Commons-Oriented, but Embodied Enough? De-Constructing Knowledge, Experiences, and Institutions in Naples’ Water Commons Project

Abstract

In light of national and regional EU agendas favouring water privatization under forms of neoliberal technocracy, water movements have emerged to contest this paradigm by reframing water as a common good and demanding remunicipalisation (reclaiming public control over water services). As a result, unique cases of water remunicipalisation have aligned their politics with a commons discourse, as in the case of Naples, Italy. However, implementing a commons discourse within an experimental urban setting, embedded in a context of neoliberal technocracy and socio-cultural dynamics is imbued with tensions. Combining literature on commons with that of feminist political ecology, this paper unravels the micro-politics and macro-politics that create tensions in experiments of constructing and institutionalising an urban water commons. The focus of this paper is on ‘lived experiences’ of activists in an ecological (water) struggle, as an entry point to study the (de)construction of the institutionalisation of a commons-oriented water project. Results point to four factors that leave the Naples’ water commons project at risk: enclosing knowledge(s), imbalanced gendered experiences, enclosing practices of participation, and lastly the antagonistic politics at a national and regional scale that continue to isolate the case of Naples as anomaly. By focusing on the neglected facets of embodiment in constructing and institutionalising commons projects, we draw attention to the importance of including embodied knowledge(s), experiences, and practices in the construction, institutionalisation, and ultimately the study, of water commons.

Keywords

• water movements
• embodied commons
• community
• water governance
• recommoning
• remunicipalisation
• feminist political ecology