Re-enchanting of the World: Technology, the Body, and the Construction of the Commons

Abstract

This is a translation of the final chapter of Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons (2019) by Silvia Federici. The author opposes the opinion that technological development brings about more freedom for society and illustrates how it is accompanied by a growing level of exploitation. According to her, the exploitation of labour is rendered possible by ”a history of the disaccu-mulation” of common goods and pre-capitalist capacities, connected to our immediate, non-privatised contact with nature. In the second part, Federici argues that today’s struggles in defense of the commons, often led by women, has gained fundamental and global importance. She advocates for reproductive labor as a responsible and paradoxically subversive strategy in the face of political and ecological crisis.