This article proposes that the commons is best understood as a relation among people, land, water, flora, and fauna that requires performance. The “performative commons” takes place in opposition to the alienating and disentangling work of the plantation machine and the systemic disarticulation of lifeworlds that marked the onset of racial capitalism and an epochal transformation of the earth identifiable as the Plantationocene.

performance, commons, Plantationocene, Caribbean, Boston Tea Party
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