Introduction
Since the 1970s, gender studies and commons studies have gradually developed to achieve academic recognition. These fields are now well institutionalized with specialized scientific journals (e.g. Gender and Society and the International Journal of the Commons), university departments for gender studies1 or academic platforms and networks for the commons.2 Theoretical and empirical research on gender aims to measure gender inequalities, sexual division of labor, discrimination, while also analyzing processes of domination, oppression, and exploitation. The field of the commons focuses on the study of the management of tangible or intangible resources by communities or collective organizations, as well as the preservation of a resource by a community through traditional knowledge. Both fields lead to a rethinking of the boundaries between private and public spheres, highlighting the role of social norms in relation to individual choices. They renew the definitions of labor, ownership, management and resources, paying specific attention to North-South relations. Gender studies and commons studies share common features regarding their object of study and their mode of development. The literature in these fields is based on collaborations and the sharing of concepts and knowledge that transcend traditional academic divisions. This interdisciplinary approach may explain why they have long been relegated to the margins of knowledge classifications. Finally, gender and commons studies are rooted both empirically and conceptually in academia, and they are also used for political purposes, creating a dynamic interchange between activism and the scientific sphere. These two concepts are particularly subject to various appropriations and global political struggles and controversies over their definitions and meanings (on the appropriations of the concept of gender see Lombardo et al. (2010)).
Based on this common ground, a body of literature that crosses the two perspectives has progressively grown. The publication of a special issue of the International Journal of the Commons in 2019, dedicated to a feminist approach to the commons, indicates a growing interest for integrating power relationships in the analysis of the commons, from a feminist perspective (Clement et al., 2019). Connections have particularly emerged through issues relating to the preservation of natural resources from ecological sustainability and economic development perspectives. Ecofeminism is one of the bridges between the commons and gender, and it is certainly the most visible in public debates. However, the articulation between these two fields is not limited to this approach. The intersection of the two perspectives produces a heterogeneous body of knowledge, analysis, and recommendations. This literature includes theoretical, empirical, and historical approaches, alternating between an analytical description of local communities and a radical critique of the economic and political order based on capitalism and patriarchy (Cangelosi, 2021).
This paper aims to report on the diversity of the literature intersecting gender studies and commons studies. To this end, we provide a framework to account for the different ways to articulate gender and the commons. Given that both academic fields are deeply connected with normative considerations, such as the promotion of gender, environmental, and social justice, we propose a grid that distinguishes, for each field, the analytical/descriptive perspective from the political/normative perspective. This grid reveals four approaches within the dual field and underscores the potential controversies. We then conduct a detailed bibliometric analysis based on an original database, Genre&Com. This analysis quantifies the dynamics of publications and the diversity of this literature in terms of co-authorship, multidisciplinarity, dissemination. We also document the types of resources associated with the commons. We compare the specifity of the dual field to the literature on the commons using data from another bibliometric analysis conducted on the 30th anniversary of Elinor Ostrom’s book Governing the Commons (Laerhoven et al., 2020). We apply the framework to the database and identify specific papers that illustrate the different approaches within the dual field. The bibliometric analysis highlights the heuristic value of crossing gender and the commons, showing that both fields enrich one another. In particular, our analysis reveals that, in addition to the “big five” resources identified in the literature on the commons (Laerhoven & Ostrom, 2007), “care/domestic work” emerges as an important resource in the dual field of gender and the commons. This reflects the concern regarding the sexual division of labor brought in from the gender perspective (see for instance Beneria (1979) or Kergoat & Hirata (2017)).
This paper contributes to the literature in three ways. Firstly, it underscores the richness of this growing dual field. Secondly, it provides an overview of it to facilitate its understanding and appropriation by different categories of actors (academics, practitioners). Finally, it advocates for the importance of considering gender in commons studies, and conversely, for using the concept of commons to address key issues in gender studies, such as the way we analyze care and domestic labor. In the first section, we briefly present the two fields and expose why and how crossing gender and the commons. We then detail the framework built to map this literature. In the second section, we describe the data used for the bibliometric analysis and highlight the main results regarding the specificity of this dual field. Finally, we apply the framework to map the literature at the crossroads of gender and the commons and illustrate the analysis with two topics identified: environmental and gender justice, and care work as part of the social commons. In conclusion, we identify new avenues for research.
Why and how crossing “gender” and “the commons”
Brief description of each field
From feminism to gender studies
Feminism is a political movement that advocates for gender equality and promotes women’s rights. It denounces sexism as a system of discrimination and disqualification of women, the sexual order, and patriarchy. It is rooted in a complex process of theoretical thought associated with political practices or struggles, which can be called “feminist studies.” This field is therefore anchored in a logic of knowledge production that opens a space of intelligibility around gender equality (Fraisse, 2022). Considering that power and knowledge are inseparable, feminist epistemology highlights that science has not been neutral in many ways and has often been used to legitimize power structures within society (Harding, 1991). The feminist perspective in sciences has developed, and in some fields is now recognized as a specific branch, such as in economics (Périvier, 2020). In the public debate, the feminist movement gained momentum in the 2000s through critiques of liberal feminism, which was accused of focusing on the rights of women from privileged socio-economic categories to the detriment of those in more precarious positions (see for example Fraser (2010), Arruzza et al. (2019) or Pochic (2018)). Following feminist studies, gender studies have developed. This multidisciplinary field analyzes power relations, inequalities, and discrimination based on sex, gender (including gender identity), and sexual orientation, intersecting with other categories such as social origin, real or supposed ethno-racial origin, religion, age, and disability. Gender is a concept that points to a system of domination made up of a dense web of hierarchical positions, social relations, and mechanisms of retribution and role assignment determined by individuals’ sex. Gender studies intersect with other fields and concepts such as decolonial theories (Dietze, 2014) and intersectionality (Lutz et al., 2016). An important dimension of these internal controversies within the field concerns the under-representation of academics and specialists from low or middle income countries (Medie & Kang, 2018).
