The Circle of Commoning: Conceptualising Commoning through the Case of Community-Led Housing

CLH, Markets and State Policies

This section sets out the way CLH has been affected by changing political, economic and cultural contexts. To put it simply: setting up a non-profit collaborative scheme is going against the grain of the capitalist market, in an environment that is profit-driven and individualised. CLH is also at odds with the top-down, centralised and highly regulated approach of state and municipal housing. This has significant implications for CLH projects in terms of access to state funding, policies, and adverse market conditions. What follows explains how market conditions and state policies have affected CLH in the UK.

The privileging of the market within neoliberal policy presents various complications for the development of not-for-profit CLH projects. The greatest challenge for CLH groups, argue Benson and Hamiduddin (2017), is finding land. This is partly because for-profit developers are likely to bid higher, making the process more complicated and financially risky for CLH groups (Scanlon and Fernández-Arrigoitia, 2015). Without support from local authorities or grants, it is difficult for most communities to raise sufficient funds to establish a housing project, even when the land itself is cheap.

On a household level, housing strategies are affected by markets both in terms of the homes they can afford and the aspirations they have for their homes as property. Many CLH projects are based on rent, shared ownership or leases, but rarely on traditional private ownership – which remains the aspiration of the majority of people in the UK (Field, 2020). CLH can pose difficulties for those wishing to use their home as their main asset, saving or inheritance. In many communities, members’ children can live in the community as adults only if they become members (Riedy et al., 2019). Buying a house in a CLT that limits the market value of the properties make them affordable for new buyers but also limits the options for members reselling and moving elsewhere, where house prices were not restricted (Chatterton, 2013; Scanlon and Fernández-Arrigoitia, 2015). This may not be attractive to those seeking financial security through home ownership, especially in a policy context where the expectation is that older people will pay for their retirement or care needs through housing equity (O’mahony and Overton, 2015). These considerations have direct implications on commoners’ participation in terms of identities, subjectivities, visions and practice.

State policies have direct implications for CLH, as these projects often depend on government grants (Archer et al., 2021). Therefore, changing political contexts inevitably push or slow down the development of CLH. The 1974 Housing Act unlocked opportunities for CLH with generous grants for capital costs and maintenance, which enabled community-led affordable housing solutions (Ellis, 2017). However, later policies prioritised private ownership and market-driven logic, by introducing the Right to Buy social housing (1980 Housing Act), thereby limiting the concept of social housing and local government’s mechanisms for its development and management; a focus on housing associations as prime vehicle for social housing; deregulation of financial markets and mortgage lending; emphasis, through both tax policy and social policy, of the primacy of home ownership; and liberalisation of land markets and the land use planning system (Hodkinson, Watt and Mooney, 2013).

The 1988 Housing Act shifted the power from small scale projects to larger housing associations who could borrow capital on private markets (Moore and Mullins, 2013; Thompson, 2018). In recent years, another shift in policy gave CLH a new push under the New Localism agenda, that devolves power to communities (Lowndes and Pratchett, 2012; Williams, Goodwin and Cloke, 2014). Designed as part of the neoliberal vision of small government and community empowerment, the Localism agenda suited the visions of grassroots groups critical of both state and market. Concerns about the way grants are promoting neoliberal agendas were raised, for example regarding funding for shared ownership schemes to support first-time buyers (Lloyd, Peel and Janssen-Jansen, 2015), thereby promoting the Conservative Governments’ goal to increase levels of private ownership even in community-oriented schemes.

Such concerns regarding co-optation are only partly confirmed by research. Studies found that granted projects had room for maneuver: while some had to change their vision to secure grants (Archer et al. 2021), others found ways to use government funds without changing their ethos or aims (Mullins and Sacranie, 2014). Importantly, the Localism agenda led CLH to increased prominence, albeit temporarily (Mullins and Sacranie 2014:5). Since 2010, UK governments provided support through direct and indirect channels, including advice and grants. In 2016 the government announced a £163m grant to be allocated to community projects, but less than 15% of the fund were allocated (Heath, 2019).

This section set out the empirical context of commoning in UK CLH, and informs readers of key socio-political contexts that shaped the case study communities’ commoning style. The following presents the Circle of Commoning theoretical framework through its three contextualised elements: Subjectivities, Visions and Practices.

