In the context of climate change, recognizing and developing social and physical infrastructures that support commoning is critical to enabling coastal community wellbeing. Commoning includes (messy) practices of care that contribute to more-than-human community wellbeing. Investigating commoning activities is thus one way to demonstrate the range of such relationships in a place and to emphasize their pluriversal characteristics. Theories of commoning and more-than-human infrastructures of care are essential for illuminating the character and directionality of caring relations in coastal spaces. Moreover, these lenses can also reveal how traditionally marginalized commoners claim space, access resources, and create community even in ecologically and socially challenging environments. In this paper, we use a case study of shore fishing along the urbanized coastline of Tampa Bay, FL, to document and amplify performances of care and commoning--and the role of particular infrastructures in these performances--as part of the project of moving toward abundant futures. We find that key elements of shore fishing practices embody the pluriversal and help to support wellbeing; namely, claiming time and space for rest, sharing, and connection with more-than-human others. We suggest ways that the social and physical infrastructures essential to these practices might be supported by flexible governance decisions, especially in the high-risk coastal zone. Finally, we discuss how the case is “messy” in that it follows practices and relationships that emerge outside of any organized social movement and contain many socio-ecological tensions. We encourage commons scholars to engage more in messy cases in order to advance theoretical, practical and political goals related to resource access and community wellbeing.