From the commons to “commoning”
Against the “tragedy of the commons” developed by Hardin (1968), Ostrom showed that forms of governance and institutional arrangements based on communities of users were possible and efficient for managing resources. Her work led to the addition of a fourth type of good alongside private goods, public goods as defined by Samuelson (1954), and club goods as defined by Buchanan (1965) : common pool resources. There is no resource with intrinsic characteristics predisposing it to be managed as a common, and not every resource is necessarily intended to be a common. Thus, defining the commons by the resource or the goods on which they rely is not satisfactory (Leyronas & Bambridge, 2018). A common is a social institution made up of three elements: a resource, a set of agents with rights and duties over that resource, and governance developed by the community, which regulates its use according to a set of rules and the evolution of the ecological, social, and economic context. The definition of the commons as an institution focuses more on the type of organization and the production of rules to manage this resource (Coriat, 2017). Commons practices consist of multiple forms of solving collective action problems proposed by communities through the construction of ad hoc, and a priori horizontal, rule systems. These rules redefine ownership by considering its multiple dimensions. The bundle of rights can be formal or informal, written or oral, but they are always socialized and built by a given community according to its needs. The issue of managing the production of value and its distribution within the community is also negotiated and discussed as part of resource management. The trio “resource, governance, community” can be enriched by the concept of the real capacity of individuals, referring to the capabilities of Sen (2005) and Nussbaum (1997), to participate in governance and access the resource; these are commons of capabilities (Fontaine, 2021). These characterizations of the commons are based on a set of social practices. But the concept of the commons also refers to a political paradigm or even an ethic. From this perspective, the commons can be defined as a political principle that designates the association of people who, because they engage in common tasks, produce moral, political, and legal norms to frame their actions (Jourdain, 2021). The focus is not solely on the resource or the community to which individuals belong, but on the shared burden of preserving and transmitting the commons. Dardot & Laval (2014) thus considers the commons as a political principle that defines a new regime of struggles on a global scale. The social, political, and economic organization by the commons becomes an alternative to neoliberal capitalism by excluding a broader set of goods, services, and resources from the market, as well as an alternative to the nationalization of resources. Some authors prefer the term “commoning” instead of “the commons” to emphasize this perspective (Fournier, 2013).
The starting point of the commons was to demonstrate that, excluding the market or public planning, rules and institutions can emerge within communities from the bottom up to ensure a sustainable, shared, and efficient management of resources. However, this way of governance does not necessarily rely on an equal representation of men and women in decision-making, nor in access to the resource. Yet, Ostrom’s work is generally gender-blind. She occasionally referred to the fact that these rules could have different effects on the situations of women and men. Łapniewska (2016) textual analysis of Ostrom’s work measures the degree to which gender, or the unequal situations of women and men, are considered in her publications. In a paper published in 1999, Ostrom mentions the role of sex alongside other individual characteristics such as caste, age, ethnicity, clan, and class (Ostrom, 1999). In a chapter of a collective work published in 2008, she introduces gender into her conceptual grid by mentioning that the rules of commons management can be affected by certain individual characteristics of the participants in its development, including sex (Ostrom, 2008). Assuming that interests are homogeneous within a community leads to denying the existence of structures of power.
The relevance of intersecting the two fields
Gender and the governance of the commons
Gender norms determines how rights, responsibilities, and resources are allocated either within households, communities, or institutions (Meinzen-Dick et al., 1997; Rocheleau & Edmunds, 1997). The gender composition of the users groups matters in the design of the governance of the commons : in different national contexts (in Kenya, Uganda, Bolivia, Mexico), gender balanced groups participate more in the decision-making process and are more inclined to adopt exclusive use of the resource, while groups mainly composed of women participate less in decision-making, sanction less in case of rule non-compliance, and exclude users less easily (Sun et al., 2011). The status of women within the community that governs a common resource is crucial for detecting potential dynamics of domination within governance structures. Governance of the commons can be rooted in patriarchal structures that exclude women from the negotiation process: patrilinear inheritances system of collective land was progressively implemented in the Middle Age in Italy to preserve the commons from overuse (Casari & Lisciandra, 2016). The participation of women in the design of rules and their access to resources significantly impacts their situation and gender inequalities overall (Zwarteveen & Meinzen-Dick, 2001). Some studies show that increasing the involvement of women in the management improve women’s compliance with rules, maintenance contributions and then strengthen the effectiveness of the organization (Meinzen-Dick & Zwarteveen, 1998; Zwarteveen, 1997; Zwarteveen & Meinzen-Dick, 2001). Strengthening the decision-making role of women in commons management, combined with an appropriate institutional environment lead to more sustainable resource management, and reduce disruptive conflict (Coleman & Mwangi, 2013; Doss et al., 2020; Revollo-Fernández et al., 2016).
Commoning practices are shaped by pre-existing resource access that is often unequally structured along gender but also other social categories (Agarwal, 1992; Rap & Jaskolski, 2019). Some case studies unpack how the intersection of gender, class, culture create multiple situations regarding access to resources and decision-making in the management of common resources. Women’s participation at the negotiating table does not automatically lead to their inclusion in resource management, as factors such as social status or ethnicity also play decisive roles. Agarwal (2009) analyzes the mode of forest management (in India and Nepal) according to the composition of the decision-making committees. Given rural women’s dependence on the local forest resources, one might expect women to negotiate more flexible usage rules. However, it appears that the strictest rules come from committees including women, with the exception of those in which women who do not own land are particularly represented. This literature reveals that traditional forms of commons management can be at the expens of the most vulnerable women. The rule of management can impact the access to the resource for women compared to men, and also affect the sustainability of the resource.
