The final Heteropolitics reports, which are the main research outputs of the project, have just been published online. Report #1. The Political by Alexandros Kioupkiolis, engages critically with the theories and practices of the commons and alternative democratic politics -‘alter-politics’ or ‘heteropolitics’- from the perspective of egalitarian, democratic and ecological transformation.
The present essay is a report on the ways in which the political is conceptualized in contemporary political thought, on how alternative democratic politics is imagined, and on which political strategies are worked out with a view to fostering freedom, equality, justice and care for the environment in our times. This account accompanies a report on the ‘common’ or the ‘commons’ (see the Report 2. The Common), which probes more specifically how present-day theories and practices of the commons (collective goods which are shared and democratically co-managed) can further the same objectives of democratic empowerment and renewal. The following report on the political advances the inquiry into the commons by broaching the political in ways which can bring out and critically ponder the political dimensions of contemporary commons; by positioning the commons in a broader paradigm of alternative democratic politics in our era; and by grappling with questions of political strategy, through which the commons could become the focus and the engine of historical transformation.
The other five reports will follow in the coming days, so stay tuned…