The German team of the AECED project, in cooperation with the German Commons Institute, conducted a practical workshop on the applications of the Pattern Language of Commoning at the beginning of October 2024.
In a face-to-face workshop from 4 to 6 October 2024, the team from the Philipps University of Marburg brought together numerous experts who already work with the Pattern Language of Commoning and were interested both in presenting their existing practice to each other and developing new methods and applications of the Pattern Language of Commoning.
The Pattern Language of Commoning card deck used at the workshop contained 33 action pattern cards. These practice patterns have been condensed by Silke Helfrich from over 400 interviews worldwide – they can be described as solutions and practice patterns of success that are helpful and suitable in a variety of problem situations in order to better master the challenges of successful communication, cooperation and joint problem solving.
The Pattern Language of Commoning is therefore particularly suitable for creating a new language of successful transformation and for constructively addressing the classic challenges of collaboration. The Pattern Language has so far been used primarily in commoning projects to reflect on one’s own practice as a commoner and to transform it in line with the commons. It has mainly been used in self-organized groups, solidarity-based agriculture or solidarity-based living. With a threefold understanding of democracy, this is not only relevant to social togetherness and peer governance, but also with regard to a care economy.
Within the framework of the AECED project, we want to make this threefold approach to democratisation fruitful for individual and collective learning, organisational learning and transformation towards a socio-ecological practice.
The Pattern Language of Commoning sees itself as a methodology that can support democratisation and organisational learning. The Pattern Language of Commoning is based on aesthetic and embodied learning. The workshop aimed to jointly develop methods and applications that will lead to a practical handbook for facilitating, accompanying, supporting and advising commoning processes.
People from very different contexts took part in the face-to-face workshop – further methods were created using the Pattern Language of Commoning card deck: From ‘pattern charades’ to process development methods, a broad spectrum of methods was created, and a total of 26 methods and applications of the Pattern Language of Commoning were collected, created and explored. Over the next year, the process will continue with monthly online meetings so that the pattern language methods handbook can go to print in March 2026.