The idea of the commons is interpreted and adapted in many ways. Rather than a normative definition of the commons, I argue that understanding the commons in contemporary political contexts requires asking what work the language of the commons is expected to do? How, and in what contexts, the concept of the commons is employed? To what tasks is it set? Drawing on the literature on social movements, I argue that the commons has figured as a bridging concept, connecting diverse experiences and struggles through space and time.

In our present, the concept of the commons has served to bridge diverse struggles and experiences across space. It has been reintroduced into movement discourses as a result of converging trends. The centrality of digital commons in our networked societies, the practices of urban commoning in radical urban movements, and the empirical recognition of ecological commons in an age of accelerating environmental and climate crisis. The commons figured in the discourse of the alter-globalisation movement as a means to bridge experiences in space but also in time. The commons has served as a language through which historical experiences and practices are re-signified, through which the past is brought into dialogue with the present. Situating and identifying contemporary struggles with historic traditions of resistance to enclosure and practices of self-organisation and mutual-aid.

To understand the commons as a political subject it is necessary to go beyond normative approaches and to consider the commons in the context of broader movement processes. I argue that the reproduction of the commons also depends on the renewal of political cultures, for example through acts of solidarity, movement and alliance building. Based on fieldwork in Barcelona, I argue that the commons has served as a bridging concept that supported convergence within the municipalist movement. The paper considers the politics and politicisation of the commons and the innovative development of public-commons partnerships in relation to the digital and urban commons.