Common Space as Threshold Space: Urban Commoning in Struggles to Re-appropriate Public Space

This paper will explore contemporary practices of urban commoning while attempting to construct a theoretical argument on the inherently emancipating potentialities of common space. Urban commoning will be considered as a set of spatial practices through which space is created both as a good to be shared and as a medium that can give form to institutions of sharing. In order for commoning to remain an open process that continuously expands without being contained in any form of enclosure, it has to invite newcomers. Shared spaces, open to newcomers, are spaces defined neither by a prevailing authority that supervises their use, nor by a closed community that controls them by excluding all ‘outsiders’. Common spaces are thus dependent upon their power to communicate and connect rather than separate. Common spaces are threshold spaces, connecting and comparing adjacent areas at the same time. In practices of common space creation, commoners create areas of encounter and collective self-management. Rules of use are also of a threshold character, constantly in the making. Likewise, subjects of use are threshold subjects: for commoning to remain open and ever expanding, commoners have to consider themselves open to transformative negotiations with newcomers.This paper will thus attempt to understand urban commoning as a multifaceted process which produces spaces, subjects of use (inhabitants) and rules of use (institutions) that share the same qualitative characteristics. In such a prospect, urban commoning can prefigure forms of social relations based on sharing, cooperation and solidarity. In this way, space becomes not simply a common product but also the means through which egalitarian social relations can potentially be shaped.

Life after the squares: reflections on the consequences of the Occupy movements

This is a roundtable with reflections on Tahrir Square, Egypt; Syntagma Square, Greece; Rossio Square, Portugal; 15-M Puerta del Sol, Spain; Gezi Park, Turkey; and Occupy Wall Street, USA. Five years on from the birth of the movements of the streets and the squares in Tahrir Square, what has changed? This roundtable brings movement participants together in reflection on themes such as legacies, key practices and knowledge, cultural creation, and links to institutional politics. Contributors share their understanding of the situations in Egypt, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey and we present their reflections in full and virtually unedited. Note: for reasons of space this print version of the roundtable excludes the contributions from OWS (Anonymous) and a shortened version of the contribution from Wiam El-Tamami. The full version is available as an open access download at the Social Movement Studies website (Available to download at the Supplemental Files section attached to this article at http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/csms20/16/1). The full version is also available in Spanish with additional content at Alexia (http://revistaalexia.es/)

The Public Playground Paradox: "Child’s Joy" or Heterotopia of Fear?

Literature depicts children of the Global North withdrawing from public space to“acceptable islands”. Driven by fears both of and for children, the publicplayground – one such island – provides clear-cut distinctions between childhoodand adulthood. Extending this argument, this paper takes the original approach oftheoretically framing the playground as a heterotopia of deviance, examining –for the first time – three Greek public playground sites in relation to adjacentpublic space. Drawing on an ethnographic study in Athens, findings show fear tounderpin surveillance, control and playground boundary porosity. Normativeclassification as “children’s space” discourages adult engagement. However, in anovel and significant finding, a paradoxical phenomenon sees the playground’spresence simultaneously legitimizing playful behaviour in adjacent public spacefor children and adults. Extended playground play creates alternate orderings andnegotiates norms and hierarchies, suggesting significant wider potential toreconceptualise playground-urban design for an intergenerational public realm

Recuperando el espacio público como comunes: lecciones desde los movimientos latinoamericanos

The text proposes to understand public space as capable of becoming a common space when the rules of its governance challenge those who own the space, not only to appropriate it, but to open it up for everyone's use. This possibility is linked to a reinvention of collaboration and a way of exercising "commoning".Propone entender el espacio público como capaz de transformarse en un espacio común cuando las reglas de su gobernanza desafían a quienes se adueñan del espacio, no solo para apropiarse de este, sino que para abrirlo al uso de todos. Esta posibilidad está vinculada con una reinvención de la colaboración y con una forma de ejercer el “commoning”

Edge, common space and the spatial contract:A three-way conversation with Ed Casey, Stavros Stavrides and Antonis Vradis

This paper is closed access until 13th September 2020

Edge, common space and the spatial contract: A three-way conversation with Ed Casey, Stavros Stavrides and Antonis Vradis

Edge, common space and the spatial contract: A three-way conversation with Ed Casey, Stavros Stavrides and Antonis Vradi