Theoretical basis

The Circle of Commoning consists of three internal elements: Subjectivities, Vision, and Social Practices. The framework views its three elements non-hierarchically: it does not prioritise one element as “the backbone of durable commoning efforts” (Nightingale, 2019). Rather, it shows how subject formation (becoming a commoner) affects and is affected by visions and social practices (including property rights and collective practices), and how these go on to influence each other in a cyclical manner in response to changing contexts. The framework highlights the impact of political, economic, cultural, economic, environmental and social contexts on commoners’ practice (see also Whaley and Weatherhead 2014). For each commons, the flow from one component to another is unique and subjectivities, values and social practices are always multiple and contested, affected in various ways by external forces.

The framework acknowledges that practices are often unintended (Bhaskar 1979). This important notion is manifested in the framework through its use of the concept of subjectivities: the embodied, often unconscious way subjects make sense of their situation and their possible forms of action (Kelly, 2013). The concept of vision represents the conscious element of the commoning process, reflecting the communities’ needs, strategies and values. The concept of social practices is used here for its key role in reproducing the subject and for its embodied nature and broad scope in comparison to norms and rules.

The Circle of Commoning always flows in the same direction: subjectivities shape visions, which in turn affect practices, which reproduce subjectivities. The embodied nature of subjectivities means that they can only be shaped through practice, and visions can only develop via thinking subjects, leading to action. Therefore, while commoning styles may vary, the position of the three components of the cycle is fixed.

Importantly, the circle’s three components are always embedded in the specific contexts that shape them. The examples below show how contexts shape all the points on the circle. Neoliberal culture shape certain subjectivities which result in different needs, visions and practices; Welfare policies shape subjectivities differently, resulting in different visions and practice.

Theoretically, the circle of commoning takes a critical approach to Ostrom’s institutional analysis, which considers three “clusters of variables”: the characteristics of goods, the rules-in-use and the attributes of the community of participants (Ostrom 2007, p. 245). The Circle of Commoning is different in some important ways. Importantly, rather than focusing on measurable variables like rules and attributes, the framework relies on the less formal concept of social practices (including rules, values and norms), and the more nuanced concept of subjectivities (which is embodied and practice-oriented). These are particularly helpful if the analysis seeks not to characterise “the institutional landscape of a place or social-ecological system (…)” but to offer “insights regarding the social and cultural processes shaping identity, motivation, and power” (Sinner et. al., 2022).

These conceptual differences mean that the framework is theoretically aligned with and can be complementary to the Critical Institutional Analysis and Development (CIAD) framework (Whaley, 2018). It too emphasises the embeddedness of commoning institutions in social and cultural structures and the cultural meaning and power relations involved in the process of commoning. The framework takes a critical realist approach in its ontology, seeing structure as emerging from social practices, but not reducible to them (Archer, 1995). Similar to CIAD, it is underpinned by Archer’s “Emergence-Interplay-Outcome” concept (Archer, 1995), capturing the emergent nature of commoning practices, the interplay between the different parts of the circle and the outcomes that result from them – which then feed back to the circular process of commoning (see Whaley, 2018, 143).

With the key concepts and theoretical basis clarified, the rest of this section presents the circle of commoning step by step, following its circular form through examples from CLH.

Subjectivities: Becoming a Commoner

The framework uses the Foucauldian concept of subjectivities, denoting something that is historically constituted through practice, and changes in different contexts (Kelly, 2013). The framework sees subjectivity and subject formation as central to the process of commoning, in line with the critical tradition of commoning theorists who emphasise the relational nature of commoning (De Angelis, 2017; Velicu and G. García-López, 2018; Nightingale 2019), albeit without undermining the importance of commons as resource.

Subjectivities affect commoners’ decisions to approach contemporary problems differently, seeking collectivist solutions to neoliberal problems: safety in a community rather than gates (Ruiu, 2014); decent housing through collective control rather than private ownership (Thompson, 2015; Bliss, 2016); and a sense of belonging in an individualist society (Fernández-Arrigoitia, Scanlon and West, 2018). In the case of CLH, these choices are outside the mainstream and may be attractive to certain people only: those with suitable subjectivities and identities, and those living in appropriate conditions to engage in commoning (e.g., community support, time and other resources). Subjectivities are more than simply identities or social attributes (Ostrom, 2007; Nightingale 2011); studies in the US showed that social position in itself cannot predict communal living, and in fact there is a gap between those interested in cohousing communities and those moving into them (Boyer and Leland, 2018). Arguably, the deciding factor was their subjectivity (Arbell, 2021b).

