On commons, state institutions and capitalism

Abstract

Within the contemporary context of multiple and overlapping crises, which critical scholars often call the Anthropocene epoch, commons and commoning have been presented as a promising way to approach and address the emerging problems. Commons are often presented as spaces antithetical to capitalism, governed in a radical democratic fashion. We argue that to deepen our knowledge on how commons contribute to politics of our times, we need to understand both the embodied relations of care within the commons and the ways commons are related to the state. On these grounds and by presenting commons as an empty signifier, we aim to provide a nuanced understanding of commons contribution to politics in the Anthropocene.