Fuori dal comune: incontri tra commons e prospettive decoloniali in Chiapas e Bolivia

Abstract

In dialogue with decolonial perspectives, this article considers conflicts around land and water in Chiapas and Bolivia. Largely animated by indigenous groups, these conflicts have often been interpreted as instances of commons. My essay, however, shows how they trouble understandings of the commons as form of social cooperation that includes the shared care of natural resources. Unlike Western approaches to the commons that cast land and water as ecosystems transformed through human action, political movements in Latin America consider these other-than-human entities as part of political collectives. Examining the encounter between the commons and indigenous politics, this article argues for the possibility of alliance across differences that can only arise from a radical reassessment of the commons’ aspirations for universalism.