Programme: International Workshop on the Commons and Political Theory, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 13-15 September (original) (raw)
Related papers
Commoning as a mode of social organization in contemporary Greece
8th HO PhD Symposium on Contemporary Greece and Cyprus 1 July 20017, 2017
This presentation points up the significance of two concepts that have gained ground in the field of radical political theory: commons and commoning. Initially, I will explicate the meaning of these concepts. In addition to this, I will present two active initiatives in Thessaloniki: the Social Solidarity Clinic and the bookstore Akivernites Politeies (Ungoverned States), so as to illustrate the political significance of the commons and the commoning in contemporary Greece. It seems like that in the crisis ridden Greece commoning takes place as a means of resistance and more important as a mode of organizing everyday life with a set of different values by which self-governance, solidarity, sharing, equality and dignity become the main principles for a politics from below.
Moving Beyond the Right to the City: Urban Commoning in Greece
Venturini, F., Değirmenci, E. and Morales, I. (2019) Social ecology and the right to the city: towards ecological and democratic cities. Montréal: Black Rose Books. ISBN: 9781551646817, 2019
Modern social struggles erupt as urban phenomena with a strong spatial component. City dwellers may define their desire for full participation in the city’s socio-political life as a right to the city to be reclaimed against authorities, or they may dive right in and self-manage the urban space as a commons – or they may do both. The right to the city and the urban commons are not mutually exclusive strategies of contestation but rather two different vocabularies, which however lead to contrasting conceptions of the political. When a technical-juridical conception of rights becomes the centrepiece and horizon of progressive politics, the discourse of rights tends to ratify existing systems of domination by subordinating lived, contentious politics to impersonal juridical constructs. The commons is not an alternative to “rights talk”, but rather a way in which rights may be fleshed out, and tethered to contentious politics waged by concrete communities. These are some of the issues this text seeks to raise, exemplified in the context of Greek urban struggles over the past decade.
Recent times have been marked by a global financial crisis and a neoliberal hegemony that have driven large parts of the population into depression, resignation, and escape, spreading disaffection with the current state of democracy across the world. Nevertheless, alongside resignation and escape, we can also witness the rise of alternative practices of self-governance, community building and democratic politics. Emerging community initiatives that self-organise around common endeavours such as social economy initiatives, civic engagement in municipal politics, digital networks, communities of migrants and solidarity groups that self-organise to face the defects of official migrant policy realise and propose different paradigms of political engagement. Based on principles of self-reconstruction and self-governance, such communities practice alternative politics that revolve around shared/common resources, produced and managed by the community itself. At the same time, they engage in knowledge production around alternative notions of the political. Our panel aims at exploring ethnographic engagement with such 'alter-political' communities. Our aspiration is to contribute to the emerging field of the anthropology of the commons but also to address the wider ethnographic literature on alternative politics with a radical democratic potential. We seek contributions examining the character and the practices of collective action which revolves around shared resources and promotes alternative politics beyond the established mainstream political and market apparatus. Key questions to be tackled include, among others: - How can we articulate already existing anthropological knowledge of collective action with fieldwork on the commons? - How do people, involved in such practices, understand 'the political'? - Which modus vivendi and forms of subjectivity are unfolding in the context of such collectivities? - Which political strategies are being developed? - How is the collective subject constituted through practices and knowledge production in the framework of such groups? - How does contemporary anthropological literature on alternative politics renew our understanding of the political? - How do contemporary ethnographies of political processes problematize or stimulate and enrich political theory?
COMMONS, EUROPEAN HERITAGE OF THE LOCAL COLLECTIVE ACTION
A major transition of Western society we face for decades is according to one of its claimants characterised by denying the existence of common values, immanence of narcissism and self-realization (Gallagher, 2003 in Bahovec, 2015). Commons represent not only one of bottom up evolved historical institutions all over Europe, to which a role of institutional infrastructure for socio-political change is attributed (de Moor, 2008), but also a living practice of common values. As an institution and an ongoing process they are closely related to local community and share its basic functioning, evolved in history. Collective action studies (Ostrom, 1990 and others) but also global movements (see e.g. IASC). We argue that Commons are a living laboratory and a basin of heritage with particular value in their intangible characteristics e.g. cooperative mechanisms, maintenance of functional rules, organisational procedures and adaptations, all representing inclusive communication as part of community’s´ constant balancing of rights and duties among primary units, which are households and not individuals. Participatory experience enables evolution of responsibility (towards community and its resource), identity and attachment of members. Governance principles therefore take into consideration two-fold relationship, linking members into a community and linking community with its resource(s). Intergenerational transmission of these links and mechanisms of functioning was particular important in periods and frames of undemocratic regimes when rules in use kept Commons functioning invisibly, non-formally (Gatto, Bogataj, 2015). This way they fulfilled the basic community principle of self-sustenance. Some Commons declined, for example in Slovenia recently only 1/3 still function in comparison to pre WWII situation. A brief overview on the European situation evidence is presented with the accent on Slovenia. The future of Commons is seen in promotion and support of the local critical reflexive dialogue in the frame of (intentional) learning.