Another way to cross gender and commons studies is to assess the impact of the privatization or nationalization of the commons on the socio-economic status of women. Indeed this can be particularly detrimental for women due to structural gender inequalities (Tsikata & Yaro, 2014). The dispossession of the commons in consequences of agrarian reforms in different contexts leads to a reduction in the independence of women and this in a differentiated way according to caste or social origin; it leads to reinforcing their assignment to reproductive tasks within the household (Levien, 2017; White & White, 2012). The practice of the ‘family head’ system can be reinforced, women becoming a class of plantation labor (Gerber & Haller, 2021). Carney (1993) illustrates how the change in swamp managment in The Gambia following agrarian reform increased conflicts between women and men, the latter then having the possibility of enclosing the land and thus taking control of the land and of women’s domestic work.
Gendering the commons: a political agenda
The commons can be identified as a way to overcome the economic and political order, including capitalism, statism, and patriarchy. In this perspective, they differ from those advocated by the Ostrom School, where commons coexist with the public and private spheres. The approach relies on the disruptive content of both concepts, gender and the commons: denunciation of oppression, appropriation, and endangerment of populations, as well as demands for equality and transformation of property systems (Taylor, 2003). Within this framework, the market and the state are viewed as institutions that reinforce inequalities and encourage unsustainable connections between production and consumption. The commons are portrayed as a horizon for ending gender inequalities and enabling the economic emancipation of women. Caffentzis & Federici (2014) specify the conditions under which the commons can be an alternative to capitalism and a way to escape from neoliberal dogma and patriarchy. They must be produced by free associations of producers, self-governed. This community should be selected in the basis of the care-work perform to reproduce the commons, and the rule should be the equal access to means of (re)production and egalitarian decision making process, with a specific attention to gender equality. Podlashuc (2009) shows how practices of the commons within autonomous communities, such as precarious women’s movements that resist market practices, lead to deconstructing the oppression of industrial modernity. The goal is to substitute the agenda of the populations for that of the elites. Federici (2011) engages in a feminist critique of the land ownership reforms in Africa spearheaded by the World Bank in the 1990s, which aimed to develop communal lands. Prior to these reforms, landless women in urban areas resorted to appropriating unused public land to engage in subsistence agriculture. According to Federici, the reclaiming of unused public lands by women should have paved the way for the creation of new commons, fostering collective ownership and sustainable resource management instead of reinforcing neoliberalism through this individualist behavior.
Fueled by Indigenous studies, Black studies, and decolonial theory, Eidelman & Safransky (2021) suggest to use the urban commons to conceive of strategies to build more radically inclusive and sustainable cities. In another context, Milani (2021) analyzes three urban garden communities in Brussels. The concept of the commons makes it possible to identify gardens as spaces for commoning practices that use and manage these resources collectively. The authors conclude that these shared gardens can constitute an alternative making it possible to question patriarchy and capitalist neoliberalism under certain conditions. Four factors are fundamental to avoid the emergence of new forms of domination in the practice of the commons: 1) the exchange of knowledge; 2) ecological responsibility, 3) decentralized power and 4) interdependence between social justice and ecology. Finally, Kashwan et al. (2021) propose an agenda of empirical and theoretical research within the commons to strengthen the bridges between critical analyzes of private property and environmental justice. The aim is to better understand how social, economic and political inequalities affect the constitution of the groups that access and control the resource managed in the form of the commons taking into account for gender, ethnic origin and social origin. The authors call for pushing the boundaries of the theory of the commons by exploring the process of commoning or decommoning via “grabbed commons”. They propose to mobilize the perspective of the commons to show the historical process of colonization and capitalist dispossession.
The different sub-approaches
Crossing gender studies and commons studies has heuristic value, offering diverse analyses reflecting the richness of each field. To map this diversity, we establish a framework based on the dual approach characterizing both gender and commons studies : analytical/descriptive and political/normative. The grid is structured around a double entry for each field, delineating the boundary between the commons as a mode of managing a resource and the commons as a political principle.
The analytical approach considers the commons as a mode of managing a resource, aligning with Ostrom’s work. Here, the aim is to analyze the functioning of commons in terms of resource types, governance modes, and community dynamics. This approach encompasses various ways of “gendering the commons.”
The political approach considers the commons as a means to transform societies, replacing capitalism and state-controlled public property. Some authors prefer the term “commoning” to emphasize this perspective. This approach explores how the concept of the commons can be used in gender studies to address societal transformation.
The thin border between gender and feminist approaches is based on the following distinction:
The gender approach highlights gender inequalities, forms of domination, exploitation, and oppression.
The feminist approach sets out a normative framework for gender equality. The feminist goal is to build a horizon to overcome patriarchy and promote gender equality.
The intersection of these dual perspectives reveals four main sub-fields within gender/feminist studies and the literature on the commons. When the analytical approach of the commons is associated with the gender approach, it highlights the absence of a gender perspective in the analysis of commons’ functioning. This perspective illuminates processes of domination within commons governance that are overlooked by gender-blind literature. It prompts questions such as: Are commons, as collaborative and traditional modes of management, free from patriarchal oppression and the imposition of heterosexual norms? On the other hand, when the analytical approach of the commons is coupled with the feminist approach, the focus shifts to the defense of gender, environmental and social justice. The objectives of gender equality and women’s rights are integrated with local resource management through commons. The processes of nationalization and privatization may have dismantled commons previously managed by women, thereby weakening their economic status by limiting their decision-making power and control over resources.
The political approach of the commons associated with the gender approach provides another framework that extends the scope of commons to include care work within families. Here, commons are conceptualized as a political model capable of transforming hierarchies and oppression by blurring the boundaries between the private and public spheres. Papers from this perspective are often theoretical and adopt a critical stance toward neoliberalism and capitalism, particularly from a perspective of North/South relations.
Similarly, the political approach of the commons associated with the feminist approach aims to reshape the economic and political order, especially regarding North/South relations, often associated with a decolonial perspective. In this context, commons are viewed as an egalitarian and horizontal political principle that transcends capitalism and patriarchy go to line. The ecofeminist movement aligns with this perspective. Using this theoretical grid, we conduct a bibliometric analysis on a dataset encompassing a wide range of papers published in the intersection of gender studies and commons studies. The goal is to facilitate understanding of this diverse literature and to gain insights into the contributions of various publications in the research landscape.
