From the commons to the Common: rediscovering cultural, social and political

―I nuovi proprietari convertirono i campi arabili in pascoli per ovini, da cui ricavare la lana che all‘epoca, grazie all‘espansione del mercato del tessile, garantiva guadagni molto elevati. È il processo che va sotto il nome di enclosures of the common. Com‘è noto, la pur brillante analisi marxiana tendeva a sopravvalutare l‘incidenza economica del fenomeno, ed era per di più limitata al solo contesto inglese. Quel che però ci interessa notare è la logica che presiede alla ricostruzione storica, gli schemi concettuali che se ne possono ricavare: l‘accumulazione originaria presuppone che le due sfere d‘azione che costituiscono la struttura stessa del mondo moderno – e cioè la sfera privata e quella pubblica/statale – nascano a partire dalla rimozione violenta di una terza dimensione, alternativa ad entrambe: quella, appunto, del Comune.‖ (Coccoli 2014, Dai Commons al Comune. Introduzione pag.10)

To introduce the case study about Rome, now it is worth to focus on how the concept of the Commons streamed in political and economic practices by people and movements. Firstly, it merits to say that, as we have already seen, the definition of the commons streamed from a notion

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According to Paolo Maddalena ―La grande proprietà privata è riconosciuta dalla Costituzione (art.42) allo scopo

di assicurare la funzione sociale. Chi lascia una fabbrica abbandonata o una terra perde la tutela giuridica e lo Stato o anche un Comune può rilevare l‘immobile. Anche senza concedere indennizzo,perché la proprietà ha perso la tutela giuridica garantita dalla funzione sociale‖. The social importance of the reclamation of RiMaflow by workers

questions the local administrations to find juridical institutions and laws that enable to these experiments of mutual sustain and of research of work dignity to stay alive. It also opens opportunities to safe ―wasted‖ building that can be given to the people, particularly the young and unemployed. (http://www.rimaflow.it/).

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of resource commonly managed to collective and local public goods, to private goods that should be delivered to individuals or to ―communities interested in private property‖ (Demsetz, 1967) who are able to devise their sustainable management. Here the point is not one of ideology, but one of practices shaping social imaginaries. When we speak about the commons, it is worth underlining that commons are strictly linked with socio-ecological context, thus with communities, contexts and resources.

The management of the commons is so influenced by the shared culture of the community and the (heterogeneous) set of its values. But it also influences and questions about the levels of governance and government implied in the management of such resources.

In a system of (real or perceived) scarcity (like the economic crisis) and complexity (the multi-layer dimension of interests and stakeholders which are involved in the externalities of every economic activity) the theme of the Commons:

- Singles out the relationships of power which intervene among the different subjects which are interested by the ―externalities‖ deriving by the use of the commons;

- Interrogates on the legitimacy of actors which make use of resources or claim their property;

- Broadly speaking, poses attention on the role of cultural, social and relational factors within the economic discourse.

Within this perspective, the commons activated the debate around legitimacy, constitutions, working and operational rules. The objective of the research was to inquiry this topic in its economic and political dimensions and outcomes. So it was necessary to mention some social, economic, cultural and institutional contexts which influenced the evolution of communities which refer to ―commons‖ today. Many of the experiences that will be described are considered in a narrative framework characterized by the abandonment or the waste of public, collective resources by the private owner or by the State, a condition of impoverishing and marginalization of some social categories, the attempt to re-take the resources by groups of citizens.

Some features about the economic and legislative evolution of the country, will provide a perspective by which inquire the evolution of those communities who destine public and private urban spatial resources to collective use today.

In a context of economic, political-democratic and social crisis and in a complex and globalised environment, political ―resistant‖ communities questioned

- the ―values‖ which orient the ongoing paths of socio-economic development;

- the redistribution of not only monetary, but also spatial (urban) and relational (public services and welfare) resources.

By this way, a research about urban commons in Rome could not escape to consider the - developments of the socio-economic context,

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- the mechanisms of assignation and redistribution of the spatial resources, - the internal debate and perceptions of self-organized communities.

Political self-organized communities of Rome focused on the crisis of public welfare; about the usefulness of self-organized ―spontaneous‖ answers to public-institutional vacuums.

These approaches link the theme of ―the commons‖ to that of the ―city as commons‖ and motivate the inquiry about practices and developments of socio economic systems towards a really participative dimension of the ―right to the city‖.

The research aim to describe the evolution of these systems and the perspectives of these movements in a narrative framework, with the will to reflect upon the transformations of the public urban space and the answers given by the communities who activate themselves around urban commons.