Commoning as Social Struggle

Abstract

The article provides an empirical insight into urban initiatives that advocate for better urban mobility infrastructures and outlines a theoretical perspective of commoning infrastructures as a terrain for political struggles. Rather than constructing commons as the interplay of methodologically presumed elements (resources, a community of commoners, and their institutions of commoning) it takes a relational perspective on commoning that asks how activists mobilize and relate heterogeneous elements to make urban mobility infrastructures a common political concern. Based on ethnographic fieldwork on mobility activism in Berlin, the second part of the article illustrates such a relational perspective and presents three modes of commoning. To achieve what is called “mobility transition” (i. e. more sustainable and equitable urban mobility infrastructures), activists rely on mobilizations of knowledge, space, and affect.

Keywords

• commoning
• urbanity
• social movement
• mobility infrastructures
• affect
• political mobilization