Why would I name myself after this person? Because I want everyone to know about her.
She is someone who faced a common pessimism about humanity and proved it was wrong. She found real, concrete, practical examples of people doing what many economists, pundits, and cynical dads have said for years was impossible — managing shared resources fairly and well — and analyzed how they could do it when others could not.
I am grateful that others continue her work.
She was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, in 2009. This in spite of the fact that academic gatekeepers didn’t allow her to study economics and steered her instead into degree programs in political science. Her path was more circumspect, and I think her work synthesized a broader range of ideas, both because she was a woman and because she grew up with fewer resources than many of her contemporaries.
I use her name because I want more people to know about her, especially people in the communication arts.
Nobel Prize page with very short summary
Elinor Ostrom’s work on Governing The Commons: An Appreciation
Ostrom workshop at Indiana University – and hooray they have a podcast, and the iTunes page for it has better descriptions for the episodes.