In many parts of the world, people are coming together to experiment with ways to collectively take care of their livelihoods and create practical solutions to their needs. Guided by principles of solidarity, these grassroots initiatives represent rich contexts for research on the urban commons: what qualifies them as commons, and how do they emerge, develop, sustain and dissolve – or transform over time? This research dissects the commons character of a food network which emerged from Porto's solidarity economy movement in a post-crisis context. Following an action-research approach and methodological triangulation, we develop a qualitative analysis of a “prosumers” group, where both production and distribution were performed weekly by consumers themselves. We first analyze how the initiative emerged and then look at how its principles and democratic qualities relate to commons theories and frameworks. We then delve into the main dilemmas of its commoning practices and reflect about its transformative character and liminal role as a temporary urban commons. Despite ceasing its activities, there was a lived-experience and a knowledge commons which allowed it to be appropriated in new terms, and thus food networks as urban commons persist.

This article explores the transformational character of solidarity economy network communication in Portugal and Catalonia, focusing on the first two months of the crisis brought on by COVID-19. We assume that what these networks choose to convey (or remain silent on) in their public communications reflects their positions in the fields of action and values and their theoretical alignment, establishing an ethico-political orientation. Through the analysis of virtual content conveyed by solidarity economy organisations, we analyse the topics covered, the types of content and sources cited, and the level of demand in the discourse, as well as their individual, institutional and collective character. The results reveal very different communicative approaches in each of the cases analysed: from silence or total absence of communicative practices to what can be considered a transformational praxis communication, based on collective action challenging the structures of power and domination and pointing out ways to overcome them. The article proposes a transformative communication radar linking Habermas’s theory of communicative action and Fuchs’s Marxist-inspired praxis communication concept, as a way of distinguishing merely instrumental communicative approaches from those guided by communicative and cooperative rationality driving new agreements and societal transformations.