The Contentious Common Space in Greece: From the Neoliberal Austerity to the SYRIZA Left Government
RC21, 2015
While the last years the discussion on urban commons is becoming increasingly popular among activists and radical scholars there have been few attempts to think it together with the notion of crisis. Following autonomous Marxists analysis (de Angelis 2010; Caffentzis 2010; Hardt and Negri 2009), conceptualizing the commons involves three things at the same time: common pool resource, community and commoning. Commons don’t exist per se but they are making in times of social struggles and they are constituted through the social process of commoning. In this theoretical framework, I connect the spatial analysis of Lefebvre (1974): Perceived-Conceived-Lived Space, with the autonomous Marxists analysis, and I propose the concept of the Common Space. From this point of view, motions and reactions of capitalism can be understood as a response to the power of social commoning of commoners’ communities that produce the common space. Capitalism seeks to distort (de Angelis 2009) commons and enclose the common space in order to maintain the permanence of the so-called primitive accumulation and the (re)production of commodity and surplusvalue. Following this approach crisis can be understood as the critical time of circulation of capital vis-à-vis the circulation of social struggles for the control over the commons. To approve this thesis I examine and problematize the paradigm of urban commons and enclosures in Greece in the era of crisis. During the last years we are witnessing in Greece an unprecedented wave of new urban enclosures and at the same time there are emerging fruitful urban social struggles and a new common space. On the one hand in the era of crisis there are emerged several local neighborhoods assemblies, social centers, squats, communal gardens, social health centers, social kindergartens, cooperatives, social groceries, collective kitchens, and barter structures that constitute a common space in the perceived-conceived-lived urban space. On the other hand, austerity measures have as a result crucial implementations of material, immaterial and ideological urban enclosures. Nowadays a new left government promises to take steps against neoliberal austerity urban enclosures and promote democratic urban planning. The challenge is great; hence this paper monitors the contentious commons space from the neoliberal austerity to the SYRIZA left government. Closing, I argue that in the era of crisis commons are in the focal point of political, social and urban conflicts.
HETEROPOLITICS Refiguring the Common and the Political
Report on the Common, 2020
Extensive theoretical analysis of different approaches to the commons and the politics of the common(s) in terms of transformative potentials and counter-hegemonic politics, including an account of the expansion of commoning in Italy through civic initiatives and municipal institutional support
Ephemera. Theory & politics in organization, 2020
This paper attempts to analyze rising debates of commons highlighting contrasts between neoliberal's views and new horizons on Communal forms from below as counter-hegemonic alternatives. If (new) neoliberal perspectives of Commons are trying to positioning ideas like 'Common-pool recourses', 'public-private Partnerships', 'governance', a way of thinking embodied by the so-called: Common without Community; in contrast, anti-hegemonic Communal thoughts based on Civilization Matrixes aims to develop popular creative capacities and resistances against neoliberal capitalism through Alternate-and-Native, alternatives propositions , 'Care' of communal property for 'good-living-well', in other words: a way of thinking and living personifying the Commons with Community. In this sense, struggles and debates surrounding the common open up perspectives of reflection on the transition and the construction of a new world that allows for the re-appropriation of socially produced work and wealth that has been systematically usurped by the dominant rationality. Common(s) or communal? Introductory remarks It is necessary to differentiate a community practice later turned functional by capital, from one that is created, from the onset, for the capital.
This is the final version of the Proceedings from the Heteropolitics International Workshop on the Commons and Political Theory, which took place in 13-15 September 2017, at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Amfitheatro I, ELKE, 3rd Septemvriou street, Thessaloniki, 54636). The contributions of individual authors are presented here in form in which they have been submitted, with minor edits. This final version is published on-line at heteropolitics.net. Video recordings of all sessions of the conference, from 13/09/2017 till 15/09/2017, are available at http://heteropolitics.net/index.php/2017/09/20/video-recordings-from- heteropoltics -international-workshop-13-15-September-2017/