Democratic Modernity: The Commune, Issue No. 2

The journal of the Academy of Social Science, Democratic Modernity, is a project to rethink social science as a means of human emancipation rather than simply an academic field of study. Its motto, “Towards a Sociology of Freedom,” is strongly influenced by all struggles for freedom and equality, including Abdullah Öcalan’s paradigm of Democratic Civilization, the concept of democratic modernity, the revolutionary experience of Rojava, and the Kurdish women’s freedom movement.

The journal critiques capitalism, hierarchical institutions, and conventional disciplinary boundaries, advocating instead for forms of social organization grounded in communal life, dignity, ecological awareness, and democratic participation. It also combines essays on political theory, sociology, art, food systems, jineolojî, knowledge, and community organizing. The journal will also be the address where the fruit of research communes such as Long Histories of Democratic Civilization, Democratic Foodways, Peace and Democratic Confederalism and others are shared. Contributors include scholars, activists, and political thinkers, culminating in being an interdisciplinary intellectual project: an attempt to develop a “unified social science” that can support collective resistance, alternative forms of governance, and the practical imagination of a freer society.

To learn more about the Academy of Social Science visit their website HERE.

Issue No. 2 focuses on the commune as neither nostalgia for the past nor a utopian project to be created from nothing, but as the very substance of shared humanity. It presents the commune as the foundation of social life and as a means for society to reclaim its capacity to govern itself. While acknowledging that the richness of the topic cannot be contained in one issue, the editors offer these first steps in the hope of walking together under a banner of liberation, with the enduring declaration: “The Commune lives!”

Table of Contents:

Editorial - Nik Matheou and the Editorial Collective

Kurdistan, the Commune, and the Shaping of a Democratic Middle East - Mustafa Karasu

Peace, the Commune, and the State - Mechthild Exo

Research Commune on the Peace Concept of Abdullah Öcalan

The Many Meanings of ‘the Commune’ - Mathijs van de Sande and Gaard Kets

The Commune: Founding Unit of Democratic Society - Abdullah Öcalan

Poem—The Woman of Love - Abdullah Öcalan

We All Have a Story to Tell - Shahrzad Arshadi

Long Histories of Democratic Civilization Research Commune

The Commune as an Economic Form - Bengi Akbulut

Kitchen Experiments: An Invitation to Democratic Foodways Commune - Targol Mesbah

Democratic Foodways Research Commune

Multinaturalist Ecologies and Commons: Between Latin America and the Middle East - Ana Paula Morel

Munduruku Wakoborũn Women in the Struggle: Self-Defense, Resistance, and Territorial Protection - Munduruku Wakoborũn

Democratic Confederalism and Prefiguration Research Commune

Book Review: Kurdish Women’s Stories - Salima Tasdemir and Pat Huff

Emer(gentes) - Mona Caron

164 pages containing 17 full-color, and 44 black & white images.