Commons, cosmopolitics and aesthetics of sustainability

Abstract

When Turkey and Brazil joined the cycle of global revolts in 2013, it brought about a social ecosystem of resistance based on the defence of the urban and natural commons, with green spaces as the main field of action. The Brazilian protests went from an initial demand to lower public transport fares, to a call for an expansion in the right to the city, denouncing the unsustainability of the main cities and the country’s low quality of democracy. The occupations by the Movimento Parque Augusta in São Paulo, and the Aldeia Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro, among others, echoed the cosmopolitics that challenges narrow-minded thinking and seeks to reverse the division between culture, nature and politics. In both Brazil and Turkey, the aesthetics of a new eco-communitarian sustainability were developed, which simultaneously preserves social and environmental balance. The Brazilian struggles put forward a new approach to the commons, from indigenous cosmopolitical perspectives.