Resilient Commoning: The Reproduction of the Basque Commons in the Longue Durée

In this article, I offer an innovative approach to examining the reproduction of commoning in the longue durée. I adopt a broad, but fundamentally spatial, understanding of commoning and enclosure that recognises not only the material but also the political, socio-cultural, and labour commons. This allows for the identification of both the diversity of commoning practices and institutions and how enclosure has shaped these new commons. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, I integrate the concepts of “threshold spatiality” and the “commons circuit” to describe how commoning practices have been adapted to new spatialities following enclosure. The reproduction of commoning in various forms in the Basque Country illustrates what I call “resilient commoning” practices over centuries of political-economic change. In doing so, I offer a narrative that moves beyond the debate over the Basque Country being historically egalitarian or stratified, instead focusing on the dialectical processes of commoning and enclosure.