Commons (magazine)

Commons: Journal of Social Criticism (Ukrainian: Спільне; Spilne) is a left-wing Ukrainian media about economy, politics, history, and culture, founded in 2009.

History and overview

The idea to create a journal originated in the liva_dumka network (left-wing thought) – a milieu of young left-wing researchers, activists, and students, mostly from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. The core of the community was made up of young scholars who grew up in independent Ukraine and were educated in Western universities. Among the founders of the journal were Anastasia Ryabchuk, Volodymyr Ishchenko, Tamara Martsenyuk, and others. Until 2013, there was no clear editorial board, and discussions and approvals of materials took place in the liva_dumka Google group. The editor-in-chief was chosen for each individual thematic issue, but there is no editor-in-chief for the website.

The periodicity of the printed journal was stated to be twice a year, but later practice did not correspond to this. The first issue of the journal was published in April 2010, as part of an international interdisciplinary symposium around the publication of Loïc Wacquant's book Punishing the Poor.

Over the years, the journal has published eleven issues on various topics:

1. Criminalization of social problems;
2. Transformations of urban space;
3. Education policy;
4. Class exploitation and class struggle;
5. Political economy of racism;
6. Gender and labor;
7. The Second World (on post-socialist transformations in the former Eastern Bloc);
8. Religion: between exploitation and emancipation;
9. Maidan: a view from the left;
10. War and nationalism;
11. Revolution: history and future;
12. Space and inequality.

On the tenth anniversary of the magazine, the editors announced that the 12th issue would be the last, and that in the future, Commons would work only in an online format.

Over the years, the journal has organized or co-organized a number of conferences. In 2019, the Journal launched the annual Feuerbach 11 conference that brings together researchers and activists to discuss Ukraine’s socio-economic and political issues.

Ideology and reception

The journal's position is left-wing and anti-capitalist. The editorial board included Marxists, anarchists, and supporters of other left-wing traditions, but at the same time, the journal distanced itself from Soviet Marxism-Leninism and declared from the moment of its foundation that “there are no Stalinists among us and there will be none.” Journal's co-founders were guided by the ideas of Michael Burawoy about organic public sociology, and the journal's goal was to analyze social reality, not theoretical polemics between different left-wing traditions. Some editorsPreviously, part of the editorial board participated in the activities of the student union Direct Action are activists of the Social Movement organization. Previously, part of the editorial board participated in the activities of the student union Direct Action.

Emily S. Channell-Justice, in her dissertation on the Ukrainian left's participation in the Maidan revolution, argued that the Commons journal “presented a space for leftist criticism of global issues and events, regularly organizing conferences in Kyiv. Since Maidan, however, a growing ideological split between Political Critique and Commons has detracted from a more robust discussion of the fate of the Ukrainian left, based on the impression that Commons authors present a more dogmatic, class-oriented position rather than promoting a broad, accessible leftist perspective.”

External links

• Official website
• Commons on Twitter