On the Commons

questions of distribution and gift economy in urban, food and localities




"Food", Gordon Matta Clark, New York, 1971 (Pamela Lee, Object to be Destroyed, MIT)

The questions and different urban conditions of to create, share the commons enchained my experience and ideas since I was traveling from Tirana, Rome and Torino. The whole stories of places and contra-urban experiences are coming to the same question: how to share, re-produce, distribute commons outside of neoliberal governmentality?


According to De Angelis’s clarification: “What we share is what we have in common”, “Commons are a means of establishing a new political discourse that builds on and helps to articulate the many existing, often minor struggles, and recognizes their power to overcome capitalist society.”. He defines three notions of commons in order to explain that the commons are not simply the resources that we share but a way of commoning: common pool/non-commodified means, communities and the act of it “to common” (the social process of commoning). Last week in Rome, Lorenzo and Guila were leading a part of an event that was mainly about creating (I would simply say) a “community” that they were pursing since the last months by inviting citizens to walking in/around the city of Rome. Primavera Romana is about monitoring the city, understanding the urban spaces not only as simple resources as commons but spaces that citizen can create ways to govern the commons. For that a social network, community and a gift economy are needed, which will come soon. Yesterday, Carlo Petrini was talking about specific common knowledge of th minor social networks, communities that keeps the nature, food chain and food labor, that was basically linked our gathering in Primavera Romana sharing knowledge of places, cooking, collecting olives...putting new meanings on commons. Petrini mentioned the most important word “meeting”; how is meeting important without organization behind and how valuable this meeting is. Today, sociologist/activist Raj Patel focused on how we define commons: “commons is about how we manage resources together”. His argument was not only about managing and sustaining the food share but also about how food movements should be in solidarity with other movements. He gave examples such Black Panther movement that organized breakfast for children, People’s Grocery, Via Campesina...

In the same panel, micro-economist Serge Latouche started with a very interesting reference from architect Yona Friedman mentioning about making things edible to keeps up alive, and focusing on the food reform as a social change. I guess, next week in Yona Friedman conference, I will put up my ideas in a more concrete way to focus of the distribution of social surplus value in managing commons, making up communities and finding structures of gift economy.
23.October.
Terra Madre, 2010

note: also check out Celine Condorelli