ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 opens by discussing the notion that the act of speaking and being listened to is part of a commons that is vital for the political to exist, and that that action and that commons can be defined by the word ‘voice’. To locate the concept, the chapter first reviews different approaches to the commons and how they refer to basic foundations for a more egalitarian, horizontal, and participative type of relationship. I then review how voice is conceived in two prevalent perspectives on democracy and in major branches of student movement scholarship. Considering that this book is set in Latin America, I observe how voice presents a serious problem in the region. Providing an overview of the way modernity was installed and the way the subalternity of the Latin American subject was deepened by the hand of neoliberalism, the chapter explains how voice is a commons expropriated as a resource which, through its absence, undermines the opportunity for people to talk and intervene in decisions concerning the life in common.
