Re-enchanting the World

Overview

A Marxist feminist perspective to current scholarship on the commons, from one of the most prolific theorists

In this edited collection of work spanning more than 20 years, Silvia Federici provides a detailed history and critique of the politics of the commons from a feminist perspective. In her clear and combative voice, Federici provides readers with an analysis of some of the key issues in contemporary thinking on this subject. Drawing on rich historical research, she maps the connections between the previous forms of enclosure that occurred with the birth of capitalism and the destruction of the commons and the "new enclosures" at the heart of the present phase of global capitalist accumulation. Considering the commons from a feminist perspective, this collection argues that women and reproductive work are crucial to both our economic survival and the construction of a world free from the capitalist hierarchies. Federici is clear that the commons should not be understood as happy islands in a sea of exploitative relations—but rather autonomous spaces from which to challenge the existing organization of life and labor.

Reviews

"Silvia Federici's theoretical capacity to articulate the plurality that fuels the contemporary movement of women in struggle provides a true toolbox for building bridges between different features and different people." —Massimo De Angelis, professor of political economy, University of East London

"Silvia Federici's work embodies an energy that urges us to rejuvenate struggles against all types of exploitation and, precisely for that reason, her work produces a common: a common sense of the dissidence that creates a community in struggle." —Maria Mies, coauthor of Ecofeminism

"For more than four decades now, Federici's scholarship and activism have been central to this work. Her writing offers a foundational account of the demand for the wage as a revolutionary act. Her influential pamphlet, Wages Against Housework (1975), opens with a provocative rebuttal: 'They say it is love. We say it is unwaged work.' In this document and others, Federici argues that demand for a wage is a critical political nexus for organizing women around a shared condition of alienated labor. The demand for the wage is impossible for capitalism to meet, and that is the point; success would entail a wholescale reconfiguration of the distribution of social wealth." —Interview, Boston Review

"'Community has to be intended, not as a gated reality, a grouping of people joined by exclusive interests, and separating them from others, but rather as a quality of relations, a principle of cooperation and of responsibility, to each other and the health of the forests, the seas, the animals.' So writes [feminist] Silvia Federici. But how can we get there from here? The practice of commoning, and the idea that we might hold and manage land and assets together in common, holds a lot of appeal these days. To help us think forward as we do on this show, we have two world-renowned experts on commoning in the house. Federici's latest book is Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons. Its foreword is written by historian and 'Laura Flanders Show' regular, Peter Linebaugh, who is the author of, among other classics, The Magna Carta Manifesto. In this interview, Federici and Linebaugh discuss the history of the commons and how we might apply some of the ideas central to commoning to rebuilding our communities." — https://truthout.org/articles/us-capitalism-was-born-in-the-destruction-of-the-commons/

Author Biography

Silvia Federici is a feminist writer, teacher, and militant. In 1972 she was co-founder of the International Feminist Collective that launched the campaign for Wages for Housework internationally. Her previous books include Caliban and the Witch and Revolution at Point Zero. She is a professor emerita at Hofstra University, where she was a social science professor. Peter Linebaugh is an author and historian who specializes in British history, Irish history, labor history, and the history of the colonial Atlantic. He is the author of several books including The Magna Carta Manifesto, Stop, Thief!, and The Incomplete, True, Authentic, and Wonderful History of May Day.