Vive la Commune! Communalism as a Democratic Repertoire

This interdisciplinary research project seeks to approach ‘democracy’ as the subject of conflict and contestation. In light of this objective, our aim is to show how ‘The Commune’ has been the subject of political conflict and debate throughout the past 150 years. Our claim is that ‘The Commune’ has fulfilled a productive role as a signifier for various – complementary as well as incompatible – values or utopian ideals, political experiences, and fears or perceived threats. We hypothesize that ‘The Commune’ may be regarded as the key signifier of a broad and long-standing democratic repertoire in its own right – a repertoire that is sometimes referred to as ‘communalism’.