Reclaiming the Commons, Activating Space: A Dual Genealogy

Nate ElaPhD Candidate, Sociology

University of Wisconsin – Madison

1st IASC Thematic Conference on the Urban CommonsBologna, November 6, 2015

Reclaiming the Commons: Genealogy of a Sociolegal Imaginary

[Summer 2015]

Urban Agriculture and the Problem of Property:Tracing the Roots

[Spring 2015]

Reclaiming the Commons, Activating Space: A Dual Genealogy

Nate ElaPhD Candidate, Sociology

University of Wisconsin – Madison

1st IASC Thematic Conference on the Urban CommonsBologna, November 6, 2015

Dunn

“reclaiming the commons” as sociolegal imagination

Longue-duréegenealogy

activating unused space (and people)as social practice

of

&

• collectively held and performed visions of desirable futures (or of resistance against the undesirable).

• animated by shared understandings of forms of social life and social order attainable through, and supportive of, advances in science and technology.

Sociotechnical imaginaries (Jasanoff)

• collectively held and performed visions of desirable futures (or of resistance against the undesirable).

• animated by shared understandings of forms of social life and social order attainable through, and supportive of, advances in legal technology

Sociolegal imaginations (Jasanoff, adapted)

Diggers

Diggers

Diggers

Diggers

Locke

“Nor was this appropriation of any parcel of land, by improving it, any prejudice to any other man, since there was still enough, and as good left; and more than the yet unprovided could use.”

T. Jefferson T. Paine

Two Thomases

Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right.

Jefferson to Madison, Oct. 28, 1785

The earth is given as a common stock for man to labour and live on. If, for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be furnished to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not the fundamental right to labour the earth returns to the unemployed.

It is too soon yet in our country to say that every man who cannot find employment but who can find uncultivated land, shall be at liberty to cultivate it, paying a moderate rent.

Paine

Young

Peter Kropotkin

Continuities?

• Private property as a problem• Linking idle land and idle (or hungry) people• Reclaiming = reimagining• “Land-fix” and “Tax-fix” strands

• as alternatives• as conditional • as combined

• Mapping and counting acres, to estimate production

Discontinuities?

• God and natural rights…• Role for the state• Role of taxation• Focus on inequality and poverty

Taproot Intertwined Rhizometaproots

Reclaiming the commons

Connectingidle people with

idle land

Tax + TransferRelief gardens

Allotments

Community gardens

Garden Cities

VLGAs

Jefferson: fundamental right to work earth

Paine Agrarian Justice

Social security

George: Land Value Tax

Food Stamps

Victory Gardens

Idle land as criminal

Diggers

Locke: Land reverts to commons

Young’s plan

WWI Gardens

Land Trusts

Gleaning

Parish tax / parish rolls

Claiming Waste Land / Activating Space

Kropotkin

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