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- Convenors:
-
Kevin Flanagan
(Maynooth University)
Ferne Edwards (City, University of London)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- 6 College Park (6CP), 01/035
- Sessions:
- Friday 29 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel explores the social worlds of the commons and social movements to ask: how do practices of commoning enable communities to resist the alienating effects of contemporary life, to foster and sustain political cultures of contestation and resilience?
Long Abstract:
The commons has emerged as a political discourse among communities and social movements that recognises shared capacities to address needs and respond to situations of injustice. The commons act as a bridge - they link histories of resistance, contemporary experiences of collective action, and offer a means for transforming social relations and prefiguring possible futures. Experiences of commoning are heterogeneous and informed by the particulars of people and place. They range from the everyday politics of community organising through to explicit confrontations with power and mobilisations within longer cycles of socio-political change. We ask: in what ways do practices of commoning enable communities to resist the alienating effects of contemporary life, to foster and sustain political cultures of contestation and resilience?
In this panel we invite papers that explore:
● How social aspects - such as gender, race and class - shape the practices of commons and social movements.
● How the commons are informed by particular politics, economy and ecology of place.
● How the commons interface and are embedded within broader movements and processes of collective action.
● How commons projects or activists respond to, or have been impacted by, the pandemic.
● The ethnographic stance of the activist researcher - what practical and ethical challenges does this research raise? How can an engaged anthropology contribute to activist practice and knowledge production for and about social movements?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 29 July, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
Drawing on feminist and anarchist perceptions of the political, which are attentive to the practices of care and collective responsibility often fostered within community projects, this paper explores the everyday politics of two London-based, grassroots, retail food co-ops.
Paper long abstract:
"It's about the everyday and just supporting people to live ordinary lives, which should be everybody's right." Jenny, the coordinator of St Hilda's East Food Co-op told me as we discussed the politics of the East London project. While she recognised that this was political, she also saw it as very local, questioning the role of acts such as helping people with their grocery shopping in a wider "transformation of power". While the bold politics of mass social movements and direct action are often easily legible as political, the comparatively mundane forms of commoning that take place within community projects focussed on meeting everyday needs can be seen in more ambivalent terms, as Jenny's words attest. Due to their everydayness, many forms of community organising are under-recognised as urban activism, even among their participants - who often include larger numbers of women and minoritized communities (Jupp 2012). Nonetheless, in the face of deepening inequalities and entrenched political and economic power, they can be very meaningful for those involved, creating a greater sense of place-based collectivity and mutual support while prefiguratively working to value people more equally. Drawing on feminist and anarchist perceptions of the political, which are attentive to the practices of care (Tronto 1993) and collective responsibility (Kropotkin 1902) often fostered within community projects, this paper seeks to explore the everyday forms of political action taking place within two London-based, grassroots, retail food co-ops - St Hilda's East and Fareshares.
Paper short abstract:
In the Catalan Pyrenees two definitions of the commons are colliding: 1) traditional ideologies of landownership that defined common property, not based on economic equality but on private property; and 2) utopian anti-capitalism that sees in the commons an alternative mode of social organization.
Paper long abstract:
Since, at least, the 1970s, the countryside of Western Europe has been the site of a myriad of “new” communal initiatives. Rural areas that were abandoned during the last century have witnessed the arrival of new inhabitants. These newcomers are often flocking to the mountains escaping urban modes of life characterized by their individualism, mass-oriented livelihoods, and isolation. Many of these individuals are moving to areas, like the Catalan Pyrenees, where common property and communal institutions have had a preponderant historical presence. These new inhabitants, in their embracing of rural life, are looking for a more integrated social life in which the commons are not only a form of collective private property, but might also represent a more egalitarian way of life in which contributing to the collective effort is not only an efficient way of dealing with particularly harsh ecological conditions, but also an ideological statement that defines the community as something different; an alternative to urban capitalism. In these mountains two definitions of the commons are colliding, two longstanding genealogies of political thought are converging and establishing a, not always smooth, dialogue: 1) traditional ideologies of landownership that defined during centuries common property, not based on economic equality, but on private property and locally shared responsibility on the economic base of the community; and 2) utopian anti-capitalism that sees in the commons an alternative mode of social organization and ownership based on egalitarianism.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the ways Salvadorans, both in the diaspora and in El Salvador, draw on ideals and practices of commoning and cooperativism as they navigate the landscape of late capitalism.
Paper long abstract:
In the Americas, the neoliberalization of the world system has manifested as a condition of rupture, displacement, and precarity for many Salvadorans, as for most other descendants of indigenous Americans. Despite their perpetual experiences of risk and rupture, nonetheless, a number of Salvadoran communities organize collectively and engage in improvisational (agri)cultural practices based on ideals and knowledge rooted in collectivism and the commons.
To explore these dynamics, the paper draws on materials from the author’s longstanding (20+ years) yet intermittent (often conducted over short term trips) fieldwork with diverse Salvadoran communities engaged in agrarian collective projects both formal and informal. From the development of a permaculture cooperative on lands abandoned by a plantation owner south of San Salvador, to backyard gardens and seed-exchange networks among Salvadoran immigrants in Sacramento, California, the ethnographic data show the centrality of transformative agrarian practices to Salvadorans’ praxis and to their critical navigation of the hyper-commodified landscapes of late capitalism.
Salvadorans often engage in this work mindful of its ecological and political dimensions and their interrelatedness, using material practices to unsettle forces of privatization as well as utilitarian relationships to plants. They also specifically work on cooperation and the commons as a way to move towards a more livable future for humans and our non-human interlocutors. In sum, drawing on the philosophical and political logics of informants themselves, the paper argues that Salvadorans engage in building the commons not only for the sake of basic survival, but as a practice of hope and social transformation.
Paper short abstract:
This communication addresses ecosocial transition through the comparison of three commoning experiences in Spain. On the one hand, it focuses on the socioeconomic diversity within the collectives. On the other hand, the tensions among sustainability and economic viability.
Paper long abstract:
This communication addresses ecosocial transition through the comparison of three commoning experiences situated in urban and rural contexts in Spain. The three ethnographic cases include fieldwork on community gardens in Madrid, agroecological provisioning systems in Catalonia and neorural communities in the mountains next to Madrid.
This communication focuses on two specific issues of these commoning experiences. On the one hand, the socioeconomic and cultural diversity within the collectives. On the other hand, the tensions among social and environmental sustainability and economic viability and its effects on the model of growth of the projects.
Regarding the first issue, we present specific mechanisms to include socioeconomic diversity within the collectives such as solidarity baskets or different ways of dividing the common land to grow vegetables Next, we introduce some of the tensions that emerge when these strategies are carried out in the collectives. For instance, in food coops, sometimes solidarity is interpreted as charity and it is rejected. In urban community gardens, the different forms of involvement and its translation into "work" is an important source of tension in the way of conceiving "the harvest" as a common good. Regarding the second issue, we introduce the tensions between including the reproductive work and their economic viability in a market context. Finally, we relate them to the need of scaling-up to ensure the political goals and the economic viability.
To conclude, these ethnographic cases provide evidence regarding the difficulties to include diversity and the tensions when these commoning experiences try to scale-up.
Paper short abstract:
Intrigued by how far one can 'squeeze' size of the bin, I have started to study practices, motivations, and values which push people to reduce the amount of waste produced. I got involved in the Zero Waste community in Dublin, and stayed surprised by variety of actions.
Paper long abstract:
Amid the idea to stop producing waste is a correlate of knowledge about the overheated planet (Eriksen). Intrigued by present in a social media action ‘glass jar of waste’, which shows a possibility how far one can ‘squeeze’ size of the bin, I have started to study practices, motivations, and values which push people to reduce the amount of waste produced. I got involved in the Zero Waste community in Dublin through attending meetings, events, and volunteering as well as accompanying in everyday life of its members, and I stayed surprised by variety of actions; from dumpster diving, planting on the balcony, experimenting with plastic, and keeping wormery in the living room to organizing festivals, lecturing, protesting, blogging and creating initiatives. As it turns out, reducing waste idea is just “tip of the iceberg” of the Zero Waste cosmology that comprises an entirely different world in the ontological sense of that word. It poses a challenge to a commonly shared idea about the chain of production – consumption – disposal through understanding disposal as a way of consuming things (Hetherington) on the one hand, and on the other; within it objects are been as materials that are able to transform their properties (Ingold). My story is about “zerowaster’s” through everyday practices, activism, and grassroots projects as well as their philosophy of life and understanding their place in the world through a relationship with a planet and capitalism.