Rethinking the commons from the notion of the political construction of space.

Abstract

This article proposes rethinking the notion of the commons by shifting the focus from resource management toward the political construction of urban space. Drawing on the debate between Hardin's The Tragedy of the Commons and Ostrom's polycentric governance of common-pool resources, it incorporates contributions from critical commons theory to understand the commons as a political principle and conflictive process of commoning. Methodologically, the work adopts a qualitative theoretical-analytical approach, complemented by ethnographic fieldwork conducted in urban assembly spaces in Madrid. The analysis is articulated through Lefebvre's theory of the production of space and Harvey's right to the city, introducing the notion of "fractured geographies" to address urban inequality. Within this framework, common spaces are examined as sociotechnical assemblages that operate as living infrastructures of the commons in contexts—