Capitalism and the Commons

Capitalism and the Commons focuses on land-based commons, the political and social perspectives they offer, how the commons are appropriated by capital and state, and how these appropriations are contested, and transformed by social initiatives and movements.

Capitalism and the Commons focuses on the political and social perspectives that commons offer, how they are appropriated or suppressed by capital and state, and how social initiatives and movements contest these dynamics or build their struggles on commoning.

The volume comprises theoretical and empirical approaches that engage with three main themes: conceptualizing the commons, analyzing practices of commoning, and exploring commons politics. In their contributions, the authors focus on the development of anti-capitalist commons and explore the issue of practice and politics through case studies from Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, and Africa more broadly, Austria, Germany and South Korea, ranging from peri-urban and rural agriculture to urban commons and how they manifest in the Global South as well as in the Global North. The book engages with different discourses on the commons in regard to their relevance for social change and thereby reinvigorates the political meaning of the commons. It provides an original and important approach to the topic in terms of conceptualization, detailing diverse empirical realities, and analyzing potential perspectives. In so doing, the book transcends narrow disciplinary boundaries and expands the focus to the global.

Providing a fresh perspective on the commons as a decisive component of alternatives, this title will be relevant to scholars and students of resource management, social movements, and sustainable development more broadly.

Autorentext

Andreas Exner, RCE Graz-Styria, Centre for Sustainable Social Transformation, University of Graz, Austria.

Sarah Kumnig, Institute for Sociology and Social Research, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria.

Stephan Hochleithner, Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Switzerland.

Klappentext

Capitalism and the Commons focuses on the political and social perspectives that commons offer, how they are appropriated or suppressed by capital and state, and how social initiatives and movements contest these dynamics or build their struggles on commoning. The volume comprises theoretical and empirical approaches that engage with three main themes: conceptualizing the commons, analyzing practices of commoning, and exploring commons politics. In their contributions, the authors focus on the development of anti-capitalist commons and explore the issue of practice and politics through case studies from Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, and Africa more broadly, Austria, Germany and South Korea, ranging from peri-urban and rural agriculture to urban commons and how they manifest in the Global South as well as in the Global North. The book engages with different discourses on the commons in regard to their relevance for social change and thereby reinvigorates the political meaning of the commons. It provides an original and important approach to the topic in terms of conceptualization, detailing diverse empirical realities, and analyzing potential perspectives. In so doing, the book transcends narrow disciplinary boundaries and expands the focus to the global. Providing a fresh perspective on the commons as a decisive component of alternatives, this title will be relevant to scholars and students of resource management, social movements, and sustainable development more broadly.

Inhalt

Part I: FUNDAMENTS 1. Expanding the Scope: The Commons Within and Beyond Capitalism in Crisis 2. Towards the Commons through the Gift Part II: BOUNDARIES 3. Commoning Land Access: Collective Purchase and Squatting of Agricultural Lands in Germany and Austria 4. "We don't eat flowers" Spatial Empowerment and Commons in Peri-urban Agroecological Networks as Answer to Socio-ecological Conflicts in Colombia 5. Women's Struggles for Land in Africa and the Reconstruction of the Commons 6. War and the Commons: Enclosures and Capitalist Mobilization of Spatial Configurations in Course of Armed Conflict the Case of North Kivu, DRC. Part III: OPENINGS 7. Urban Undercommons: Solidarities Before and Beyond the National Imaginary 8. Cracking Territorial Commons the Gongyuji Movement in Seoul, South Korea Part IV: PERSPECTIVES 9. Public-Common Partnerships, Autogestion, and the Right to the City. 10. South African Commoning, Cooperatives, and Eco-socialist Potentials in the Context of COVID-19 Part V: TRANSGRESSIONS 11. Liberating the Commons by Commoning Commons Research: The Enclosure of Reality and the Systematization of Experience 12. Disengaging Capitalism: A Polyphonic Conclusion