Contribution short abstract:

The practice of digital nomadism reveals cities as particular sort of commons that could be appropriated by a mobile group of people who assume less attachment to physical places but bring value increase and damage of the commons at the same time with the participation of the state and the market.

Contribution long abstract:

This talk investigates a more nuanced practice of urban commoning in its value variation and beneficiary groups in the context of globalization and mobility, especially concerning the practice of digital nomadism. Commons have been identified as various material or immaterial resources which can be subtractive or nonsubtractive (Hardins, 1968; Ostrom, 1990; Hess and Ostrom, 2007; Feinberg et al., 2021) and the new commons situated in urban settings mostly assume that they are local resources shared by citizens (Wagenaar and Bartels, 2024). However, the practice of digital nomadism reveals cities as particular sort of commons that could be appropriated by a mobile group of people who assume less attachment to physical places but bring value increase and damage of the commons at the same time. This anthropological research-in-progress reveals that the digital nomad community characterized by freedom, self-organization, reciprocity and sharing present how these thriving urban commons around the world bring different values to various beneficiary groups with the intervention of the state and the market. This practice, on the one hand, shrinks the value of the urban commons by encroaching on the social space of the locals and, on the other hand, realizes an increase in the value of the local commons by upgrading the public facilities. Moreover, this practice not only demonstrates the great potential of individuals leveraging the state and the market to create urban commons, but also reveals the realistic role of state governance and the market capitalism in increasing and decreasing the value of the commons.