Elephant in the room: commoning as an embedded method of cultural studies

Abstract

‘Asia as Method’ is widely and significantly discussed in Cultural Studies in Asian societies as a cultural praxis to confront Western imperialism and formulate alternative politics. In search of methods of transformative politics in the Hong Kong context, in which we understand the situation as the ‘elephant in the room’, we re-open the debate on methods of cultural studies, suggesting ‘commoning’ as an embedded pathway to achieve potential social transformation. Taking a new left stance, we provide a critical review of the scholarships of Elinor Ostrom, J.K. Gibson-Graham, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, and David Harvey to re-ground ‘commoning’ as a method of Cultural Studies through cultural critique and political economy analysis. We understand that becoming common is a battle–its success lies not in the boundary-setting of commons or their institutional arrangements nor in promoting imaginary places or utopias outside the orbit of global capitalism. Still, radical subjectivities are required to transform the logic of capital and state as the guiding principle of socio-economic, political, cultural, and sustainable lives.