Bibliometric study of the double field
The data
The Genre&Com database was constructed to map literature at the intersection of gender and commons perspectives up to December 2022. Following the methodology outlined by Laerhoven et al. (2020), we began by compiling bibliographies of articles that intersected both fields and conducted systematic searches via Google Scholar. These searches utilized keywords such as “commons”, “commoning”, “common property resources”, “gender”, “feminist” and “women”. The corpus of articles primarily comprises academic literature in social sciences, including journals, chapters of collective books, working papers, and occasionally policy briefs.
Several journals were thoroughly reviewed or nearly exhaustively searched, including: the International Journal of the Commons,3 Feminist economics;4 Gender and society;5 Gender, Work and Organization,6 World Development.7 However, it’s important to acknowledge a bias in this literature review due to barriers faced by researchers from the Global South in publishing in international journals, particularly for academics in French-speaking Africa. This bias limits the representation of issues related to commons and gender in connection with economic development and ecological sustainability, which are particularly pertinent in these regions. To mitigate this bias, a specific search was conducted on OpenEdition focusing on journals such as VertigO,8 Echogeo9 ou Etudes carribéennes.10
The Genre&Com database comprises 208 documents, primarily academic articles (i.e. 180. Additionnally, the database includes 22 book chapters, 3 working papers, and 3 PhD thesis). The database lists 365 authors, 57% of whom are women. The academic papers have been published in 113 different journals, covering 12 different disciplines. The data contains multiple information for each paper (detailed in the appendix). To analyze the literature using the analytical grid, each document was tagged based on the information available in the abstract. We attribute the label “feminist” when at least one of the following keywords are found in the abstract: feminism/feminist/feminist/feminism, ecofeminism/ecofeminist, patriarchal/patriarchy/intersectionality/intersectional. Otherwise, we attribute the label “gender”. We attribute the label “grid” to papers for which at least one of the following keywords are found in the abstract: struggles, dispossession, social movement, oppression, neoliberalism, consumerism, marxism/Marx, materialism, indivualism, transformative, anti-capitalism/anti-capitalist/ capitalism/classe capitaliste, global South, decolonization, liberal, climate justice/justice, degrowth/decommodification/commonization, exploitation, social change, citizenship, militant, new initiative, domination, commun social. Otherwise, we attribute the label “case”.
To enrich the analysis, we use a database built for the International Journal of the Commons on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the publication of Ostrom’s book, Governing the Commons. This dataset was used to run a bibliometric analysis of the commons literature since the publication of Hardings’ paper in 1968 (Laerhoven, Schoon, et Villamayor-Tomas 2020). This database, that we name ijc2020, contains similar information to that available in the Genre&Com database. Information about the citations of the papers is older than in Genre&Com, so these two variables are not perfectly comparable. Regarding disciplinary fields, the two databases are not comparable neither: Genre&Com the disciplines are reported by authors (sometimes with several disciplines for one author), while in ijc2020 the disciplines are filled in by document. We use the ijc2020 as a benchmark for bibliometric analysis. This should be taken with caution because of the differences in collection between the two databases. The ijc2020 database includes 3818 documents and 6668 authors. 45 papers adopt a gender perspective explicitly in the abstract, this represents 1.2% of the papers listed in the ijc2020 database, for 84 authors. Informations on these papers were completed, updated and added to the Genre&Com database, that contained initially 160 documents.11
The dynamic of publications
The articles listed in the Genre&Com database engage with various concepts related to the commons, often in relation to environmental issues and the transformation of agriculture through agrarian reforms. Different formulations are used to designate the commons such as: village common (Agarwal, 1997); community property regimes or common property resource or common property or community (Agarwal, 1992; Quiggin, 1993; Rocheleau & Edmunds, 1997); communal tenure system (Carney, 1993); land rights (Agarwal, 1994) or property rights (Meinzen-Dick et al., 1997, 2022); commons (Taylor, 2003; Turner & Brownhill, 2001); property status (Bhattacharyya et al., 2011); rights-based access (Bose et al., 2017).
Research at the intersection of gender and the commons is not recent, as evidenced by papers published as early as the early 1990s. However, a certain dynamic has emerged since then, as depicted in Figure 1. But the comparison with the evolution of the literature on the commons leads to a nuanced interpretation of this finding. While the literature on the commons experienced significant growth, particularly in the 2000s and following the Nobel Prize in Economics awarded to Elinor Ostrom in 2009, no similar momentum is observed for the literature on gender and the commons. The spike observed in 2019 can be attributed to the publication of a special issue of the International Journal of the Commons dedicated to the gender approach of the commons. This publication reflects a growing recognition of the double field.
Figure 1
Evolution of the number of publications within the gender and the commons fields.
Sources: Genre&Com; ijc2020.
The Genre&Com database includes 113 journals (compared to 1886 for the ijc2020 database excluding the articles integrating a gender perspective). Laerhoven et al. (2020) note a dispersion in the journals dealing with the commons, leading to a fragmentation of the knowledge produced and a lack of visibility of this field of research. One of the motivations behind the creation of the International Journal of the Commons (IJC) was to facilitate the accumulation of knowledge by providing dedicated support for the study of commons. Similarly, specialized journals such as Gender & Society, Work, Organization and Gender, and Feminist Economics have offered support for academic contributions in the field of gender studies. However, the dual field of gender and the commons faces a similar challenge of dispersion, which can be attributed in part to its interdisciplinary nature. This dispersion hampers the cohesive development of the field and underscores the need for dedicated platforms and initiatives to consolidate research efforts and foster collaboration across disciplines.
