[csaa-forum] SISR seminar - Bronwen Morgan: The Diverse Legalities of the Sharing Economy, Friday 1 May 2015

[Angela Daly]

 *Swinburne Institute for Social Research - Seminar Series*

*Presenter: Bronwen Morgan, University of New South Wales*
*Title: The Diverse Legalities of the Sharing Economy *
*Date: Friday, 1 May 2015 *
*Time: 12:00-1:00pm *
*Venue: EN204*

This presentation seeks to bring into dialogue two previously unrelated
areas of scholarship: legal consciousness and diverse economies, as a way
of illuminating the analysis of community-level action for sustainability,
including its troubled relationship to the emerging 'sharing economy'. The
presentation draws indirectly on a comparative UK-Australia study of
'grassroots innovations’ (“networks of activists and organisations
generating novel bottom–up solutions for sustainable development") in food,
energy and transport. These initiatives stress, to varying degrees, civil
society, activism, localism and community even while tensions emerge with
particular forms of the sharing economy that enact and rely on much more
extractive modes of 'business-as-usual'.
After a brief elaboration of the points of intersection between legal
consciousness and diverse economies literature, the presentation explores
the diverse legalities that can underpin Botsman and Roger's four elements
of a collaborative economy (belief in the commons, trust between strangers,
idle capacity and critical mass). I link these four elements to struggles
over 'transactional legalities' related to the prevention of harm, the
blurred line between gift and contract, and the choice of organisational
legal entity.
Overall, I argue that struggles over transactional legalities are a
neglected site of activism for sustainability. Legality need not shoehorn
the sharing economy into an extractive logic, although the potential to do
so is powerful. Recognising and stressing the diversity of both economic
life and forms of law opens up an understanding of 'radical
transactionalism', where legal building blocks of property and capital can
be reimagined and reconfigured.

*Bronwen Morgan *joined UNSW Law School in October 2012, having taught at
the University of Bristol, UK for seven years as Professor of Socio-legal
Studies. Prior to Bristol, taught at the University of Oxford in
association with the Centre for Socio-legal Studies, and both St Hilda’s
College and Wadham College. A very long time ago, she taught at the
University of Sydney Law School.
Bronwen’s research has long focused on transformations of the regulatory
state in both national-comparative and transnational contexts but more
recently, she become particularly interested in the interaction between
regulation and rights, especially in the context of social activism and
claims for social and economic human rights. These lines of interest can be
seen in her two most recent projects: one on the rise of the regulatory
state in the developing world, and another on access to urban water
services in comparative perspective.
Currently, Bronwen is working on two research projects: one on legal
support structures for social activists and social enterprises responding
to climate change in Australia and the UK, and a second project (with
Navroz Dubash, funded by the International Development Research Centre of
Canada) on sub-national and local dimensions of climate change policy in
developing countries, particularly India and South Africa.



- ALL Welcome -


http://www.sisr.net/
<https://outlook.swin.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?C=uS1qYvcATkif9EabIqgWocpUVYizUdII7VNnGFn8uZlMeZqNv1C9hj1aW2qPYWmCJB_xLAA6c-U.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.sisr.net%2f>
http://www.apo.org.au/
<https://outlook.swin.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?C=uS1qYvcATkif9EabIqgWocpUVYizUdII7VNnGFn8uZlMeZqNv1C9hj1aW2qPYWmCJB_xLAA6c-U.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.apo.org.au%2f>
http://www.creative.org.au/
<https://outlook.swin.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?C=uS1qYvcATkif9EabIqgWocpUVYizUdII7VNnGFn8uZlMeZqNv1C9hj1aW2qPYWmCJB_xLAA6c-U.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.creative.org.au%2f>
http://www.inside.org.au/
<https://outlook.swin.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?C=uS1qYvcATkif9EabIqgWocpUVYizUdII7VNnGFn8uZlMeZqNv1C9hj1aW2qPYWmCJB_xLAA6c-U.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.inside.org.au%2f>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.cdu.edu.au/pipermail/csaa-forum/attachments/20150424/003f6daa/attachment-0001.html