Researching the Social Value of the Intellectual Commons: Methodology and Design

The purpose of this chapter is to outline the methodology of the author’s research that aims to identify the contemporary manifestations of commonification in the circulation of social value and, thus, grasp the actual formations of the intellectual commons, both offline and online, in the current socio-historical context. This research decrypts the generation, circulation, pooling together and redistribution of social value observed in the intellectual commons communities of the research sample, with the aim of showing the importance of the intellectual commons for social reproduction. This chapter sets out the methodological bases and the design of the research in three sections. The first of these spells out the methodological orientation of the research. The second unveils the design of the research. The third describes the coding process followed in relation to data collected from eight Greek intellectual commons communities, which constitute the sample of the current research. Overall, this chapter lays down the methodological foundations of the research and the framework to used elicit the research findings and conclusions exhibited in the following chapters and thus supports its overall normative argumentation that the intellectual commons have significant moral value, which justifies their independent protection and promotion by the law.