Gibson-Graham famously positioned subjectivities as the vehicle to postcapitalist practices and ways of being (Gibson-Graham, 2006a). Considering the urgency to transform practice, Singh highlighted the “need to understand how subjectivities are produced so that we can actively produce alternate subjectivities” (2017: 769). Foucault emphasised the importance of practice in reproducing subjectivities and their contextual nature – one person taps into different subjectivities in different situations (Kelly, 2013). Applying this to commoning studies, De Angelis (2017) argued that commons are not separate from other systems and that commoners are also neoliberal subjects, who bring the changing contexts of society into their commoning practices (see also Chatterton 2010). In other words, context is not just an external force to respond to, but also an internalised force that shapes the way members make sense of their needs and desires.

This dynamic is demonstrated in the way CLH’s commoning styles reflected members’ changing subjectivities in relation to processes of neoliberalisation (among other factors). In one housing cooperative (Community 1), members felt that those who formed their political subjectivities in the 1970s often had a “maximalist” vision of the commons, which involved some aspects of members lives beyond housing, and also favored a more informal approach to commoning that blends business with socialising. Younger members who grew up in the 1980s had a more minimalist vision and a more professional approach to managing the cooperative. All members agreed that this clash of cultures was the result of difference in subjectivities (Arbell, Middlemiss and Chatterton, 2020). These differences were played out as disagreements over a range of commoning practices, from the desired level of interaction with other members to investment decisions.

One long-standing member said: “I mean, the number of walls I’ve seen go up to 6ft…! I used to say hello to people in their front garden, we all used to sit outside (…) now people have got a fence of 6ft, so you don’t even know if they’re sitting in their front garden – they want privacy. They don’t want communality“. Younger members enjoyed the level of communality and the “easy way to make friendships”, but also appreciated firmer boundaries: “I don’t think that necessarily people come to the co-op for the social aspect, or if they do, they’re probably disappointed”.

Another older member described a conflict between generational subjectivities around the decision to invest in potentially profit-generating refurbishments:

This example shows that while all members were communitarian subjects who valued collective efforts for the common good, their strategies reflected different views of the possible and desirable; in other words – different subjectivities.

Another example of the way subjectivities shape visions considers the importance of identities. Identities and subjectivities are closely related, as subject formation and presentation are the result of social position (Skeggs, 2005; Nightingale, 2019, 2011). Members’ identities are likely to affect their subjectivities and consequently their commoning style. An example of this is the social profile of cohousing communities in the UK, where membership is predominantly White, well-educated, progressive middle-class (Arbell, 2021b). Members’ identities shaped the sector’s vision and practice according to their habitus, needs and values. This included the use of consensus decision-making and direct participation using professional styles and language; emphasis on sustainability; and a counter cultural way of being. These practices were culturally coded as White and middle-class, and came naturally for those with “alternative capital” (Jones, 2016; Arbell, 2021b). One community member pointed at the conflict between sustainability and affordability “because unfortunately, the way it is that the cheapest way to build houses is not sustainable”. By prioritising high sustainability standards, he said, “you could push somebody out the project” (Archer et al, 2022). This ‘somebody’ is likely to be less interested in the alternative lifestyle of voluntary simplicity and cannot afford the price of sustainable building.

These examples of identities and subjectivities are inseparable from wider contexts. The changing political context shaped members’ subjectivities and the commoning possibilities that were open or desirable to them. Over the years, society became more individualistic, and this was reflected in members’ subjectivities and commoning styles, shifting for examples from shared gardens and low fences to private gardens and higher fences. The political setting has changed, with the safety net of the welfare state replaced by a neoliberal agenda that meant members had to work more and had less time to manage the cooperative and a greater tendency for professionalism. As the generous state grants of the 1970s were long gone, members were more inclined to seek entrepreneurial ways to secure the cooperative’s income, opening up avenues for new entrepreneurial subjectivities. Negotiating these societal changes and tensions shapes the way commoners make sense of their needs and aspirations – namely, their (often diverse) subjectivities.

In the cohousing example, the political context of little state support in cohousing development and little interest from housing associations made private ownership the most feasible model, which limited projects’ success rates (Field, 2015; Archer et. al 2021). This in turn meant that cohousing became an easier option for the older, alternative, White homeowning middle-classes, and shaped the practice and visions in line with their habitus and specific needs and possibilities (Arbell, 2021b). Contextualised identities and subjectivities, therefore, shape visions and practices of commoning. The following explains the links between subjectivities and visions in changing contexts.

