Our commons: Political ideas for a new Europe

2020-11-12T22:40:01+01:00Tags: , , , |

This publication explores new politics in Europe and describes the commons in different spheres of society, economy and politics.  The book is divided into seven thematic sections. Most sections have a theoretical position and a practical case study. All sections feature influential thinkers whose voices we want to amplify. This book is comprised of the insights of more than 20 writers, activists and pioneers, standing on the shoulders of hundreds more.

Labour as a commons: The example of workers-recuperated companies

2020-11-12T22:02:30+01:00Tags: , , , |

This article argues that labour can be understood as a commons, located in the discussion of how commons can advance the transformation of social relations and society. To manage labour as a commons entails a shift away from the perception of labour power as the object of capital’s value practices, towards a notion of labour power as a collectively and sustainably managed resource for the benefit of society. Given that social change is largely a result of social struggle, it is crucial to examine germinal forms of labour as a commons present in society. I focus my analysis on worker-recuperated companies in Latin America and Europe. Worker-recuperated companies are enterprises self-managed by their workers after the owners close them down. Despite operating within the hegemonic capitalist market, they do not adopt capitalist rationality and are proven viable. Worker-recuperated companies offer a new perspective on labour as a commons.

Heritage as common(s). Common(s) as heritage

2020-11-12T01:00:33+01:00Tags: , , , |

In 2014 "the Urban Heritage Research Cluster as part of Critical Heritage Studies, University of Gothenburg, organized seven seminars under the heading: “Heritage as Common(s) – Commons as Heritage, or HAC-CAH. The seminars have brought us to places like Ground Zero in New York, a creek in Olympia, Café The Swan in Amsterdam, Ellis Creek Water Recycling Facility in Petaluma, St Ann´s Church in Manchester, Central Park in New York, the Old city of Jerusalem, Stortorget in Malmö, the Al-Qaryon Square in Nablus, and Gezi Park in Istanbul. We have probed the notion of friendship, scrutinized the paradigm shifts from reproduction to production, explored the tension between top-down and bottom-up heritage. We have enjoyed the potential of biological commons and have looked into the different tempi and temporalities of commoning and heritage works. The seminar series has originated and evolved along the path we set up for the Urban Heritage Research Cluster in the start: “the city as an interface of different temporalities – i.e. past events, dreams for the future and contemporary constraints – and heritage as intermingled in many different urban realities and entangled in issues of aesthetics, ethics, space and power…”."

O komuni

2020-11-12T01:03:14+01:00Tags: , , |

Neodvojivi deo Kardeljevog stvaralaštva je i njegovo neposredno i stalno teorijsko i praktično angažovanje na pitanjima komune i komunalnog sistema na svim etapama izgradnje i razvoja našeg socijalističkog samoupravnog društva. Polazeći od toga da je komuna socijalistička samoupravna humana zajednica ljudi, složen sistem društvenih odnosa i osnovna društvena zajednica u kojoj radni čovek i građanin može i treba da ostvaruje najveći deo svojih osnovnih interesa, prava, dužnosti i odgovornosti, Kardelj je na svim etapama razvoja jugoslovenskog samoupravnog društva ne samo isticao značaj komune i teorijski objašnjavao pojedine njene aspekte nego upravo aktivno i neposredno radio na razrešavanju svih pitanja i problema u ovoj oblasti. I u prilikama kada su razmatrana druga pitanja i odnosi u društvu i tražena rešenja za druge probleme u razvoju samoupravljanja, on je posebno isticao važnost i značaj rešavanja određenih pitanja u komuni, odnosno polazio od toga da je za ukupan razvoj socijalističkih samoupravnih odnosa u društvu bitno stanje samoupravnih odnosa u komuni. U ovoj knjizi sakupljeni su Kardeljevi radovi o komuni. Termin „radovi” treba uzeti sasvim uslovno. U knjizi su i studije ili njihovi delovi koji se odnose na komunu i sistematizovana i pripremljena izlaganja ili članai i intervjui, ali i mnogi govori i razgovori u različitim prilikama susreta sa ljudima iz opština — na skupovima Stalne konferencije gradova, na sastancima političkih aktiva, sa predstavnicima mesnih zajednica;, u radničkim sredinama, na savetovanjima i seminarima. Opširan predgovor napisao je Živorad Kovačević.

