Commoning in Crisis: Community, solidarity and resistance in rural and mountainous regions

 

Starting grant UNITA Erasmus +
November 2025-October 2026

 

 

Principal Investigator: Emma BELL, Professor of Contemporary British Politics, USMB

LLSETI Team : 

  • Lauren BRANCAZ-MCCARTAN, Associate Professor in British Studies, LLSETI

  • Marc-Philippe BRUNET, Associate Professor in sociolinguistics, LLSETI

  • Olivier CHAVANON, Associate Professor in Sociology, Centre de Recherche en Droit Antoine Favre (CERDAF)

  • Aurélien DEMARS, Associate Professor in Philosophy

  • Jean-François JOYE, Full Professor of Public Law, Centre de Recherche en Droit Antoine Favre (CERDAF)

  • Nuria LLORENTE-BELDA, PhD CHORAL, LLSETI, Peace Studies Doctoral School, Roma La Sapienza

  • Jean-Louis MARIN-LAMELLET, Secondary School Teacher, member of the LLSETI research lab

  • Síofra NIC RISTEáIRD, PhD CHORAL, LLSETI + Turin

  • Ugo RUSSO, Associate Professor of Italian Studies, LLSETI

  • Hélène SCHMUTZ, Associate Professor of American Studies, LLSETI

  • Julio ZARATE, Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies, LLSETI

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 

This research project seeks to explore practices of commoning in rural and mountainous areas and to understand how they might allow communities to build resilience and resistance to crises, understood in political, environmental, economic and social terms. Commoning entails the creation of shared spaces, resources, and forms of governance, allowing communities to respond to crisis in imaginative ways through acts of solidarity and self-organisation. Interdisciplinary in scope, the project brings together historians, sociologists, legal scholars, and political scientists, among others, to explore these questions from both contemporary and historical perspectives. It adopts a comparative approach, focusing on Europe for field work case studies, but also drawing on experience and good practice from the United States, and Latin America. Bringing together local citizens, institutional actors and academics, it explores how inclusive societies can emerge through these processes, highlighting both the potential and the challenges of fostering inclusivity within collective responses to crisis. Ultimately, it aims to bring rural and mountain communities together to share experience and further creative practices of commoning.

The project is associated with the Chaire VALCOM: Projet Valcom – Valoriser les communs fonciers