Urban Commons

The complexity of the contemporary urban scenario, now in constant revolution, callsfor new forms of governance: able to combine the stances of institutional actors, civilsociety  and  the  entrepreneurial  world;  commoning,  born  as  a  form  of  bottom-up  re-appropriation of neglected spaces, has now become a multi-scalar, shared practice,which inspired the approach of the OBRAS project analysed here. In the first sectionthe  literary  review  frames  the  research  context,  with  reference  to  urban  commoningpractices for the re-activation of places, and its relation with urban governance; in thesecond  section,  the  methodology  and  physical  context  of  the  workshops,  Bolognaand Bogotá, are introduced. The methodology and results of the project are presentedin the third section: the multi-scalar, cross-cutting and shared practices adopted andthe meta-project solutions produced. The fourth section summarizes the OBRAS ex-perience, with results, limits and future developments of the project

Narratives that dominate contemporary life make it easier to imagine the end of the world, even the end of capitalism, than the end of growth. How do we begin to think of other ways forward? By observing and appreciating what already exists. People in every part of the world inherit, adapt, and invent alternatives to predominant economic models and mindsets. Many draw on long-evolving traditions that celebrate living simply in solidarity with others. Here we build a case for degrowth from the ground up, learning from people who embody and perform everyday common senses in the spirit of degrowth. This differs from global programs to curb biodiversity loss and climate change, but we do not see them as mutually exclusive. Without the daily exercise of sharing food, homes, neighborhoods, and thoughtful conversation, we humans cannot develop the capacities to make and carry out international climate treaties and Green New Deals.

This paper argues that historical research on late medieval and early modern craft guilds fails to escape teleological and anachronistic views, including when they are addressed as commons or 'institutions for collective action'. These present-day conceptual lenses do not only create idealized views on guilds, but also of the contexts in which they operated, especially the state and the market. This is especially the case with neo-institutional views on the commons, which fall back on a transhistorical rational actor, who can choose between three options for the allocation of resources and surpluses, namely the state, the market and the common. The paper shows that guilds were fundamentally entangled with both the state and the market and that their ethic implied a less utilitarian and instrumental attitude towards natural resources. The consequence of this is that the history of the guilds offers different lessons to present-day commoners than those implied by present-day research. With an eye at launching a reflection on that, I argue in favour of a cosmopolitical perspective, which invites to take fundamentally different worldviews seriously. This includes questioning our own conceptual and analytical abstractions like the state, the market and the individual, up to and including the very distinction between nature and society or nature and politics, which are at the very basis of modern science itself.

This brief article is intended as a point of departure rather than as a thematic itinerary of the ‘Whose Streets?’ series yet to come. It opens by thinking about what it means to live through the jarring collapse of public life in the midst of a pandemic and how this moment might stimulate new radical histories of the urban commons.

The paper focuses on the experiences of two occupied and self-managed spaces in Cagliari: the former student building of “Sa Domu" in the historical centre, and an abandoned nursery school in the popular district of Sant'Elia. The first is currently occupied by a group of high schools and university students, the second has been occupied for three months by a group of women from the Association "Sant'Elia Viva" in 2015. Despite similarities in their goals (right "to the city", "to work" and “to housing”), these experiences differentiated each other in the composition of leadership and in their perspectives. "Sa Domu" is based on the principle of a social and political justice for all citizens/city users, whereas the Association "Sant'Elia Viva" mainly focused on a specific sense of territorial belonging (being of the district of Sant'Elia) and, for this reason, concerned only a specific group of people (the inhabitants). Through these case studies, the paper aims at pondering over the diverse declinations assumed by the idea of "commons", as well as by the commoning practices in the same city. The political, cultural and social context of these two case studies are examined, highlighting different activities developed in
those spaces, and analysing convergences and contrasts arisen on the rights “to the city” and on the commoning practice adopted. From a theoretical perspective, the paper contributes to the urban geography literature around spatial justice and injustice, the right to the city and the “actually existing commons”. Methodologically the research relies on qualitative methods (participant observation, informal meetings and conversations, focus groups).

The chapter is based in Bologna, Italy, and focuses on an (in)famous event that took place in the city in March 2016, when the renowned street artist Blu took the drastic decision to erase all his murals from the city’s walls. Prior to this event, various graffiti, included some by Blu, had been removed from the city’s walls to populate the exhibition ‘Street Art. Banksy & Co.’ Taking inspiration from Blu’s iconoclastic protest, the chapter develops a theoretical discussion that intersects notions of art, heritage and vandalism, exploring the contemporary obsession with physical preservation and the way it surreptitiously seeped through the lively public debate that followed Blu’s decision to erase his murals. Pointing towards a notion of urban commons that is dynamic, conflictual and in becoming, the chapter shows the potential of Blu’s gesture in the context of the ongoing co-optation of street art and, more generally, vis-à-vis the complex relation between street politics, public art and urban commons.

Deux dimensions expriment les valeurs de l’urbanité
aujourd’hui, plus que toute autre, ce sont les cultures
publiques et les cultures du projet, elles sont interreliées sur
la base de stratégies et d’objectifs qui se focalisent de plus en
plus sur la gestion subsidiaire des biens communs. L’imaginaire
urbain collectif est davantage sollicité à se projeter dans des
nouveaux scénarios de partage et vers la co-création de
paysages communs.

Existen dos dimensiones que expresan los valores
de la urbanidad hoy en día, más que cualquier otra: son las
culturas públicas y las culturas del proyecto. Estas están
interrelacionadas sobre la base de estrategias y objetivos
que se centran, cada vez más, en la gestión subsidiaria
de los bienes comunes. El imaginario urbano colectivo es
fuertemente solicitado para proyectarse en nuevos escenarios
de intercambio y hacia la co-creación de paisajes comunes.

Le contexte dans lequel se situe cette réflexion est celui des espaces
publics conçus comme entités urbaines à l’origine des processus de régénération.
En ce sens, une hypothèse émerge et se définit par la conviction que ces espaces sont à prendre en compte comme des champs de réactivation citoyenne, véritables laboratoires qui préparent et déploient les figures sensibles de la « convivialité avancée » (Caillé, 2011) et de la citoyenneté active. Il s’agit ici, d’une part d’une réflexion de caractère général sur la nécessité d’une reprise en main des biens communs à cogérer par des approches sensibles et des nouvelles (ou renouvelées) figures spatiales et, d’autre part, d’un travail situé, qui vise à rendre compte du processus de régénération de la ville de Turin à travers la texture morcelée d’une
cartographie des nouvelles formes de gouvernance, ce qui interroge la place du sensible dans notre société marchande.