#Fest grounded for 2016 trash x free

As such, commoning generates the capacity for people to exist outside wage labour relations and capitalist consumption. This kind of doing actually produces commons, forms of life that are opposed to the logics of capital (Caffentzis and Federici 2014). We draw on definitions of commons as ‘social systems’ that combine ‘the material and immaterial elements that constitute commons-wealth’ and the ‘social relations’ built on agreed norms, which form the basis for ‘doing in common’ (De Angelis 2019, 212–13).

#Fest grounded for 2016 trash x free

This and the other gatherings described in this article represented moments of breaking free from the constraints of ‘normal life’ in capitalist society that we call ‘festive commoning’.

A ramshackle ‘bender’ put up by whoever is there (although there are some who have expertise) with pieces of timber, rope and two large ripped pieces of canvas gives shelter from the wind and rain, and creates a space for music, conversation and relaxation during the short solstice night. It is not that there is no structure: the time in the calendar is obviously critical the landscape in and around a 4,000 year old stone circle provides a focal point and the movement of the sun (and its emergence from the clouds) shapes the rhythm of the celebrations and provides occasions for participatory music and dancing. At the one where I met this woman, people cooperatively create the environment for a solstice celebration that all comers can potentially join: no tickets, no entry barriers, no security, nothing for sale (except maybe some intoxicants, which are also liberally shared). In this reading, in contrast to the mainstream of ‘festival’ commodified life, a gathering is a different form. But I understood that, for her, the term ‘festival’ no longer means an autonomous, popular celebration, but is something commercial, organised for the purposes of making money, enclosed, with an infrastructure and a pre-established programme. I 1 asked her what she meant by ‘festival’, but the conversation had already moved on, she didn’t seem to feel she needed to explain. She was emphatic, and made the point several times. ‘This is NOT a festival, it is a gathering’, a woman told me as we sat side by side around a fire. Experiencing festive commons is not only an aspect of the pleasure valued in some radical traditions, but also makes another world possible, even if only a temporary one.

Such processes generate collective joy, and enliven the radical imagination. We argue that alternative grassroots gatherings can produce a ‘festive commons’ that resists such enclosures, including breaking down divisions between self and other, human and non-human beings. We ask: how, and to what extent, were commons ‘against and beyond’ capital produced in these gatherings? We re-read a history of resistance to festive autonomy in this light, as a continuing struggle against capitalist enclosures of time, space, knowledge, history and being in the world.

Drawing on immersive ethnographic fieldwork at three events in Scotland, all grounded in ecological sensibilities and focusing respectively on alternative medicine, music and reviving seasonal celebrations, this article illuminates aspects of what we call ‘festive commoning’.