Commons

This collection seeks to expand the limits of current debates about urban com-moning practices that imply a radical will to establish collaborative and solidarity networks based on anti-capitalist principles of economics, ecology and ethics. The chapters in this volume draw on case studies in a diversity of urban contexts , ranging from Detroit, USA to Kyrenia, Cyprus-on urban gardening and land stewardship, collaborative housing experiments, alternative food networks , claims to urban leisure space, migrants' appropriation of urban space and workers' cooperatives/collectives. The analysis pursued by the eleven chapters opens new fields of research in front of us: the entanglements of racial capitalism with enclosures and of black geographies with the commons, the critical history of settler colonialism and indigenous commons, law as a force of enclosure and as a strategy of commoning, housing commons from the urban-scale perspective, solidarity economies as labour commons, territoriality in the urban commons, the non-territoriality of mobile commons, the new materialist and post-humanist critique of the commons debate and feminist ethics of care.

Hamburg: Junius-Verlag, 2019.

Degrowth oder Postwachstum ist ein dynamisches Forschungsfeld und Bezugspunkt vielfältiger sozial-ökologischer Bewegungen. Postwachstum ist nicht nur eine grundlegende Kritik an der Hegemonie des Wirtschaftswachstums. Es ist auch eine Vision für eine andere Gesellschaft, die angesichts von Klimawandel und globaler Ungleichheit Pfade für grundlegende Gesellschaftsveränderung skizziert. Dieser Band macht erstmals den Versuch einer systematischen Einführung. Er diskutiert die Geschichte von Wachstum und Wirtschaftsstatistiken und rekonstruiert die zentralen Formen der Wachstumskritik: ökologische, soziale, kulturelle, Kapitalismus-, feministische, Industrialismus- sowie Süd-Nord-Kritik. Und er gibt einen Überblick zu den wichtigsten Vorschlägen, Konzepten und Praktiken, die er zugleich politisch einordnet.

»Souverän, aber bündig, breit gefächert, aber nuanciert – eine solche Einführung in das Postwachstumsdenken hat gefehlt! Konkrete Utopien haben ihre heimlichen Schlüsselwörter: Obergrenze und selektives Wachstum, Gemeinwohl und Solidarität, Commons und Konvivalität. Es ist an der Zeit, sie auszuprobieren und einzuüben, bevor sie unversehens in aller Munde sind!«
Wolfgang Sachs, Herausgeber des Development Dictionary. A Guide to Knowledge as Power

»Kompakt, sorgfältig, inspirierend. Degrowth/Postwachstum zur Einführung bietet sowohl einen spannenden und differenzierten Einstieg für Anfänger_innen, als auch eine systematische, tiefgreifende und kritische Analyse der verschiedenen Strömungen, die auch Expert_innen überraschen wird. Von Kritik und Utopie bis hin zu aktivistischen Interventionen geben die Autor_innen einen umfassenden Überblick über die internationale Degrowth-Debatte in ihren Differenzen, Widersprüchen und Potentialen für eine radikale sozial-ökologische Transformation.«
Barbara Muraca, Autorin von Gut Leben: Eine Gesellschaft jenseits des Wachstums

The  article  contributes  to  the  debate  on  the  commons  as  a  political  strategy  to  counter  the privatisation  of  water  services  by  focusing  on  the  experience  of  the  Italian  water  movement.  It  addresses  the question:  how  has  the  notion  of  the  commons – popularly  associated  with  the  Global  South – been  understood, adopted  and  translated  into practice  by  social  movements  in  a  Europe an  country  like  Italy?  We  identify  three different  understandings  of  the  commons  coexisting  within  the  Italian  water  movement
– emphasising universality,  locality  and  participation.  We  describe  the  political  claims  and  the  initiatives  informed  by  these understandings, and the actors which promoted them. Our analysis underlines that the polysemy of the notion of
the  commons,  its  complementarity  with  the 'human  right  to  water'  and  its  overlapping  with  the  idea  of 'public'
not only proved to be effective in the Italian case, but also posed challenges when it came to translate the notion of the commons into specific governance and management frameworks. The politics of the commons defines the space where these dynamics unfold: it is more articulated than a mere rhetorical reference to the commons, but less homogeneous and coherent than the idea of a 'commons movement'.

