Meet the diverse roles shaping our distributed future
Bonfires recognises and supports the various archetypes found in a cosmolocal future. Described below are those identified by Michel Bauwens, 5 identities that can form an effective society.
Our agents can embody any identity, enabling users to interact directly with the steadfastness of a Stoic or the creativity of an Artist. By identifying archetypes, through a series of labelling, we can find information related and other people that share these archetypes so you can collaborate.
Why These Five?
These five characters are drawn from the work of Michel Bauwens. They represent distinct identities that appear across any society—localists, nomads, builders, and weavers of value. Each plays a different role, but all are necessary for building a cosmo-local future. They reflect how people relate to place, production, and the commons in different ways.
To understand how a cosmo-local society comes alive, let’s turn to these five characters and explore the roles they each play.
1/ The Localist
"They are the roots of the system. Everything else grows around them."
The Localist is grounded. They care about their region—not just in theory, but in practice. They grow food, repair tools, run community programs, and build local networks. And while they value global ideas, they only apply what actually fits the terrain.
The Localist is essential in a cosmo-local world. Without them, all knowledge would float untested. But they face challenges—fragmented networks, duplicated effort, limited access to the broader knowledge commons.
Cosmo-localism supports them by creating a loop between local action and global learning. Localists don't have to reinvent the wheel. They can pull from shared resources, adapt open designs, and feed their improvements back into the commons.
2/ The Nowhere
"They don't have to be rooted. But they can be aligned."
The Nowhere is the figure most at odds with place. They drift through systems—sometimes by choice, sometimes out of necessity. They move between cities, jobs, and jurisdictions, always seeking better conditions or opportunities.
They are skilled at navigating networks, but their ties are thin. They don’t stay long. Their actions can feel extractive. They often benefit from infrastructures they don’t invest in.
Cosmo-localism doesn't ignore them. It creates options for direction. Instead of forcing them to settle, it gives them roles that are flexible but grounded in responsibility. With the right systems of recognition, memory, and transparency, the Nowhere can become a real participant in building the commons.
3/ The Everywhere
“They don’t just travel. They translate.”
The Everywhere moves too—but with purpose. They're not drifting. They're connecting. The Everywhere travels between bioregions and projects, carrying experience, stories, and practical knowledge from one place to another.
They are the cross-pollinators of the system. They help local communities learn from each other without copying blindly. They translate patterns. They adapt protocols. They make the global truly useful at the local level.
Cosmo-localism honors the Everywhere by making their contributions visible and reusable. It gives them the tools to document what works, the space to share it across regions, and the ability to link different nodes into mutual learning loops.
4/ The Entredonneur
"They are builders with memory. Creators with context."
The Entredonneur is a new kind of entrepreneur—someone who creates market value based on open-source tools, shared designs, and commons-based infrastructure. But instead of extracting value and leaving, they give back. They contribute to the ecosystem that made their work possible and believe innovation flows best when it's shared.
Cosmo-localism supports them by making commons-based creation viable. It offers the infrastructure to recognize upstream work, coordinate downstream use, and circulate credit across networks. The Entredonneur thrives in a world where value is co-produced—and where giving back is structurally easier than taking all.
5/ The Capital Weaver
"The Capital Weaver doesn't just fund. They co-weave. Their investment is a form of belief."
They are the ones who support projects with funding, space, compute, or mentorship. They don’t demand control. They seek alignment. Their goal is to channel energy where it’s needed most—and let it flow without distortion.
Traditional finance doesn't serve them well. It asks for rigid outputs and full control. But regenerative systems move differently. They require trust, transparency, and room for emergence.
Cosmo-localism helps the Capital Weaver by creating visible, shared layers of context. It makes projects legible—not just through reports, but through real-time process, contribution records, and network health. It allows capital to move intelligently, not blindly.
Where It All Comes Together
These five characters are not just roles in a story. They are the people we build with. Sometimes we move between them. Sometimes we work alongside all of them.
Bonfires draws its inspiration from this dynamic. It doesn’t try to erase the differences. It creates space for them to collaborate.
The memory the Everywhere needs.
The orientation the Nowhere lacks.
The feedback loops the Entredonneur depends on.
The visibility the Capital Weaver searches for.
The support the Localist deserves.
It assumes that we are not all the same—and that’s the point.
It assumes that regeneration starts with coordination.
And it lights the path, one Bonfire at a time.