Why Are the Commons Back?

The Postcommunity of the Digital Commons

Abstract

This article aims to theoretically characterize the idea of the commons and to point out the reasons for its boom in recent years. Starting from two of its most widespread definitions, the one exposed in Governing the Commons by Elinor Ostrom and the one developed by Peter Linebaugh in Stop Thief! The Commos, Enclosures and Resistance, it argues that the commons refer to the unique assembly of resources, collectivity and ways in which both are governed. From this characterization, the purpose of this article is to underline that the commons in the digital environment pose a challenge to this definition because they do not presuppose the existence of a scarce good or a community defined beforehand. The article concludes that it is the common doing of a heterogeneous plurality that establishes a “post-idetitarian community” united not so much by what it shares but, paradoxically, by what it does not possess.