Gladstone, Fiona

Contemporary social movements often realize power as they “scale up” –convincing ever-larger swathes of population to unite in actions and demands for change from powerful entities. This outward-facing action contrasts with another kind of social movement activity: building and sustaining local institutions for self-determination and self-governance. We call this work commoning. Commoning is particularly relevant for structurally marginalized communities in a neo-colonial world. Comunidades por la Autonomía (Communities for Autonomy) is an informal, volunteer organization founded in 2023 by Indigenous Mexican activists to assist Indigenous communities in the Yucatan peninsula in developing robust institutions as a form of territorial defense and self-determination. In this research, we (self-) examine the inward-focused commoning work of Comunidades por la Autonomia and its engagement of insights from the Ostrom school of commons research. We then relate this inward-focused commoning activism to the outward facing work of social movement power-building and policy change.