Commoning with Henri Lefebvre

Abstract

In this article, I ask how Henri Lefebvre’s oeuvre can contribute to the foundations for a metromarxist theory of urban commoning. To provide an answer to this question I discuss three main areas in which his thinking about the common emerges – his anthropology, philosophy of the urban, and politics of autogestion. This allows me to emphasize the multidimensionality of the Lefebvre-minded commoning, which manifests itself not only at the level of local activism but also touches the dimensions of the production of subjectivity and the constitution of the urban. Read in this way, Lefebvre’s theory of urban commoning helps us to move beyond some of the limitations of the existing discussion of urban commons, as well as to make room for a more fruitful dialogue between urban scholars and autonomist Marxists. It also equips us with an alternative conceptual framework that potentially enhances post-Lefebvrian projects of direct urban democracy.