Visions: Setting Up the Commons’ Goals

Moving on along the Circle of Commoning from subjectivities to visions, this section analyzes the internal and external dynamics that shape visions for the commons. “Visions” stand for the commoners’ collective goals, aims and ideals: the community as they see it and as they would like to see it. Visions are generated through commoners’ lived experiences and identities and reflect people’s needs, aspirations, and approach. Commoners’ subjectivities affect members’ framing of problems and consequently, their envisioning of desirable solutions. Just as importantly, visions are shaped in relation to specific contexts: which problems need solving, the available means and the acceptable strategies. In this sense, visions are not simply about values, but often represent a pragmatic road map: imagining what can be (practice), considering what members believe they can do (subjectivities).

Commoners’ “cooperative subjectivities” (Byrne and Healy, 2006) underpin their framing of their housing needs. In the UK, many believe that private homeownership is the ultimate form of control (Flint 2003), but many CLH members are satisfied with residents’ control over the management of their housing (Bliss, 2009): controlling more than just their own home without necessarily owning it. Safety is another example: it is considered the most important aspect of good housing (Kearns and Parkes, 2003), but while a growing number of people in the UK hope to achieve this through gated communities or fortified houses (Blandy, 2018), CLH members seek safety in community (Ruiu, 2014). These examples show that commoners have similar concerns as others, but their framing and solutions were essentially different. Behind these alternative visions are commoners’ identities and subjectivities.

Having clarified the link between subjectivities and visions, this section focuses on the internal and external dynamics around visions: first through an example of different visions within one community, then returning to the cooperative to show how visions were affected by external changes over time.

Diverse Visions Within One Community. Many CLH share a similar image of commoning to that often found in the literature, and aptly summarised by Leitner, Sheppard, and Sziartot (2008:12): to “promote collective over individual interest; collaboration rather than competition; recognition and respect for diversity rather than commodification of individual identity; and care for the environment over productivity/growth/exploitation”. However, on an individual level, commoners had a wide range of overlapping and even contradicting visions: some wanted to create a prefigurative model society; others focused on self-help: providing decent, affordable housing. For some, CLH was a key to successful ageing; others did not plan to stay in the community into older age. Some were looking for environmental sustainability, others prioritised affordability. In community 4, some members advocated for a pioneering model that will maintain long-term affordability. Considering the impact of government policy on affordability, one member concluded: “fundamentally, the affordable tenures the government will fund are not truly affordable in the long term”. This vision was radically different to the mainstream. Another member took a more pragmatic view, saying that although the pioneering model was “a ‘fairer’ way to get money into the bank”, accepting the government’s terms was reasonable: “mathematically it works, it makes sense”.

This example illustrates two crucial points. First, commons are not coherent or cohesive; commoning together does not entail agreement on all aspects of the project. Differences within communities can be a source of conflict and drivers for change. Importantly, the debate is never purely ideological but set in a specific political context; all members would have preferred the more radical model if it was financially viable under a different policy regime. Secondly, the balance within communities can shift over time, and visions that were once marginal can take center stage as membership and wider contexts change.

Changing Visions Over Time. The cooperative community (1) who faced intergenerational clashes of subjectivities started off as a community with a maximalist vision and practice, gradually moving towards a more minimalist vision, reflecting wider cultural and political trends and members’ lack of time and desire to be immersed in the community. These processes were not unique to this case study or even to the UK (Cook, 2013; Jones, 2016; Huron, 2018). Commoners’ needs and desires change in response to societal changes in ideology, policy and culture (Springer, 2012). Younger members sought a community that was “less of a commune” while older members still held on to a maximalist vision of a much closer-knit community. One member said her neighbour “lives next door to two other members with three children, you know he’s very friendly with the parents, but the children are shy of him; and you know in the old days they would be running in and out of his house”. It is important to note that this minimalist shift did not completely erode members’ vision of their community as a safe space of caring and sharing, far beyond their experiences in other housing (Arbell, 2021a).

This section showed how visions are developed in line with commoners’ subjectivities and in response to specific political, social and economic contexts. The next point on the circle looks at the way these visions play out in practice.

Social Practices: Commoning in Action

Commoning is doing with others, and this collective doing relies on and reproduces specific social relations and group practices; it is, in Archer’s words (1995), emergent. Through commoning, commoners’ subjectivities are also (re)produced. Commoners’ visions and aims shape their practices and social relations within the commons, either intentionally or unconsciously. Importantly, the Circle of Commoning recognises the importance of a range of practices, beyond the formal business of managing the commons, including norms and social relations (De Angelis, 2017; Whaley, 2018). The emphasis on practice serves the framework’s interest in nuanced analysis: social practices reflect implicit schemes of knowledge, making them always cultural practices; social practices are embodied and carried out through material objects, making them also material. Moving away from a dichotomy between rules and norms, social practice theory is mindful of the embeddedness of practice in spatial, sensual, corporeal and symbolic contexts (Reckwitz, 2016).

