Crafting the commons: an ethnography on collectivity and identity in action

Studies on social movements underwent a prominent shift from the rigid division between the ‘personal’ and the ‘political’ into the feminist perspective from the renowned concept and slogan popularised by second-wave feminism in the 60s’ and 70s’ “the personal is political”, that served and was used by many movements of the time. This shift aimed to illuminate the strong link between these concepts focusing on lifestyle and the effects on culture. Following the concept of prefigurative politics (Boggs, 1997), where the embodiment of the different forms of socialties and human experiences is the ultimate goal within the political practice of a movement, this paper is based on an ethnographic case study that examines a network of five organised communities – Toestand (Brussels, Belgium), Termokiss (Prishtina, Kosova), Space Tetova (Tetova, North Macedonia), DKC Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and Pomorandza (Podgorica, Montenegro). The findings show how members of these communities, who besides their respective communities are part of a joint network, engage in lifestyle choices and adopt cooperative practices as acts of resistance and transformation, challenging contemporary capitalist values and their surrounding sociocultural realities.