Magacin: Jedan model za samoorganizovani kulturni centar / Magacin: A model for selforganised cultural center

2020-11-12T01:04:31+01:00Tags: , , , |

Publikacija je, kao rezultat zajedničkog rada, predstavila model samoorganizacije nezavisnog kulturnog centra Magacin u Beogradu. Taj model, zasnovan na principima zajedničkog raspolaganja resursima, jednakosti i pravednosti, odgovornosti prema drugima, saradnji i dostupnosti, finansijskoj transparentnosti, kao osnvni mehanizam ima otvoreni kalendar. Njime se omogućava potpuno transparentno upravljanje prostornim resursima, ali i stvaranje zajednice koja zajednički upravlja prostorom i odlučuje o svim aspektima njegovog rada i razvoja.

Creative or common city? Civic or civil society?

2020-11-12T01:04:59+01:00Tags: , , |

At the end of February 2017, Pascal Gielen gave this lecture on the relationship between art, politics and the civil space in the creative city, as part of a programme which ran alongside CCA's exhibition Forms of Action (28 Jan - 12 Mar 2017) on socially engaged art practices. The lecture is based on a pilot research project Gielen undertook for the European Cultural Foundation in 2016, and also looks at how activists and creative workers respond to this policy by organising themselves in alternative ways.

Commonism. A new aesthetics of the real

2020-11-12T01:05:50+01:00Tags: , , , |

The book explores the ideological thoughts under the notion of the commons and asks how this shapes the reality of our living together. Pays attention to the aesthetic dimension of communism as an ideology: what artistic strategies and what aesthetics do commoners adopt? After half a century of neoliberalism, a new radical, practice-based ideology is making its way from the margins: commonism, with an o in the middle. It is based on the values of sharing, common (intellectual) ownership and new social co-operations. Commoners assert that social relationships can replace money (contract) relationships. They advocate solidarity and they trust in peer-to-peer relationships to develop new ways of production. Commonism maps those new ideological thoughts. How do they work and, especially, what is their aesthetics? How do they shape the reality of our living together? Is there another, more just future imaginable through the commons? What strategies and what aesthetics do commoners adopt? This book explores this new political belief system, alternating between theoretical analysis, wild artistic speculation, inspiring art examples, almost empirical observations and critical reflection.

Performing the common city: On the crossroads of arts, politics and public life

2020-11-12T01:06:24+01:00Tags: , , , |

Pascal Gielen, art theoretician from Belgium, writes about the contemporary city, its shift from the space for the bourgeois class to the current trend of privatisation of public spaces and the role of arts in these processes. His analysis is based on theories and practices of Haussmann, Michel de Certeau, Chantal Mouffe, Saskia Sassen and others, while going through different conceptions of the city  as the common space: from Haussmann's urban structure in 18th century to Florida's creative city to the common city.

Becoming Common: Precarization as political constituting

2020-11-12T01:09:39+01:00Tags: , , |

"The discourse on precarization that has emerged in the past decade, primarily in Europe, rests on an extremely complex understanding of social insecurity and its productivity. The various strands of this discourse have been brought together again and again in the context of the European precarious movement organised under EuroMayDay....What is unusual about this social movement is not only the way in which under its auspices new forms of political struggle are tested and new perspectives of precarizatin developed; rather - and it is striking in relation to other social movements - it is how it has queered a seemingly disparate fields of the cultural and political again and again. In the past decade, conversations concerning both the (partly subversive) knowledge of the precarious and a search for commons (in order to constitute the political), has conspicuously taken place more in art institution than in social, political, or even academic contexts."

Zajednička dobra i granice kapitalizma

2018-06-15T14:12:42+01:00Tags: , , , , , , , , |

Publikacija predstavlja niz uvodnih studija koje povezuje jedno jednostavno pitanje: kakva je uloga zajedničkih dobara u prošlim društvima i na koji način ona mogu pomoći u izgradnji budućih. S tim na umu, ova publikacija proučava pojam zajedničkih dobara kroz kritiku kapitalizma kao sistema robne proizvodnje i rasprave o njegovim mogućim alternativa.

Spaces of Commoning. Artistic Research and the Utopia of Everyday

2018-06-15T14:43:11+01:00Tags: |

The texts assembled in this book are a sincere attempt to document the trials and errors in a study of commoning, a series of disruptions, failures, of falling apart, and the search for means to come together again. With this in mind, many of the contributions here do confront questions of methodology: they reflect on methods that support the study as well as the practice of commoning, methods that cherish critical reexamination and allow for unresolved dilemmas.

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