Uncommon commons: rethinking affects, practices, and spaces of urban activism in Asia (original) (raw)
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This article focuses on the practices of networking by cultural collectives relating to art/activism in Asia. In recent years, independent, grassroots cultural and social spaces based on equal membership and multi-level networks have been created in this area. These spaces also function as experimental places to create models of alternative societies featuring sustainable lifestyles by connecting people beyond separate genres, such as art, music, agriculture, and craft. Thus, the practice of creating such places leads to an attempt to form new social relationships for common life, creation, and labor through the networking of individuals' lives, which have become withdrawn, isolated, and forcefully separated by repressive social structures. Moreover, gathering at these places creates a collective subjectivity and shared emotions among their members. In many areas, collective political and artistic practices have been created, which transcend borders, cultures, and languages. The sharing processes of such practices have been steadily advancing.
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Few studies in the social sciences have explored the complex and entangled transformations of public spaces in the varied socialist contexts of East Asia (limited in this issue to China, Vietnam and Laos). As the revolutionary socialist project was altered by the emergence of State-controlled capitalism and a consumer society partially opened to global flows from the 1980s onward, practices and imaginaries developed around public spaces have been deeply impacted. Motorised mobility, for instance, has become accessible to most citizens and dramatically changed traffic practices (Qian 2015); the development of real-estate projects radically transformed the urban fabric (Harms 2016); new forms of consumption by emerging middle-classes and increasingly autonomous youths triggered the creation of new spaces to adapt to new expectations; processes of patrimonialisation have created new symbolic maps; hybrid publics have emerged through migrations as well as domestic and international tourism; political and police scrutiny are increasingly supported by new surveillance technologies; and the Internet has created a virtual space that duplicates and influences interactions and usages in physical spaces. Scholars working on public spaces in East Asian socialist contexts often limit their research to one specific country or area (Gaubatz 2019; Gibert 2014; Kim 2015; J. Qian 2018; Kurfürst 2012). This special issue, by contrast, offers an original crosscutting perspective on societies that share many similarities (McGee 2009). Contributors will discuss the transformations of public spaces while remaining alert to their physical, visual and interactional features.
SPACES OF COMMONING: URBAN COMMONS IN THE EX-YU REGION
SPACES OF COMMONING: URBAN COMMONS IN THE EX-YU REGION, 2020
SPACES OF COMMONING: URBAN COMMONS IN THE EX-YU REGION has been released! It gives an overview of classical and critical definitions of the commons, as well as the theoretical framework for the urban commons and the interpretative perspective through struggles and practices of the commoning, followed by the 15 specific case studies in the ex-YU region. The former Yugoslav region reflects global tendencies and processes, but with at least two specific features. The first is the fact that neoliberal capitalism on the periphery certainly has its own dynamic within global power relations, resulting in a specific economic position (concerning the resources extraction and distribution of capital), but also a political position (as a region whose recently established countries are striving to become part of the EU, each at its own pace). Another is the unique collective experience of Yugoslav real socialism that attempted to implement an experimental system of self-management on the level of the entire society. Taking up the challenge of understanding the urban commons in the context of this particular region thus represents an attempt to also recognize how this specific context reflects the concept of the new commons: what are the practices and forms of commons that have emerged in resistance to neoliberal capitalism on the periphery, but also how do these commons communicate with the Yugoslav heritage. The research team was assembled on the basis of previous cooperation and shared struggles. Iva Čukić, Božena Stojić and Jovana Timotijević from Serbia, Njomza Dragusha and Orbis Rexha from Kosovo, and Sonja Dragović and Tatjana Rajić from Montenegro formed the core teams of this research, each autonomously selecting the case-studies and then collectively discussing them in relation to how we locally understand and interpret the conceptual framework and practical manifestations of the commons. Through the research exchange and joint efforts, we are interested in showing and identifying cases of the commons that can be seen as social forces and critical voices, as a precondition for building societies that embrace the values of social justice, diversity, trust, solidarity and equality. During the period of writing and preparing this publication, we were constantly haunted by self-reflection and our own repeated questioning of the methods used and the results of our efforts. It seems that such a troublesome process never actually stops, as it exists in the ever-present search for a more radical change. We therefore perceive this publication as merely an overview of this particular moment and context, while our struggles to create and sustain more just spaces and communities - struggles always accompanied by continual reflection - have already surpassed these pages. Spaces of Commoning: Urban Commons in the ex-YU region Editors: Iva Čukić & Jovana Timotijević Authors: Iva Čukić, Jovana Timotijević, Božena Stojić, Njomza Dragusha, Orbis Rexha, Sonja Dragović & Tatjana Rajić Copyediting: Andrew Hodges Layout design: Mane Radmanović Publisher: Ministry of Space Supported by: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Belgrade
Over the past few years, we have witnessed the emergence of several social struggles that have reclaimed public spaces in a highly visible manner. Three of these struggles in particular, have attracted worldwide attention and interest, namely the Arab Spring, the Spanish Indignados, and Occupy Wall Street (OWS). This paper will argue that these movements have succeeded in capturing our imagination because they have demanded that we rethink the very meaning of the global commons in the aftermath of decades of neoliberal policies unleashed at the national and supranational levels. In fact, at the heart of each of the aforementioned struggles is a grassroots resistance to what amounts to a global enclosure movement-a regime of privatization, commodification, dispossession and disciplinary measures-which has deprived people of their right to the city. 2 Historically, public spaces are the place of assembly and politics. As such they are at the heart of any truly democratic society; and, increasingly, they are threatened by neoliberal governance. This is precisely why it is the form as much as the content of these recent waves of protest that is provoking debate, reaction and, oftentimes, state repression. From Tahrir Square and Puerta del Sol to Zuccotti Park and Taksim Square, reclaiming spaces is about the way we do politics. Challenging state control over urban spaces represents a powerful move to resist the alarming global trend toward dispossession.