Conceptualising the commons as a relational triad
Lessons from the grant of use cooperative housing model in Barcelona
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8945540 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Santiago Del Río (0000-0002-0041-1112, University of Manchester, corresponding author), Santiago Leyva del Río |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 136 |
| Pages | 112-121 |
| Publication date | 2022-09-29 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Geoforum (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0016-7185 • E-ISSN: 1872-9398 |
| Publisher | Elsevier BV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.09.007 |
| OpenAlex | W4297963554 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
| References cited | 34 |
The current crisis of housing affordability in urban environments has drawn the attention of geographers to housing commons. This paper provides a conceptual and operational framework for an empirical study of housing commons. In thinking about the commons as a ‘relational triad’ involving a resource (the object), and community (the actors) and a form of organisation (the activity), I argue that housing commons are hybrid, imperfect social processes that escape binary scrutiny. Drawing on the findings of a research project that took place between 2017 and 2021, I focus on an emerging form of self-managed cooperative housing in the city of Barcelona, known as the ‘grant of use model’. I dwell on the contradictory nature of self-management in the context of a social reproduction crisis. Housing commons can be conducive to solidaristic communities and non-individualist subjectivities outside the financialisation of everyday life via mortgaged homeownership. However, the time and emotional investment required to self-develop housing projects in highly regulated, neoliberal urban spaces are not available for everyone. Housing commons require a favourable political context, economic resources, social connections and technical knowledge, which prevent democratic access. I analyse the origin and causes of exclusionary boundaries surrounding these housing commons to understand how these boundaries can be softened. Departing from disembedded conceptualisations of the commons, I show what type of public-common partnerships and innovative policies can make housing commons more inclusive without renouncing principles such as self-organisation and autonomy
Affordable housing · Autonomy · Civil society · Commons · Context (archaeology · Dilemma · Economic growth · Economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Collaborative and Sustainable Housing Initiatives · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law · Public Administration · Sharing Economy and Platforms
Housing Commons? A Scoping Review
Prefiguring redistributive housing commons
Co‐operatives and public policy
Gentrification
Incremental Construction as a Circular Economy Instrument in the Production of Cooperative Housing
Housing as community infrastructure
Sharing social reproduction in a housing commons
Resistance Against and Beyond Financialisation from the Vantage Point of Social Reproduction
The Magna Carta Manifesto
Justice, nature, and the geography of difference
Re-Enchanting the World
The Spanish Welfare State in European Context
Releasing the Commons
Beyond wishful thinking
From Co-Ops to Community Land Trusts
Speculating on London's housing future
The Commons as a Legal Concept
Sharing, togetherness and intentional degrowth
Defending, Reclaiming and Reinventing the Commons
The role of the democratic organization in the La borda housing cooperative in Spain
Working with Strangers in Saturated Space
Mortgaged lives’
The right to be weary? Endurance and exhaustion in austere times
Building transitions to post‐capitalist urban commons
Contested subjectivities in a UK housing cooperative
Rebel cities
Neoliberalism as Creative Destruction
The Future of 'The Commons
Enabling Housing Cooperatives
From Occupying Plazas to Recuperating Housing
Theorizing the urban housing commons
The financialization of Danish cooperatives and the debasement of a collective housing good
| Unique citing works | 8 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,67 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2026 (4) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |