The Urban as Commons: theoretical underpinnings from Latin American practices and epistemologies

Abstract

What does it mean to understand the urban as commons? What are the material and theoretical specificities of Latin American urban communities in the making and governance of such urban commons? Within Latin American cities, there is a multiplicity of local experiences that have historically constructed and managed urban space through collective practices to fight and resist various forms of dispossession and violence. The empirical and theoretical heterogeneity and richness of such experiences offer unique perspectives for the understanding and theorization of the urban as commons. In this work, I analyze three collective modalities of space-making from Brazilian cities – urban occupations, favelas, and quilombos - to understand how their practices and epistemologies produce and manage the urban as commons. Rather than an empirical case study, this work draws on existing scholarship on these modalities to unravel and theorize their practices and ways of being as one that develops and governs the urban as commons. I highlight plurality, territorialities/spatiality, temporalities, and intersectionality as critical elements and contributions to understanding the urban as commons within the analyzed modalities. Finally, I reflect on how such practices contribute to spatial governance and the making of democracy within local and broader scales.