While there is no specific journal dedicated solely to gender studies and the commons, three journals stand out: World development, International Journal of the Commons and Feminist economics. All three are listed in the general database on the commons ijc2020 and in the Genre&Com database. In terms of literature crossing gender and commons perspectives, these three journals are the most important, collectively hosting 8% of publications crossing gender and commons studies. World Development publishes more than 3% of this double field, almost as many as the IJC, that is entirely dedicated to the commons with 0% and more than Feminist Economics that publishes less than 5%. World Development is a multidisciplinary monthly journal dedicated to development studies; it exists since 1983. Feminist economics is a quarterly journal that exists since 1995. The IJC, which was created in 2007, is more recent than the two others. In addition, it only publishes two issues per year. This explains the ranking of these three journals with regard to the number of publications crossing the perspective of gender and that of the commons. Figure 2 provides a detailed representation of those journals for which more than five articles were listed. In addition to the main three journals mentioned, it is noteworthy that journals dedicated to environmental issues (such as Ecological Economics or the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management) are particularly represented in the field of the commons or gender and commons studies.
Figure 2
Main journals publishing in the double field gender and the commons.
Sources: Genre&Com; ijc2020.
Pluridisciplinary, collaborations and dissemination
The fields of gender research and commons studies share the characteristic of being open to multidisciplinary approaches. Collaborations between individuals from diverse backgrounds are common, and researchers in these fields often possess multidisciplinary training. The Genre&Com database was constructed by documenting the disciplinary backgrounds of each author (an author can be associated with several disciplines). As mentioned, the ijc2020 database provides discipline information by document rather than by author. Therefore, we analyze the Genre&Com and ijc2020 databases separately.
Economics and sociology emerge as the most prevalent disciplinary fields, each representing around 20% of the disciplines within the intersection of gender and the commons. Following closely are environmental studies, geography, and urban studies, with political science accounting for less than 10% of occurrences. The over representation of economics and sociology can be attributed to the entrenchement of gender and feminist studies within the social sciences, particularly sociology (see Figure 3). Economics holds a distinctive position as it encompasses an interest in the commons and, more recently, in gender studies. However, it’s worth noting that to assess the relative significance of each discipline within the gender and commons literature, one must consider their respective prominence across all scientific publications. Consequently, the relative weight of environmental studies may be greater compared to economics or sociology, as this disciplinary field appears to be more represented in gender and commons literature than in the broader scientific landscape.
Figure 3
Disciplines represented in the double field Gender and the commons.
Sources: Genre&Com; ijc2020.
The exhaustive inventory of the publications of certain journals, such as Feminist Economics and World Development, implies a bias in the representation of disciplines. To explore the role played by the three main journals, we reproduce Figure 3 and successively removing these three main journals. Figure 4 shows the disciplinary distribution according to the number of occurrences of all the journals, then of the journals excluding Feminist Economics, then World Development then the IJC. We note that the first two have a similar disciplinary anchoring, at least on this restricted field of gender and the commons, in particular with economics, whereas the IJC is more oriented towards environmental studies (as defined in the appendix).
Figure 4
Disciplines represented in the double field according the journal.
Sources: Genre&Com.
To document the role of interdisciplinary collaborations, we calculated the number of disciplines per document, using the information available in the Genre&Com database.12 On average, there are 2.7 disciplines per document in the Genre&Com database, which indicates a high degree of multidisciplinary. Figure 5 shows the percentage of documents according to the number of disciplines per document. More than 30% of the documents in the Genre&Com database draw on three different disciplines (as defined in the appendix).
Figure 5
Pluridisciplinarity per publication within the double field gender and the commons.
Sources: Genre&Com.
Among the 365 authors identified in the database, some stand out for their particularly significant contributions. Table 1 lists the authors with more than three publications in the combined fields of gender and commons studies. Notably, two emblematic researchers in feminist studies are Bina Agarwal and Sylvia Federici, and two specialists in commons studies are Ruth Meinzen-Dick and Esther Mwangi. Elinor Ostrom mentioned these researchers as individuals she encouraged to pursue the dual path of gender and commons (May & Summerfield, 2012). Given the under-representation of authors from the Global South in academic literature, it is noteworthy that 2 of the 6 authors mentioned above are from that this region of the world.
Table 1
Main contributors to the literature crossing gender studies and the commons.
| CONTRIBUTORS WITH MORE THAN 3 PUBLICATIONS | |
|---|---|
| AUTHORS | NBRE OF PUBLICATIONS |
| Meinzen-Dick, Ruth | 12 |
| Agarwal, Bina | 11 |
| Federici, Silvia | 7 |
| Zwarteveen, Margreet | 6 |
| Mwangi, Esther | 5 |
| Larson, Anne | 4 |
[i] Source: Genre&Com.
Co-authorship is quite widespread in the literature dealing with the commons as well as in the combined field of gender and the commons. More than 30% of papers in the combined field are written by two co-authors, compared to 25% in the broader field of the commons. Around 15% of papers in the commons literature are written by three authors, compared to 12% in the combined field (Figure 6).
Figure 6
Co-authoring within the double field gender and the commons.
Sources: Genre&Com; ijc2020.
Figure 7 indicates that papers on gender and the commons are quite well-represented among the papers with a hundred citations.13 Comparatively, papers adopting a gender perspective seem to be cited more frequently than those in the broader field of commons. This likely reflects the fact that the gender and commons field is more specialized, which reduces the number of citation opportunities but increases the dynamics of citation accumulation.
Figure 7
Citations of papers within the double field.
Sources: Genre&Com; Genre&Com; ijc2020.
