Abstract

This paper analyzes the process of micro-subjectivation surrounding care and elaborates on a feminist ethics of care from the commons perspective. The commons is the most basic way of human livelihood based on ‘precariousness’, an existential condition of human beings. However, capitalism, which began with dismantling the commons, has subverted the purpose of livelihood and enclosed care, an act towards others, in a privatized realm of the modern home/family. Bin-Zib, a co-housing experiment aiming to revitalize commons in the middle of the city, not only challenges the dominant forms of work and home but also reveals care as a critical site of subjectivation. As Bin-Zib actively embraces the ambivalence of interdependence with others to expand a web of communism, participants are asked to recognize and participate in invisible care relations. Here, care emerges as a process of co-working for engaging people in commons and of collective ‘becoming’ through which they expand their ability to care.