Micciarelli, Giuseppe

This article aims 1) to analyze the interactions between the State, land property and urban commoning from a global perspective; 2) to examine how such interactions accrue on the commoners - how social interactions between urban commoners are regulated by formal and informal rules, how they solve conflicts, and how they manage to cooperate towards the potentially rival use of space, time and means of production -, and 3) to examine the potential advantages and pitfalls of the interactions between urban commoners and local politics, including the institutional learning possibilities in both the South and the North. We argue that the development of Nation States in Western Europe and the imposition of such states onto Latin American colonies have determined historically different relations with local societies and particularly with commoning groups in each continent. The fully embraced ideas of progress and development in European societies played a hegemonic and continuous role in legitimizing Nation States and private property, abolishing the commons that are now rescued by local governments. On the other hand, the non-hegemonic domination of Latin American indigenous cultures and the confluence between original inhabitants and African newcomers has historically generated resistance to foreign Nation States, with clear consequences to the relations between the enduring commons and the State. As such, many European urban commons are innovating in “direct administration” of public heritage and collaboration/challenge between activists and local governments, of which the cases of Barcelona en Comù and emerging commons in Naples are two different and paradigmatic examples, whereas in Latin America and particularly in Brazil, the transmission of knowledge and self-management canons has been the main guiding principle, since the colonial inherited states and their relationship with the commons have not changed much, as the Dandara and Nova Esperança examples will show. We will take on Stavrides’ (2022) sources of common spaces and on Miraftab's (2009) "invited" and "invented" spaces to explore struggles and/or cooperation within, through, outside, and despite the state and compare the current European and Brazilian cases in “their own terms”. Taking from the experiences and diverse interpretations of policy-making in Europe we will finally discuss how innovative relationships between the expertise of commoners and that of the bureaucracy may be challenging and/or collaborative, and if and how they point to enhancing the commons.