Farm hack - global online platform full of blueprints to be adapted to others' needs. Screen shot.We see ourselves as commoners. Therefore we welcome the initiative by the Convivialist Manifesto authors to bring together diverse persons and organisations, positions and discourses in a shared process. This will always be evolving; but a process appropriate for an ‘art of living together’ that is viable for the future. We are glad to accept this invitation to contribute to the ideas and suggestions outlined in the Manifesto in the same spirit.
Our text is the first product of our effort to think and write as a group. For us, this means that we bring to some analytical aspects of the Manifesto our commoning perspective. It is inherent in such a process that our writing is “not-thought-through”. We see this as an invitation to reflect on the ideas we lay out in this text and on the issues left open or controversial.
Con-vivere
The term "con-vivere" (Les Convivialistes 2014 [henceforth abbreviated as LC]: 24) serves as an anchor for deepening the Manifesto from the commons perspective. The connection between con-vivere and com-mons is visible in the first syllable. Marianne Gronemeyer states that “our habits of hearing and speaking have turned us completely deaf [...] to the good sound of the [...] ‘cum’, which appears as the preposition ‘kon’ or ‘kom’ in the German language.” She regrets that:
