Commoning as necessity
Written 18th June 2020
Earlier this month I had a call with some fellow social practice students at my university, where I’m studying a part-time masters. We were discussing a book written about commoning, and debated the merits of it as alternative ways of living and organising resources and the economy more justly; it was an engaging, vital discussion. Part way through the call, one of my fellow students, and friends spoke up and said that she’d spent her life living by these principles, but that it had been out of necessity, rather than choice, and that she didn’t realise all of the things she had been doing had a name. I know it’s pretty obvious but it struck me hard.
That morning I had read two articles — one on Asian migrant cooperatives, another on the fact that physical distancing and mutual aid were not new to Black people and for all my writing on Western-centred commoning and the homogeneity of commentators and academic theory on the commons; it was these articles and this conversation that opened up the vast gap between commons as immediate necessity and commoning as a choice (although as a necessity for justice and humanity as a whole). I mean, there’s a difference between moving to the countryside to take part in the Transition Town movement or invest in localised energy production and participating in a cooperative to try to navigate exclusionary laws passed to restrict immigrants.
Image: Markus Winkler/Unsplash
Commoning might be fundamentally about equity and sharing, but so much of the academic, theory and more mainstream (if you can call it that) narrative is framed for and by the perspective of commoning as a choice, and it feels like the voices of those for whom it’s anything but are missing.
They say that at least 2.5bn people in the world practice some form of commoning; just doing their thing, working together to resist or survive in unjust systems. I’m not suggesting that the vast majority of those people (for whom I assume commoning is a necessity, rather than a choice) need the validation of being theorised, studied or in any way justified in the academy or the mainstream. However, it is just another example of white supremacy, patriarchy and Western imperialism that those communities practicing necessity commoning are overwhelmingly reduced to examples or case studies in books, whilst those (like me!) working in professions associated with commoning, or academia, or campaigning or similar; being paid, accessing the (admittedly and paradoxically limited) funding sources, or being touted as ‘experts’ feels unjust, dishonourable and out of integrity for what should be an incredibly justice-focussed, equity-centred endeavour. If nothing else, it feels counter-intuitive.
I know that commoning is as old as the human race and has existed in some form or another in all places, for all people throughout time, until it was almost stamped out and marginalised by enclosure, neoliberal capitalism and the elite across the West. However, I’m well aware that, should the more mainstream narrative be dominated by the framing that we’re undergoing a ‘rediscovery’ or ‘reclaiming’ of commoning in places like the UK, Western Europe and the USA, then it’s verging into Christopher Columbus, neocolonial territory; because it’s certainly not new for the majority of people on Earth, and for migrants, working class people and communities of colour in the aforementioned countries. It becomes starkly apparent, then, that the call to ‘reclaim the commons’, even if intended to imply mainstream reformation, is coming from the perspective of a very white, very middle class group of people. It reminds me of all the same people urgently jumping to join Extinction Rebellion and marching for climate change when the temperature in the UK/France/USA etc goes up a few notches, completely ignoring the fact that people living in the global south (who, as we know, have made very little contribution to human-created climate change) have been facing the devastating effects of climate change for the longest time and without the infrastructure to navigate it.
I know for many people this is not news, and I recognise how I have also been complicit in simplifying narratives of commoning. I also don’t profess to have a solution, except that which echoes throughout social justice narratives and communities of colour — that if the commons is to be a viable ‘mainstream’ alternative, then it needs to be those who have been most marginalised and oppressed who lead the way; who, in the ‘pluriverse’ of the commons, are enabled and supported to create and share their own frameworks suited to local custom and context, not assimilated into existing white, middle class, Eurocentric frameworks. This means they need resources, representation (NOT tokenism) and more resources. It also means that, in spaces where it is not inherent, commoning needs justice embedded in it at all levels, and intersectionally so (see Kimberlé Crenshaw). It does not work unless it works for all, and that means commoning practices that actively dismantle patriarchy, white supremacy, neoliberal capitalism, ableism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, religious persecution, colonialism; that recognises the need for reparations and works to collectively build beautiful alternative systems in their place in which no one’s life, resources or comfort come at the expense of another.
This week, we are mostly reading…
Here are some of our favourite books, articles, videos and long read articles on the commons. Let us know what you think or send us your own recommendations.
We shall not be moved
by Audrea Lim
Collective ownership gives power back to poor farmers
Read the full article here.
The Undercommons
By Stefano Harney & Fred Moten
In this series of essays Fred Moten and Stefano Harney draw on the theory and practice of the black radical tradition as it supports, inspires, and extends contemporary social and political thought and aesthetic critique.
Read the book here.
For Asian Immigrants, Cooperatives Came From the Home Country
For these communities, solidarity economics have been practiced out of necessity. But there are lessons we could all learn.
Read the full article here.
‘We’ve been organising like this since day’ — why we must remember the Black roots of mutual aid groups
As the black founder of a radical mutual aid group launched in 2018, I am frustrated to see new, white, middle-class mutual aid groups launched during the pandemic bulldozing pre-existing networks.
Read the article here.
Community Land Trusts Are a Model for Reparations
In a racialized economy, land trusts and cooperatives offer a lasting form of reparations, say activists.
Read the interview here.
Proposal for a ‘Black Commons’
By Susan Witt
Read the proposal here.
Mutual Aid And Physical Distancing Are Not New For Black And Racialized Minorities In The Americas
By Caroline Shenaz Hossein
Caroline Shenaz Hossein responds to Lucy Bernholz’s recent blog post predicting shifting philanthropic trends– a “rebirth of mutual aid”– during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hossein argues that “any general trends towards mutual aid in the U.S. should be understood, not simply or principally as a return to earlier giving habits, but also as an echo of ongoing giving practices among the Global majority around the world.”
Read the full article here.
