Bridging Materiality and Subjectivity: Expanding the Commons in Cooperation Birmingham

Abstract

Expansion is a matter of survival for emancipatory commons, permanently threatened by enclosure and cooptation. In this paper, I draw from my experience within Cooperation Birmingham to propose a theory (and practice) for expanding the commons that bridges two seemingly conflicting approaches. On the one hand, the concepts of “boundary commoning” and “commons ecologies” proposed by Massimo De Angelis, concerned with social reproduction and material autonomy. And on the other, “expanding commoning” as developed by Stavros Stavrides, which focuses on radical openness and the production of commoning subjectivities. I demonstrate how in organising a mutual aid response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Cooperation Birmingham is using an expansion strategy that productively articulates both approaches. Boundary commoning and expanding commoning reinforce each other in the construction of a commons ecology that aims at posing a material alternative to capitalist social organisation while remaining always in-the-making and open to new commoners.