Starting from the Medieval period, women in the Italian Alps experienced a progressive erosion in property rights over the commons. We collected documents about the evolution of inheritance regulations on collective land issued by hundreds of villages over a period of six centuries (thirteenth-nineteenth). Based on this original dataset, we provide a long-term perspective of decentralized institutional change in which gender-biased inheritance systems emerged as a defensive measure to preserve the wealth of village insiders. This institutional change also had implications for the population growth, marriage strategies, and the protection from economic shocks. I n many societies women are discriminated against in economic life. We contribute to the economic explanations of gender discrimination by focusing on the discrimination in property rights. In particular, we study the structure of property rights on the common pastures and forests of hundreds of small peasant villages in the Italian Alps from the late-Medieval to the modern period (i.e., thirteenth-nineteenth century). Our systematic analysis of the original documents reveals a clear trend of erosion in women's inheritance rights. In the thirteenth century, women enjoyed extended rights on collective land, but by the end of the eighteenth century inheritance of the collective properties was nearly everywhere patrilineal. This research presents three qualifying aspects. First, it considers institutional changes over a very long time span. Second, this investigation

The refugee waves deriving from conflict areas in the the Middle East, Asia and Africa are a central issue to the growing socio-spatial debate about the different facets of contemporary crisis. A noticeable body of literature is currently emerging, exploring aspects of border control and State immigration policies as well as the social philanthropy and humanitarianism underscoring NGO activities. Accordingly, refugees are often seen as passive recipients of state or NGO/philanthropy led practices, especially regarding their settlement, albeit temporary, and respective housing solutions. However, there is little attempt to research how the refugees themselves self-organize and enact the production of seemingly anonymous, yet highly personal and collective housing common spaces, often at creative encounter with local solidarity movements and activists. The proposed panel aims to fill this gap. Following recent spatial approaches on “commons” and “enclosures”, this research panel compares and contrasts refugee-led solidarity housing commons, usually emerging in urban areas, with State-run refugee camps, which are mostly located in rural areas or the urban periphery.
This panel welcomes proposals from various disciplines that:
- follow dialectic, postcolonial and intersectional approaches offering integrative views on the interplay between gender, class, ethnic or sexual relations and understanding migrants and refugees not only as victims but also as agents of resistance and emancipation.
- question how migrants and refugees self-organize themselves beyond State provisions and NGO support, whom they build alliances with and how they (re)negotiate their various identities.
- assess, document, map and monitor the refugees’ access to housing, considering it an essential step towards ‘integration’ and a precondition for the full enjoyment of social and civil rights as well as spatial justice.

Resumo
Objetivo: A pesquisa tem como escopo verificar em que medida o Projeto Viva São Pelegrino, em Caxias do Sul-RS, se coaduna aos ideais do direito à cidade e do comum urbano. Discussão: No primeiro tópico aponta-se o conceito de direito à cidade, a recepção normativa e relação com as acepções do comum. Após, estuda-se o comum urbano, identificando-se a cidade como comum e os comuns da cidade. Por fim, elegem-se categorias que sintetizam o direito à cidade e o comum urbano, que servirão para analisar a conformidade do Projeto Viva São Pelegrino. Metodologia: Utilizou-se o método de abordagem analítico, com procedimento bibliográfico e estudo de caso. Resultados: Dentre as sete categorias, cinco foram verificadas, sendo que as carências estão na escolha do local, por tratar-se de espaço dotado de infraestrutura, e na insuficiente abordagem do tema da segregação e da propriedade. Contribuições sociais / para a gestão: Verificou-se, ao observar o Projeto em análise, que o direito à cidade e os comuns urbanos, normalmente abordados teoricamente, podem ser diretrizes para a gestão urbana e mobilização social nas cidades, com resultados concretos.

Abstract
Objective: The research aims to verify to what extent the Viva São Pelegrino Project, in Caxias do Sul-RS, is in line with the ideals of the right to the city and the urban common. Discussion: The first topic addresses the concept of the right to the city is pointed out, normative reception and relationship with the meanings of the common. Afterwards, the urban common is studied, identifying the city as common and the city commons. Finally, categories are chosen that summarize the right to the city and the urban common, which will serve to analyze the conformity of the Viva São Pelegrino Project. Methodology: The analytical approach method was used, with bibliographic procedure and case study. Results: Among the seven categories, five were verified, and the shortcomings are in the choice of location, for being a space with infrastructure, and in the insufficient approach to the topic of segregation and property. Social / management contributions: It was verified, when observing the Project under analysis, that the right to the city and the urban commons, normally approached theoretically, can be guidelines for urban management and social mobilization in cities, with concrete results.