Plural commons: translation as a relational practice

Abstract

The widespread use of the English term commons, rooted in British history, often obscures the diverse ways in which collective life, stewardship, and organising are practiced across different cultures. This paper asks how such distinct experiences can be translated and connected without collapsing their differences. Building on the work of the Urban Commons Research Collective, we argue that translation—while always imperfect—is crucial for forging solidarities across contexts. Drawing on feminist decolonial thought, we introduce relational translation as a practice that both connects and carefully situates experiences of the commons within their specific histories and struggles. Central to this approach is the use of equivocation as a methodological tool: one that engages with misalignments between terms as openings for dialogue, rather than obstacles. By tracing key vocabularies of commoning across diverse contexts, the paper develops a plural understanding of the commons and proposes a tentative framework for connecting different practices without reducing their plurality.

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Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	De Carli, B. Méndez de Andés Aldama, A. Akbil, E. Al-Dalal'a, J. Alexandrescu, M. Can, E. Petrescu, D. Scharf, L.
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© 2025 The Authors. Except as otherwise noted, this author-accepted version of a journal article published in City is made available via the University of Sheffield Research Publications and Copyright Policy under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © 2025 The Author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Keywords:	Commons; commoning; pluriverse; translation; equivocation
Dates:	Accepted: 14 October 2025 Published (online): 7 November 2025 Published: 7 November 2025
Institution:	The University of Sheffield
Academic Units:	The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > School of Architecture and Landscape
Date Deposited:	04 Nov 2025 15:58
Last Modified:	17 Nov 2025 15:28
Status:	Published online
Publisher:	Taylor and Francis Group
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.1080/13604813.2025.2576363
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:233933

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Plural commons: translation as a relational practice

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