#Liviana2026 - Session 10.1

Session 10.1

Who Commons? Rethinking Commoning Communities through Social Power: The Case of Bâtiment 7

13th November (Friday)

1 hour

New York/Montréal 11:00 (Friday 13th)

Buenos Aires 13:00 (Friday 13th)

Amsterdam 17:00 (Friday 13th)

Nairobi 19:00 (Friday 13th)

Bangkok 23:00 (Friday 13th)

Warrane-Sydney 03:00 (Saturday 14th)

Aotearoa-NZ 05:00 (Saturday 14th)

Organiser: Anna Kruzynski

AbstractCommons are often portrayed as spaces of self-determination and collective governance. Yet shared governance does not eliminate the power asymmetries that shape the societies in which commons emerge. Why do some people find their place naturally within a commoning community, while others struggle to remain involved despite explicit commitments to inclusion? This paper addresses this question through the case of Bâtiment 7, a self-managed community hub in Montréal. Drawing on the ethical coordinate of property developed by Gibson-Graham, Cameron, and Healy—which examines responsibility, use, care, access, and benefit—it introduces social power as an analytical lens for understanding the relational conditions of participation. Building on organizational theory (Follett) and radical ecofeminism (Starhawk), it distinguishes power-to and power-from-within as capacities, from power-with and power-over as relational modes through which those capacities are exercised. Based on eight years of participatory action research, the paper compares three commoning communities within Bâtiment 7: Press Start, the Indigenous Cultural Space, and the building's governance practices. The analysis shows that barriers to participation stem less from formal rules than from unequal distributions of social power rooted in whiteness, colonialism, and educational and activist hierarchies. It argues that the ethical coordinate of property can be strengthened by explicitly incorporating social power into analyses of commoning.Bio:Anna Kruzynski is a professor in the School of Public and Community Affairs at Concordia University and a member of the Community Economies Research Network. She has been an activist for nearly 30 years: from the student movement to feminist and health-focused community organizations, to direct actions against capitalism and colonialism, as well as working behind the scenes with her neighbors and anarchist comrades to bring emancipatory economic and political initiatives to life. With the self-managed research collective TREEs, she has worked to document the emancipatory practices proliferating on the fringes of the social economy, using participatory action research. Her fieldwork and most recent writings focus on self-management and power at Bâtiment 7, a social center that brings together cooperatives and self-managed workspaces, which she helped establish and develop over a 13-year period. Her teaching draws inspiration from both her activism and her research. She teaches strategies for social change, economic literacy to empower people to reclaim the economy, community organizing, and direct democracy. Her most recent book, *Quartier en lutte: Récits féministes et libertaires* (published by Éditions du remue-ménage), includes an interview about her career as well as six of her best essays. For more information and access to publications:Concordia profileCommunity Economies Institute
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