Introduction; Media and cultural commoning

In popular parlance, the “commons” is frequently evoked as if its meaning were self-evident. The term gestures toward collectiveness, shared responsibility, community resilience, solidarity, and the redistribution of resources. At a historical moment when individualism, competitive gatekeeping, entrenched hierarchies, heteropatriarchy, and late-stage capitalism continue to fail at offering liveable futures, the commons is, understandably, an attractive shorthand for imagining a world otherwise. Practising the commons under pressure, however, is another matter entirely. In many contexts, it has been pursued amid constraints, precarity, surveillance technologies and infrastructures, and unimaginable forms of repression. The question, therefore, is not whether the commons is desirable, but whether it is practicable and at what cost. So, what do we do with it in times of severe necropolitical unrest? Is there anything we can do at all?

Capitalism · Commons · Gesture · Meaning (existential) · Redistribution (election) · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Media Studies and Communication · Media, Communication, and Education