Forging sustainable futures - new materialist ontologies and the potential of the new commons movement.

This project will seek to show the potential of new commons movements (Hess, 2008) to restructure our society toward social-ecological sustainability. It will consider the extent to which underlying anthropocentric ontologies inhibit the new commons movement to depart from the neoliberal influences. It will ask how new materialism can increase the potential of the new commons to break with neoliberal law and policy and push towards a sustainable future. Through a comparative analysis of new commons movements in England and Japan, it will seek to demonstrate the impact ontology has on the development and practices of these movements.