Commoning transforms participants’ identities even as it embeds practices of power and difference

Evidence

Through the practice of commoning, people produce not only the commons but themselves as commoners. The process of becoming commoners is fundamentally relational and embodied, transforming how people understand themselves, their situations, and their possibilities for action (Arbell, 2023). … However, this “being in common” should not be reduced to “a common way of being,” which, as García-López points out, eliminates the understanding that commoning includes practices of power and difference both inside the commoning process and between commoners, other actors, and the natural environment (García-López et al., 2021, p. 1208). — Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth, Institutional Bricolage and Commoning…, 15

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the concept of commoning as identity-producing, and distinguishes ‘being in common’ from a homogenizing ‘common way of being’.
• XREF: Resonates with how community identity formation works more broadly, e.g. in the solidarity-economy literature and in Occupy-inflected commons scholarship. — connects to: Commoning joins producing shared goods with cultivating collective skills and character. — Laura Albareda and Alejo Jose G. Sison, Commons Organizing: Embedding Common…, 99; Commoning should be analysed through internal and external dynamics among subjectivities, visions and practices. — Yael Arbell, The Circle of Commoning:…, 6; Commoning simultaneously shapes and is shaped by its practitioners — Yael Arbell, The Circle of Commoning:…, 36 (+8 more)
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth, Institutional Bricolage and Commoning…, 15

Related

• Social practices drive ongoing formation of commoning subjects. (similarity 0.86)
• Commoning simultaneously shapes and is shaped by its practitioners (similarity 0.86)
• Commoning practices simultaneously produce group relations, member subjectivities, and material culture. (similarity 0.85)
• Commoning joins producing shared goods with cultivating collective skills and character. (similarity 0.85)
• Shared identity underpins commoner formation and collective action. (similarity 0.83)
• Becoming a commoner, visions, and social practices shape each other cyclically (similarity 0.83)
• Commoning communities vary with context and adapt over time. (similarity 0.82)
• Commoning should be analysed through internal and external dynamics among subjectivities, visions and practices. (similarity 0.81)
• Members’ class and racial identities shape how communities do commoning. (similarity 0.81)
• Commoner subjectivities emerge historically through practice rather than being fixed identities. (similarity 0.79)
• Cooperatives reproduce themselves through shared governance and yield both material and immaterial common resources. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Shared identity underpins commoner formation and collective action. #expands (0.78) — Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth, Institutional Bricolage and Commoning…, 133