When moving conceptually in the circle from visions to practices, it is vital to acknowledge that practices are unlikely to simply derive from visions and values; that visions are unlikely to be practiced as envisioned; and that commoners are unlikely to hold a completely unified vision. In recognition of this, I begin this section considering several ways to explain the gap between vision and practice. I then return to the case studies to illustrate how visions do affect practice. The discussion reflects the dual and circular nature of the framework by analyzing commons’ social practices in light of changing contexts and in relation to commoners’ visions and subjectivities.

From Social Practices to Subjectivities: Becoming a Commoner Through Being in Common

Commoners’ social practices affect their subject formation as commoners: their expectations, ways of being and perceiving themselves. Through commoning, members of all communities reported a development of a “cooperative subject” (Byrne and Healy, 2006): pragmatic, expecting to engage in mutual aid, share responsibility and work collaboratively. Those who did not engage in these practices were in the outer circles of the community, away from power positions and influence and in some instances in danger of being removed from the membership as the community’s basic expectations were not met. By not engaging in practice, they were unable to develop a cooperative subjectivity. This point is crucial, and Foucault emphasises the importance of practice in the formation of subjectivities: one must create itself through doing (Kelly, 2013).

Some people are more likely than others to fully develop a commoner’s subjectivity. This depends on access to participation from the first point of engagement (becoming a member) to accessible participation opportunities for existing members. Factors are numerous and can include the identities and habitus of potential members, internal power dynamics and management structures.

Commons can be places of exclusion (Stavrides, 2015; Caffentzis and Federici, 2014; Arbell, 2021a). Barring people who could in other circumstances be commoners is the obvious first way in which people cannot engage in the practice that will transform their subjectivity. Members highlighted a range of ways in which communities were exclusive. Identities and life experiences were a major factor: those with prior organising experience, higher education and professional background felt more comfortable joining and taking leadership roles in CLH communities. Engaging in formalised decision-making processes had a classed and racialised dimension. Referring to the decision-making system used by Community 2, one member said “this is not just a housing community, it is a Sociocratic community. And not everyone wants to be part of that”. This resonated with a comment from a Community 3 member, who said that the way educated White members ran meetings was exclusive and alienating for those of less privileged background, to the extent that they disengaged.

Importantly, this dynamic was still present amongst members after joining; the formal act of becoming a member does not guarantee full engagement in the practice and thereby a full opportunity to foster a commoners’ subjectivity. Members may choose to disengage due to lack of confidence or difficulties to participate in highly professional decision-making. One non-participating member of Community 1 felt she did not have the skills to participate meaningfully, and referred to the co-operative as “they” throughout her interview, suggesting that key members were the soul of the project. Other members did not participate for other reasons, like bullying or a sense of being out of the clique that “ran the show” (Arbell 2021a). Internal tensions and power imbalance meant that some members could not engage in the practice that was necessary to form their commoners’ subjectivity.

In larger communities, the management structure meant that there were fewer opportunities for active involvement. One community approached a housing association for support in the development, but this resulted in compromised agency for members (Archer et. Al 2021). In CLT communities, key decisions are normally taken by a board of residents and local (often educated, professional, older) stakeholders, while some residents (younger, working class) are not involved at all, compromising their chances of developing a commoners’ subjectivity.

Active commoners developed a sense of community and came to expect the mutual aid and safety the community offered. A member said the co-op’s reliance on mutual aid “makes it a little bit easier to expect people to want to help you out if you need something… there’s a basic bottom line that we kind of rely on each other”. Through commoning, they developed skills and felt empowered to take on roles within and beyond the community: “before I was very (…) quiet and things like that. It’s just giving me that ability to be more kind of vocal and stuff because (…) in our community we’re about making sure that everyone’s voices are heard”. They felt responsibility for the development: “I want to be a part of it, I don’t want it done for me”. Their expectations from their communities may not always be satisfied but having such expectations in the first place represents a communitarian subjectivity.

The embodied and relational nature of subjectivities means that social practices are a vital element in commoners’ subject formation process, that drives the circle of commoning and shape commoning communities. Through these social practices, members are formed as commoning subjects in the way that works best for their community; and so, the circle keeps on turning, evolving in response to external and internal changes.