Introduction: Emerging rights and commons in the Global South

Abstract

The commons are a new concept and a new institution that goes beyond old traditions such as communism, communitarianism, and communalist anarchism. Moreover, the theories of the commons imply a novelty compared to the classical notion of Common Good or to the historical commons. In the first place, they do not understand the commons as a sort of regulative horizon towards which society must tend ––as is distilled from the concept of Common Good; secondly, they start from a materialist approach according to which the community is not something pre-existing for cultural or historical reasons ––as communitarianism would mind–– but is the fruit of a shared activity. Given the number of studies that have been produced on the commons in recent years  ––reproductive commons, natural commons, urban commons, global commons, digital commons–– this issue proposes to analyze them from two approaches that have been less emphasized than others: on the one hand, it highlights the role of the commons in the Global South; on the other hand, it seeks to analyze the link between the commons and emerging rights.