Online and Offline Conflicts around Urban Commons: Caring for Urban Space in the Territory of a Large Housing Estate

Abstract

The article provides an analysis of urban collective initiatives performed by residents of a large housing estate Severnaya Dolina (St. Petersburg, Russia). Becoming visible to each other, the initiative groups collide and get into strategic interactions; they represent individual or complex ‘players’ operating in ‘arenas’, or online and offline interaction platforms. To analyze everyday practices of self-governance and caring for common spaces and infrastructures in the neighborhood, the author elaborates on the concept of urban commons. Digital neighboring network created by the residents on VK.com plays an important role in managing the common spaces and infrastructures of the large housing estate. The article demonstrates how these digital platforms are involved in the processes of creating and maintaining the boundaries that demark both commoning resource and the groups of commoners. A concept of distributed commoning is proposed in the article: it makes visible the variety of elements involved in (re)production of urban commons and consider both the technological features of digital platforms and their impact on commoning practices and the characteristics of emerging communities. The study suggests that the emerging communities of commoners are multiple, heterogeneous, fluid, and often conflicting.