A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
Cultivating commoners: Infrastructures and subjectivities for a postcapitalist counter-city
Abstract In this paper, we investigate how infrastructure and care shape commoner subjectivities. In our research into an urban youth farm in Aotearoa New Zealand, we heard and observed profound tales of growth and transformation among youth participants. Not only were our interviewees narrating stories of individual transformation (of themselves and others), but they also spoke of transformations in the way they engaged with the world around them, including the land and garden and its many species and ecological systems, the food system more generally, the wider community and their co-workers. Such transformations were both individual and collective, having more in common with the collective caring subject homines curans than the autonomous, rational work-ready subject of homo economicus. Using postcapitalist theory on commons, commoning and subjectivity, we argue that these socio-affective encounters with more-than-human commons enabled collective, caring commoner subjectivities to emerge and to be cultivated through collective care in place. We suggest that the commons can be thought of as an infrastructure of care for the counter-city, providing the conditions for the emergence and cultivation of collective caring urban subjects.
Highlights A postcapitalist counter-city in post-earthquake Christchurch challenges capitalist city discourses. Collective work on an urban youth farm fosters caring subjectivities and challenges individualist subjectivities. An urban farm can nurture a more-than-human community, transforming vacant space into a commons. Urban commons can be infrastructures of care for the counter-city, fostering postcapitalist subjectivities and futures.
Cultivating commoners: Infrastructures and subjectivities for a postcapitalist counter-city
Abstract In this paper, we investigate how infrastructure and care shape commoner subjectivities. In our research into an urban youth farm in Aotearoa New Zealand, we heard and observed profound tales of growth and transformation among youth participants. Not only were our interviewees narrating stories of individual transformation (of themselves and others), but they also spoke of transformations in the way they engaged with the world around them, including the land and garden and its many species and ecological systems, the food system more generally, the wider community and their co-workers. Such transformations were both individual and collective, having more in common with the collective caring subject homines curans than the autonomous, rational work-ready subject of homo economicus. Using postcapitalist theory on commons, commoning and subjectivity, we argue that these socio-affective encounters with more-than-human commons enabled collective, caring commoner subjectivities to emerge and to be cultivated through collective care in place. We suggest that the commons can be thought of as an infrastructure of care for the counter-city, providing the conditions for the emergence and cultivation of collective caring urban subjects.
Highlights A postcapitalist counter-city in post-earthquake Christchurch challenges capitalist city discourses. Collective work on an urban youth farm fosters caring subjectivities and challenges individualist subjectivities. An urban farm can nurture a more-than-human community, transforming vacant space into a commons. Urban commons can be infrastructures of care for the counter-city, fostering postcapitalist subjectivities and futures.
Cultivating commoners: Infrastructures and subjectivities for a postcapitalist counter-city
Dombroski, Kelly (author) / Conradson, David (author) / Diprose, Gradon (author) / Healy, Stephen (author) / Yates, Amanda (author)
Cities ; 143
2023-10-17
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
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