Urban wastelands are spaces in a state of latency (withdrawal of activity, evident abandonment), have become a recurrent focus in debates on urban commons since the 2010s. These spaces, including vacant lots and abandoned interstitial areas, serve as crucial refuges for urban socio-biodiversity. Nevertheless, they offer valuable resources: absence of known ownership, broken barriers allowing easy access, vegetation-covered soils, more-than-human presences, and remnants of past activities... Such resources make urban wastelands conducive to diverse social practices, ranging from walking and conviviality to informal economies and even illicit activities. The indeterminate status of the land, its unclear ownership, and its uncertain future foster diverse urban experiences often framed as expressions of free commons. When a development project is planned or moves into an operational phase, mobilizations sometimes arise to defend urban wastelands. These collective actions involve local residents, environmental associations, and broader activist groups. In these moments, tensions turn into social mobilizations to protect the space and resist to its transformation.
This communication inquiries two cases of “defended wastelands” to interrogate the notion of commoning through urban wastelands. We focus on the everyday urban and social stakes of these mobilizations, considering how they (re)define both the governance of urban commons (Ostrom, 1990) and the ontology of « urbanized natures » (Angelo, 2021). This proposal draws on the experiences and insights of urban researchers with various levels of activist engagement. We focus on two mobilizations in Montreal (Canada) and Paris (France). We cross-analyze these mobilizations, considering (1) how they generate everyday practices and governance through urban commons (Iaione, 2019) ; (2) how these commons in the making are not merely a ressource but are mostly defined by processes of commoning (Starvides, 2016 ; De Angelis, 2017) by collective mobilization. Our main contribution underlines the importance of urban wastelands indeterminacy in these struggles. Following the struggle of public squares, the struggle for urban wastelands reveals the function of these ambiguous spaces in expanding agency within global cities as a commoning resources for urban populations.
Urban commons have emerged as vital actors in the reconfiguration of European cities, promoting more sustainable, equitable, and inclusive urban landscapes. This contribution will explore how grassroots initiatives, cooperatives, and social enterprises are fostering alternative models of urban development by reclaiming underused spaces and repurposing them as hubs for community engagement, affordable housing, and local economies. Drawing from over a decade of hands-on experience in Brussels and across Europe, this research highlights the transformative power of urban commons in addressing systemic issues like housing precarity, social exclusion, and gentrification.
Through an in-depth analysis of diverse case studies—including temporary use projects, community land trusts (CLTs), cooperatives, squats and "beni comuni"—this presentation will showcase how urban commons navigate legal, social, and economic challenges. It will also emphasize the role of collaborative governance models that bring together civil society and local governments, fostering new forms of social property and innovative use of urban space. Concrete projects will be presented, from Brussels, Berlin, Riga, Marseille, Barcelona, Naples, such as Communa, Fairground, Haus Der Statistik, Mietshäuser Syndikat, Free Riga, L'Arpès-M, La Borda, and Ex Asilo Filangieri, as well as public-commons partnerships.
This contribution builds on my work as an Ashoka Fellow and my research with Brussels University (VUB) under the European project DOMINIA. It also integrates insights gained from a comprehensive tour across Europe, where best practices were identified and shared among urban commoners.
By bringing these experiences to the IASC conference, I aim to shed light on the potential of urban commons to regenerate cities, promote the “Right to the City,” and offer scalable solutions for sustainable urban development.
Ultimately, this presentation will contribute to ongoing discussions on how to protect, sustain, and expand urban commons as a counterforce to the commodification and enclosure of urban space, fostering a more resilient and equitable future for cities across Europe.
Brazilian cities deal with severely unequal access to housing and infrastructure. This paper examines how popular housing movements in São Paulo respond to threats to access to housing, food, sociability, and citizenship, observing the Gera Juncal Community Garden in São Paulo. Originating from a housing rights movement, it has evolved into a multifaceted site that integrates food sovereignty with right-to-the-city claims and merges popular education, solidarity economy, and agro-ecological practices. Using a feminist and relational perspective, this study observes the community maintaining the garden, and their daily negotiations around membership, resource distribution, and political strategies shaping the garden's hybrid community. These interactions portray the garden as a political-ecological assemblage where the interaction of bodies, food, labor, and political engagement redefines urban commons boundaries. The findings suggest that like other social reproduction and care practices, they address urgent needs and promote individual and collective agency, sustaining the movement. The daily work in the community garden fosters connection and trust, as they leveraged opportunities to share and build a common language towards caring for the land, solidarity, and justice. This shared experience proved crucial, as the garden kept the group during an uncertain period. Building on this sense of community, they shift the focus from individual to collective demands broadening the housing concept to a co-produced shelter, and challenging urban dynamics that threaten the environment, habitability, and social bonds. They also shift their identity as the not-haves to the providers of services, building and claiming their autonomy as they establish diverse relations with the state and other networks. However, by merging productive and reproductive spheres, they replicate challenges like unequal labor division, devaluation of work assigned to female and non-white bodies, limited access to resources, externalization of socio-environmental impacts, and perpetuation of unequal power relations. Conversely, everyday work is also a realm of creativity and extraordinary, where strategies and relationships are critically evaluated. Movements connect the claim for the commons with their maintenance, thereby linking forms of struggle with forms of life. They can embed their sought principles and values into actions and practices, embodying prefigurative politics, and expanding present demands by collectively shaping the future.