Among the documents cited at least once, the average number of citations is seven times higher for the gender and the commons field, with 169.5 citations per paper against 29.4 for the commons field. The median number of citations is five times higher for the gender and the commons field than for that of the commons in general, with 31. Finally, the document with the most citations in the field of commons is that of Hardin (1968) with 12,514 citations, while that of the gender and commons field is that of Agrawal & Gibson (1999) with 4249 citations. Although the paper mentions the differing statuses of women and men, the gender perspective is not central in this paper. The second most cited document in the Genre&Com data is the book by Bina Agarwal, published in 1994, A field of one’s own: gender and land rights in South Asia (Agarwal 1994). Among papers only, the second most cited is also written by Bina Agarwal, published in World Development in 2001, “Participatory Exclusions, Community Forestry, and Gender: An Analysis for South Asia and a Conceptual Framework” (Agarwal 2001).
What types of commons and where?
Research on the commons is often associated with case studies on the local management of resources by communities. The Genre&Com database provides detailed information on the countries covered by various articles as well as the types of resources or commons analyzed. A single article may focus on the management of multiple resources and/or different geographical areas. This information is not available in the ijc2020 database.
Regarding the type of commons, there are 12 different types of commons. Figure 8 indicates a massive representation of land, which remains a central concern for the management of property rights, particularly in low-income countries. Among the big five identified in the literature on the commons (van Laerhoven & Ostrom, 2007) which are the forest, irrigation systems, fisheries, pastures, water, we find lands/pastures, followed by forest and irrigation/water. On the other hand, fishing is studied as much as care/domestic work and the urban commons are quite well represented. These last two resources or services indeed raise questions that cannot ignore a gender or feminist perspective. Indeed, sexual division of labor is a key concern in gender studies (see for instance (Beneria, 1979; Kergoat & Hirata, 2017). The urban commons is also particularly relevant from a gender perspective, as the appropriation of public space is highly gendered (see for instance (Garcia-Ramon et al., 2004; Ruddick, 1996)). The equal access to public space is a salient topic from a feminist perspective. As in the general literature on the commons, emerging topics such as those relating to biodiversity, the climate, the production of knowledge are found in the double field gender and the commons.
Figure 8
Types of ressources/services represented within the double field gender and the commons.
Sources: Genre&Com.
Among the documents from the Genre&Com database, 63 countries are studied. Figure 9 shows the geographical distribution of these analyzes by country. They indicate a specific prism on Asia and Latin America. India is the country the most represented. The significant representation of work by Indian researchers, such as Bina Agarwal, who has published extensively in this dual field, partly explains this over-representation of cases relating to India. But it is also possible that the modes of organization and the local management of resources are carried out more in the form of commons in India.
Figure 9
Representation of countries within the double field gender and the commons.
Sources: Genre&Com.
Mapping the literature
Sorting the different sub-approaches
To map the literature according to the grid described previously, the papers were tagged to identify the two categories relating to gender studies, the gender approach and the feminist approach. Similarly, for the commons, we identified the analytical approach versus the political approach, which considers the commons as a political principle. Figure 10 shows the respective weight, measured in number of publications, of each category.
Figure 10
Mapping of the different approaches within the double field.
Sources: Genre&Com.
The most common crossover in the literature combines the gender approach with an analytical approach through case studies of the commons, with 115 documents, representing 55.3% of the entire Genre&Com database. These two categories are those that have been defined by default. The feminist approach is more often crossed with the political approach of the commons than with the analytical approach (with 38 and 25 documents respectively). The feminist perspective aligns more closely with viewing the commons as a political principle for renewing economic, social, and political orders. The least frequent crossover combines a feminist perspective to the analytical approach of the commons, representing 12% of the corpus of texts in the Genre&Com database.
The gender approach crossed with the analytical approach of the commons is less multidisciplinary than the other three, with an average number of disciplines per publication of 1.9 against more than 2.2 for the other crossovers (2.37 for the crossover between gender and political approaches, 2.16 for the intersection of analytical approach of the commons and feminist approach and finally 2.1 for that between feminist perspective and the commons as a political principle). On the other hand, this is the intersection in which co-authorship is the most widespread with an average of 2.43 co-authors per publication (1.97 for the intersection of gender and the commons as a political principle, 1.96 for the intersection of a feminist approach and an analytical approach, and finally 1.39. On the other hand, the intersection of the gender approach with the analytical approach of the commons is where co-authorship is most widespread, with an average of 2.34 co-authors per publication (1.95 for the intersection of gender and the commons as a political principle, 2.17 for the intersection of a feminist approach and an analytical approach, and finally 1.53 for the intersection of a feminist and political approach). The approach of the commons as a political principle seems less conducive to co-authorship compared to the case study approach. This difference likely arises from the type of knowledge produced: while the political principle approach is often conceptual, the case study approach is empirical, involving data collection and sometimes experiments, which typically requires a larger research team.
Table 2 gives the distribution of disciplines within each sub-field. The analytical approach of the commons crossed with that of gender mobilizes the economy more than the other three approaches. Experiments, empirical and statistical analyzes are particularly developed in this perspective. The feminist approach crossed with the political approach of the commons is dominated by sociology.
Table 2
Representation of disciplines within each sub field.
| REPRESENTATION OF DISCIPLINES WITHIN EACH SUB FIELD IN % OF OCCURRENCES | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ANALYTICAL APPROACH | POLITICAL APPROACH | |||
| GENDER | FEMINIST | GENDER | FEMINIST | |
| anthropology | 4.9% | 5.6% | 8.5% | 5.1% |
| economics | 21.0% | 14.8% | 11.3% | 8.9% |
| engineering | 3.1% | 5.6% | 2.8% | 6.3% |
| envir. studies | 15.2% | 11.1% | 14.1% | 11.4% |
| gender studies | 2.7% | 5.6% | 2.8% | 5.1% |
| geography/urban studies | 11.2% | 11.1% | 16.9% | 12.7% |
| miscellaneous | 4.9% | 7.4% | 2.8% | 3.8% |
| philosophy | 3.6% | 3.7% | 1.4% | 7.6% |
| political science | 14.7% | 5.6% | 11.3% | 11.4% |
| regional/cultural studies | 1.8% | 3.7% | 2.8% | 1.3% |
| rural/peasant studies | 1.8% | 3.7% | 2.8% | 1.3% |
| sociology | 15.2% | 14.8% | 19.7% | 25.3% |
[i] Within the analytical framework of the commons intersecting with gender perspectives, economics represents 21% of the disciplines.
