Abstract
The practice of urban commoning continues to tickle the imagination of activists and academics alike. Urban commoning’s aesthetic dimension, yet, has not been fully understood. This contribution seeks to fill such gap and approaches aesthetics in the literal sense: That which presents itself to sense perception. The article thus asks: To what extent may commoning practices that are dedicated to the disclosure of unheard voices (hence having an aesthetic dimension) shift urban power relations? This contribution takes its cue in Jacques Rancière’s theory of aesthetics and has the commoning experiment of Pension Almonde as its central case. Pension Almonde constituted a commons‐based, temporary occupation of a vacant social housing complex in Rotterdam, aimed specifically to undo the subordinate position of urban nomads and orphaned cultural initiatives. The article finally develops the distinction between a particular‐aesthetic dimension (making unheard voices merely perceptible) and a universal‐aesthetic dimension (shifting power relations) of urban commoning. Given the case’s lack of collective agency and external resonance, urban power relations remained in place.
Highlights
This article sheds light on urban commoning’s aesthetic dimension
With Pension Almonde, the activist collective City in the Making transformed an entire street of social housing into a temporary living and working space for individuals and cultural initiatives who, due to the nomadic nature of their activities are unable to apply for social housing or buy accommodation on the private market
This vacancy/renovation enabled the common‐ ing experiment of Pension Almonde, yet meant that the street’s initial residents were temporarily dis‐ placed (Havensteder foresees a guaranteed return for the displaced residents by proposing three consecutive options; if none of the three options is chosen by a resi‐ dent, Havensteder withdraws)
Summary
This article sheds light on urban commoning’s aesthetic dimension. With “aesthetic,” I do not point to the prac‐ tice of art‐making per se, but to the notion’s literal meaning: That which presents itself to sense perception. This article aspires to expand the debate on the “just city” (Davies, 2011; Fainstein, 2010; Harvey, 1973; Marcuse et al, 2011; Purcell, 2008) Whilst both the urban commons debate and the just city debate find their rationale in the predominance of capital‐led urban development, the latter is geared more specif‐ ically to the question of how urban change is to be undertaken. Pension Almonde will be seen to effectuate the former, yet not the second, dimension
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