Silke Helfrich

Silke Helfrich (1967 – 2021) was a German author, activist and scholar, best known for her contributions to the

Education and career

She was born in 1967,^[4] in a small village in the Thuringian part of the Rhoen Mountains.^[5] She studied romance languages and pedagogy at the Leipzig University,^[6] which enabled her to speak 6 languages.^[4] After some time in development politics, she joined the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the think tank foundation of the German Green Party. First she was its CEO for Thuringia until 1999,^[5] and later regional director for Latin America until 2007.^[7] During this time, she focused on globalization, gender and human rights topics.^[6][8] Later she would acknowledge how her 8 years living in Latin America made her interested in the commons.^[9]

Since 2007 she worked as an independent author, activist and scholar, with a diversity of international partners. In this time, she authored multiple books on the commons, both in English^[10] and German.^[11] She was friend of Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom, and translated her works to German.^[4][12][13] And she was regular co-author of commons scholar David Bollier.^[14] Her last book^[15] where she defines patterns of commoning following the work of Christopher Alexander,^[16] was translated to German,^[17] Spanish,^[18] French,^[19] and Greek.^[20] Her books have received ample praise,^[21] e.g. "thinking the better world of tomorrow",^[22] "a new paradigm for the organization of public and private life".^[23] "Silke Helfrich has achieved a true masterpiece with the work",^[24] "a truly exciting glimpse into what the world after this one might look like".^[25]

During this time, she regularly engaged with academics, practitioners and policy-makers, especially those related to the Green Party.^[26] She was part of the board of multiple research projects, on P2P technologies,^[27][28] ecology,^[29][5] or as part of the International Association for the Study of the Commons.^[30]

Activism and social engagement

Helfrich participated in and co-founded multiple commons-related initiatives. She created her Commons Blog in 2007,

She co-founded the Commons Strategies Group along with David Bollier and Michel Bauwens,^[4] although the latter left it in 2018.^[41] As part of this group, she coauthored reports for the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies,^[42] and especially reports estemming from international commons conferences and workshops in Berlin,^[43][44][45] Lehnin,^[46] and Blankensee.^[47]

From 2008 to 2013, Helfrich co-organized an interdisciplinary political salon called “Time for the Commons” at the Heinrich Böll Foundation.^[9][48] And from 2012 until 2021, she co-organized annual commons summer schools^[49] for people to "co-creatively experience commoning and internalize it", and they have continued since her passing.^[49]

In her native Germany, she co-founded the Commons Institute,^[50] the Network for Economic Transformation,^[51] and she is acknowledged as instigator for the creation of the Fuchsmühlen network in Werra-Meißner,^[52] and the German Open Source Seeds initiative.^[53] She is also referenced as convener of the Argentinian Fundación Vía Libre.^[54]

Death

Helfrich was a frequent hiker, and while hiking in the Liechtenstein Alps on 10 November, 2021 she suffered a fatal accident.^[55][5] A long list of institutions^[56] published obituaries then, including e.g. Dutch Casco Art Institute,^[57] the Heinrich Böll Foundation,^[5] and its South African branch,^[2] the Commons Network,^[3] the Argentinian Fundación Vía Libre^[54] or the German newspaper Die Tageszeitung.^[4] The Commons Institute plans to establish a foundation in her name.^[58][59] She was mother of two adult children.^[4]

Selected works

• Bollier, David; Helfrich, Silke (2019). Free, fair, and alive: the insurgent power of the Commons. Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers.
  ISBN 978-0-86571-921-7
  .
• Bollier, David; Helfrich, Silke; Commons Strategies Group, eds. (2015). Patterns of commoning. Amherst/Mass: CSG - Commons Strategies Group.
  ISBN 978-1-937146-83-2
  .
• Bollier, David; Helfrich, Silke; Commons Strategies Group, eds. (2012). The wealth of the commons: a world beyond market and state. Amherst, Mass: Levellers Press.
  ISBN 978-1-937146-14-6
  .
• Ostrom, Elinor; Helfrich, Silke (2012). Was mehr wird, wenn wir teilen: vom gesellschaftlichen Wert der Gemeingüter [What becomes more when we share. On the social value of the commons] (in German) (2. Auflage ed.). München: oekom verlag.
  ISBN 978-3-86581-251-3
  .
• Ostrom, Elinor (2009). Helfrich, Silke (ed.). Wem gehört die Welt? zur Wiederentdeckung der Gemeingüter [Who Owns the World? The Rediscovery of the Commons] (in German). Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung (2. Auflage ed.). München: Oekom-Verl., Ges. für Ökologische Kommunikation.
  ISBN 978-3-86581-133-2
  .

• Commons
• Buen vivir
• David Bollier

References