Contribution short abstract:

Through ethnographic fieldwork in Göttingen, this paper examines how utopian notions of inclusion and solidarity in housing commons (fail to) handle racial differences and inequalities in the context of increased migration in European cities today.

Contribution long abstract:

The 1960s was a generative moment for the political cultures on the left in Germany. Among the varied currents of left-wing politics that emphasised new expressions of radicalism, squatting emerged in the succeeding decades as a new frontier of protest against capitalist city-making. Originally addressing the questions of social housing in the cities, some of these surviving squats have evolved as housing commons that, although marginally, dot many German cities to this day.

Housing commons conceive themselves as utopian sites of mutual care and solidarity-based living that the capitalist regime of commodity, property and money discourages and endangers. As an intellectual tradition, kommonismus (commonism) emphasises commoning as a political practice against contemporary capitalism, and commons as underpinning values of inclusion, care, and collective disposition.

But how do such utopian projects and the abstract notions of freedom and solidarity fare when confronted with difference? With the case of Göttingen, this paper examines this question ethnographically in the context of increased racial difference and migrant organising in German cities, and their engagement and/or confrontation with housing commons which were earlier practised solely among White German residents. Through participant observation and focused-group interviews among housing commons and migrant political groups in Göttingen, this paper examines how utopian notions of care and solidarity conceived in contexts of racial homogeneity handle racial differences. With this case study, the paper aims to highlight the limits of utopian notions of political community in delivering racial justice; it foregrounds the embeddedness of utopian practice in imperial political economy.