Source: Genre&Com.
To explore the gender representation among authors, the Figure 10 shows the fourth categories of papers according to the gender of the author.14 Men publish much less than women by adopting a feminist approach and in particular the approach combining feminism and commons as a political principle, as shown in Figure 11. This observation is not surprising insofar as historically feminist studies have been invested mainly by women.
Figure 11
Mapping of the different approaches within the double field accroding the gender of the author.
Sources: Genre&Com.
Identifying controversies and promising avenues
Ecofeminism or environmentalist feminism
The environmental transition is a significant concern within both the fields of commons and gender studies. Controversies arise regarding the role of commons in advocating for gender and environmental justice. The ecofeminist framework lies at the intersection of feminist approaches and commons as a political principle. It posits that male domination and the exploitation of natural resources by productivist societies and capitalism are interconnected (D’Eaubonne, 1978; Shiva, 2020). This perspective underscores the dual oppression that affects women, racialized individuals, and those from disadvantaged social backgrounds. Early ecofeminist Marxist approaches questioned the invisibility of women’s subsistence work and their unique contributions to the commons. Perkins (2019) provides an overview of the theoretical underpinnings of ecofeminist and indigenous thinkers’ resistance against the fossil economy, market property rights, and practices rooted in commoning.
However, the feminist perspective intersecting with the analytical approach of commons tends to challenge the ecofeminist framework. Case studies in the literature often reveal that commons’ rules and governance are influenced by patriarchal practices, leading to the exclusion of women, especially those from marginalized backgrounds. In this context, Agarwal criticizes certain branches of ecofeminism for idealizing traditional resource management through commons. She proposes an alternative to ecofeminism, advocating for what she terms environmentalist feminism. This perspective places greater emphasis on the tangible aspects of human relations and oppression within environmental contexts (Agarwal, 1992). She also underscores how the revival of the commons, particularly through communal management systems like Joint Forest management inadvertently reinforced gender and class disparities. By transitioning from a system of resource access based on citizenship to one based on membership, these new management approaches have often overlooked power dynamics related to gender and class, thereby privileging men and excluding the poorest women from resource management (Agarwal, 1997). More broadly, feminist scholars advocate for a specific attention paid to gender justice when analyzing and promoting the alternatives to neoliberal capitalism such as commoning practrices (Tummers & MacGregor, 2019).
Care labor as a common
The demographic transition implies an increasing demand for care services (care for elderly, children, dependents). The commons offer a framework to recognize the contributions of care work, predominantly performed by women, to the wealth of societies without relying solely on the “market value” of this production. Bibliometric analysis has shown that resources related to labor and care are particularly important in the intersection of gender studies and commons studies. At the intersection of gender approach and the analytical approach of the commons, several papers highlight how the commons can help to produce care services in respect with gender justice. Austen & Jefferson (2019) applies Ostrom’s model of coproduction to analyze aged care. A decentralized governance that focus on the relationships between service providers and users, favor negotiation on care practice between care workers, mainly women, and care recipients, also mainly women. The authors highlight the need for economic studies to better align with the realities of care work for dependent individuals needs.
Combining the analytical approach of the commons with the feminist perspective highlights that the model relying on women to provide unpaid or low-paid labor to support care needs is unsustainable and incompatible with gender equality. Using co-housing as an example of commoning practices, Tummers & MacGregor (2019) warns against taking the work of social reproduction for granted or overlooking inequalities based on gender, class, race/ethnicity, age, and ability. They advocate for further research on the politics of care and the gendered distribution of caring labor within commoning practices.
Finally, at the intersection of feminist approaches and commons as a political principle, the perspective becomes more disruptive. Publications highlight care work as having the potential to become a common resource, aiming to transform the market economy from a feminist standpoint. This entails a collective effort to combat both capitalism and patriarchy, seen as interconnected systems. Federici (2011) proposes a way out of the market economy to modify the role of care work within societies. The aim is to change the foundation on which society is based, namely the gendered division of labor and the non-recognition of care work perform by women within family. She exposes the conditions under which the commons can become a horizon for overcoming capitalism, in particular the commons must not become a mean of providing reproduction labor at low cost. Similarly, Dengler & Lang (2022) examine how to organize care work in a degrowth society that combines social justice and ecology without prioritizing environmental justice over gender equality. By utilizing the framework of the commons, the authors propose to decommodify care work. Moving beyond the dichotomy public sphere/private sphere, the aim is to conceptualize care as a common (“commonization of care”), relying on a transformative community as it exists at the margins of capitalism and created by social movements. At the global level, Isaksen et al. (2008) show that the markets of the North erodes the “commons” of the South through the migration of women from South to perform care work within families living in the North. Overall, these studies underscore the importance of considering gender and social class dynamics in resource management and care work. They call for more inclusive and nuanced approaches that address the intersecting inequalities shaping access to and control over resources and caregiving responsibilities.
Conclusion
The literature combining gender perspectives with studies on the commons is not recent and highly diverse. Despite its growth, this field faces challenges such as fragmentation and limited visibility due to its dissemination across various journals. To address this, specialized journals have emerged within the parent fields of gender studies and the commons. Research within this interdisciplinary domain reveals that the commons are not immune to forms of oppression, whether at the household or community level, necessitating a keen focus on gender perspectives. Moreover, attention must also be paid to other forms of domination or inequality, including social or ethnic origin, and sexual orientation. As of now, the research agenda remains open, with a need for more empirical studies to comprehend the processes underlying hierarchies within the commons and the resistance strategies of oppressed groups.
