Defending Space in a Changing Urban Landscape
The processes of privatizing and commodifying collective resources that accompany recent urbanization have evoked literature that focuses on the urban commons. In the case of India, scholars emphasize that the destruction of collective resources is threatening the livelihoods and social safety of urban populations. Urban street space plays a crucial role for many urban dwellers in South Asia, particularly the urban poor, as the streets of the city provide them with the basis for generating income. Furthermore, the streets are the place where they conduct most of their daily social activities.
This article develops an understanding of commoning that builds upon Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space. Commoning is a spatial production process consisting of the appropriation of physical space, negotiation of different concepts of space, and the production of social meaning. The aim of creating collective and non-commodified spheres that are off-limits to the logic of global capitalist enclosure lies at the heart of the practice of commoning.
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