Wednesday, June 18, 2025 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM South College SCOW205
Commoning for, with, Against or Beyond the State?
in-person
Xenia Katsigianni1, Pieter Van Den Broeck1, Serge Gutwirth2, Constanza Parra3, Pavlos Delladetsimas4, Eirini Skrimizea3, Alessia Tanas2, Thomas Figuera2, Maxime Zaït2, and Sofia Tektonidou4,5
1Department of Architecture, KU Leuven, Belgium, 2Department of Interdisciplinary Studies in Law, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium, 3Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, KU Leuven, Belgium, 4Department of of Geography, Harokopio University of Athens, Greece, 5 KU Leuven, Belgium
States are in a constant pressure to redefine their spatial development strategies to address discrepancies between increasing and often conflicting land demands and sustainable development. Commons, on the other hand, activated by concerns of decommodification, solidarity and equity, reclaim and provide socio-economic alternatives to restore ecological values and counteract socio-ecological crises produced by extractive capitalism. This study is part of a book that will be published in 2025 and aims to contribute to the panel’s topic by adding the discussion around the role of the state in supporting or hindering commons as alternative forms of self-organisation and governance, and critical actants of more sustainable and equitable cities.
We go through case studies that span across seven EU countries and Morocco to explore: (1) how commons emerge as socio-ecological agents, through which communities re-invent property and creatively re-define modes of ‘provisioning’, and (2) how states either hinder, or ally with-, support, or inspire commoning practices setting the ground for improved land governance. The selected cases address a diversity of themes including sustainable food systems, affordable housing provision, urban land occupation and land use planning legislation, and urban cultural commons.
The question addressed is: how can states support and enable the proliferation of commons? Since there is no single answer to this question applying to all commons, countries and contexts, we delve into different cases and state configurations to provide more nuanced answers. Therefore, state-commons interactions are approached differently in each case and discussed with theoretical lenses that range from Ostromean approaches to anarchist perspectives and stretch towards political-cultural ecology, social solidarity economy, strategic-relational institutionalism, new municipalism, socially innovative governance, and critical legal theory. This work contributes to the panel's core question by illustrating how urban commons reshape responsibility, power dynamics, and access to resources while concretely contributing to socio-ecological transitions.