This paper emphasizes the importance of adopting a cross-sectional approach to examine the intersection of gender and the commons in addressing societal transitions. Three major transitions—environmental, demographic, and digital—are discussed in this context, each with profound implications for resource management, gender dynamics, and social equality. In the environmental transition, the need for a shift in resource management methods is underscored, with gender being a critical dimension that must be considered. A large scope of research at the intersection of gender and the commons explores themes related to environmental preservation, resource management, and economic development. The demographic transition, driven by aging populations, highlights the importance of care for dependent individuals across various cultural contexts. This transition emphasizes the significance of the care sector, predominantly performed by women within families, yet often unpaid and undervalued by prevailing public policies. Some papers suggest considering care as a common resource. However, this requires further research to explore practical implementations of this approach to reproductive work. Finally, the digital transition, characterized by the commodification of personal data, reshapes the boundaries between public and private spheres while perpetuating gender and other forms of discrimination, particularly in artificial intelligence technologies.
Additional File
The additional file for this article can be found as follows:
Appendix
The appendix describes the Genre&Com data set and the variables used in the bibliometrics analysis. For eachd document, several pieces of information were coded in order to analyze the contents of this corpus and to better understand the different ways of articulating the gender perspective and that of the commons. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/ijc.1341.s1
Notes
[3] For example, in 1993 the London School of Economics has created a department dedicated to Gender studies: LSE Gender pioneers intersectional, interdisciplinary and transnational teaching and research, addressing the tenacity of gendered power relations and gendered inequalities in times of global transformations. In France, the academic network of the CNRS, MAGE, Marché du travail et GEnre was established in 1995 by the sociologist Margaret Maruani, paving the way to the institutionalization of gender studies in France.
[4] The Ostrom Workshop was founded at Indiana University in 1973. It gathers the world’s top academics, lawyers, economists, policymakers, political scientists, urban and rural developers, and dozens of other disciplines come together. Here, professionals and researchers come together to share solutions to the world’s most pressing problems involving communal and contested resources—from clean water to secure cyberspace.
[5] The International Journal of the Commons (IJC) is an initiative of the International Association for the Study of the Commons(IASC). As an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed open-access journal, the IJC is dedicated to furthering the understanding of institutions for use and management of resources that are (or could be) enjoyed collectively. These resources may be part of the natural world (e.g. forests, climate systems, or the oceans) or they may emerge from social realities created by humans (e.g. the internet or (scientific) knowledge, for example of the sort that is published in open-access journals).
[6] Feminist Economics is a peer-reviewed journal that provides an open forum for dialogue and debate about feminist economic perspectives. By opening new areas of economic inquiry, welcoming diverse voices, and encouraging critical exchanges, the journal enlarges and enriches economic discourse. The goal of Feminist Economics is not just to develop more illuminating theories, but to improve the conditions of living for all children, women, and men.
[7] Articles appearing in Gender & Society analyze gender and gendered processes in interactions, organizations, societies, and global and transnational spaces. The journal primarily publishes empirical articles, which are both theoretically engaged and methodologically rigorous, including qualitative, quantitative, and comparative-historical methodologies.
[8] Launched in 1994, Gender, Work & Organization was the first journal to provide an arena dedicated to debate and analysis of gender relations, the organization of gender and the gendering of organizations. Since then Gender, Work & Organization has published multi-disciplinary, high quality qualitative empirical research on gendered power relations and identities in the study of work and organization exploring issues of inclusion and exclusion. It has also published quantitative work guided by critical epistemologies on issues such as the gender pay gap, flexible work, career patterns, women on boards and access to leadership positions.
[9] The Multi-Disciplinary International Journal Devoted to the Study and Promotion of World DevelopmentSee also Elsevier’s Geography and Economics portals. World Development is a multi-disciplinary monthly journal of development studies. It seeks to explore ways of improving standards of living, and the human condition generally, by examining potential solutions to problems such as: poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, disease, lack of shelter, ….
[10] Founded in 2000, VertigO is an interdisciplinary scientific journal of natural sciences and human sciences whose articles are subject to the usual rules of evaluation by a peer committee. It ensures the promotion and dissemination within the Francophonie of research and scientific analyzes on major contemporary environmental problems. In less than 8 years, it has succeeded in establishing itself internationally as the first French-language electronic journal in importance in the field of environmental sciences (http://vertigo.revues.org).
[11] The electronic journal EchoGéo, created under the aegis of the PRODIG laboratory, aims to build a bridge between the research community and the public of specialists or enlightened amateurs sensitive to clear, scientific and relevant information. Our ambition is to provide everyone with geographical information that is tracked and scientifically validated on Societies, the Environment and Development.
[12] Crossed perspectives of academics from the Caribbean and the world, original work by young researchers and experienced researchers, Caribbean Studies is a space for scientific expression whose main support is the Caribbean basin. Geography, planning, economics and social sciences (history, sociology, anthropology): through a multidisciplinary approach, this journal contributes to reflection on the development of the Caribbean space. The journal offers three annual issues organized around a central thematic file. The texts published, in French, in English, in Spanish, are evaluated by an international scientific committee. Journal supported by the Institute of Human and Social Sciences of the CNRS.
[15] In the two databases Genre&Com and ijc2020, we have information relating to the number of citations for each paper. However, the two are not perfectly comparable insofar as this information was not collected at the same time. However, the number of citations changes over time for certain papers. Thus on the papers common to both databases, the number of citations from the more recent Genre&Com database is systematically higher than that from the ijc2020 database. For this reason, we only look at the Genre&Com database, not counting the “gender” documents from the ijc2020 database.
Acknowledgements
I thank Serge Rabier, Stéphanie Leyronas, Maxime Forest, Elise Lehman, and the participants of the OFCE’s internal seminar for their insights. I also thank the two anonymous referees for their valuable suggestions and comments Finally, I am grateful to Frank van Laerhoven, Michael Schoon, and Tessa Eidelman for sharing their data.
Funding Information
This research was supported by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD).
Competing Interests
The author has no competing interests to declare.