The role of commoning and mutually shaped citizenship in developing bottom-linked governance. The projects “Living Street’ and “Future Street” in Belgium

Author: Giulia Ganugi, Joint PhD Student, University of Bologna – Ku Leuven

Sociologia e Politiche Sociali, vol. 21, 2/2018, pp. 51-70. Paper ricevuto in data: 21/07/2018 – Paper accettato in data: 03/10/2018 ISSN 1591-2027; ISSNe 1972-5116

Framed by the concept of Social Innovation, this work reflects on the role of commoning and a model of mutually shaped citizenship in developing forms of bottom-linked governance. The focus on urban commons, analysed through three dimensions (resource, community, practices of commoning), allows to examine both the internal governance aimed at (re)producing and managing the commons and the external

governance existing between the community and other urban actors. It also underlines the necessity to go beyond actual conceptualisations of citizenship, always represented national vs urban, transnational vs national, or received vs achieved dichotomies. Using the qualitative methodology of semi-structured interviews, the analysis of Living Street in Ghent and Future Street in Antwerp underlines which conditions favour or hinder changes in urban governmental practices regarding the management of public spaces.

Ask the full article to Giulia. giulia.ganugi2(at)unibo.it

More info about ‘Future streets’: http://www.toekomststraat.be/