Repurposing historical commons. Exploring reconfiguring processes that involve commons as a social innovation in the Northeastern Italian Alps.

The contemporary world grapples with interconnected crises in ecological, economic, social, and health domains, attributed to a growth-centric economic model. Advocating sustainability transformations, this study focuses on historical commons as potential sites for collective action, addressing community needs. Emerged dysfunctionality in historical commons prompts a multi-scale exploration, emphasizing social innovation for repurposing. The thesis delves into repurposing commons within a changing global economy, advocating re-embedding in a re-conceptualized economy. Community entrepreneurship emerges as a compromise, but challenges persist. The research integrates systems thinking, transdisciplinary action research, and formative evaluation tools, contributing nuanced insights into historical commons' complex dynamics and their role in sustainability transformations. Revealing dysfunctionality results from a misalignment between socio-economic characteristics and entrance rules, the study proposes rule redesign via social innovation, emphasizing gradual repurposing for sustainable local development. Repurposing involves negotiating at multiple scales, collaborating externally, and empowering community members. Social innovation, recognizing new needs, transforms historical commons into agents of sustainable development. The theoretical conclusion defines social innovation as reconfiguring practices, fostering inclusive, multi-level logics, and transitioning from management to governance, recognizing interdependence between social and ecological wellbeing. Strengths lie in comprehensive exploration across diverse scales, commitment to participant empowerment, and qualitative depth. Potential limitations include the risk of losing clarity due to the multi-level approach and balancing personal perspectives with in-depth exploration. Ethical considerations emphasize sustainability transformations and ethical research design, acknowledging normativity and power relations. Future research avenues include exploring the relationship between collective action participation and vulnerability reduction, understanding motivating factors, and assessing commons' contribution to climate and biodiversity justice. In conclusion, repurposed historical commons extend beyond techno-bureaucratic management, fostering interdependence for democratic, inclusive practices in social and ecological wellbeing.