A habit is an everyday expression of unintentionally obtained and individually embodied knowledge. The term “habit” is often loaded with negative connotations; habits are to be broken or unlearned. New Habits proposes that we rethink the notion of the habit as a form of life central to community formation, in negotiation with the governing rules and laws. New Habits looks for shared, communal habits or forms of life marked by a non-capitalist ethos of commoning, as a necessary counterpoint to direct action and representative politics.
Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben’s recent analysis of Franciscan practices in calling for a new politics provided a major impetus for New Habits. Under the guiding virtue of “highest poverty”, from their formation in the thirteenth century the Franciscans lived a form of common life that incorporated but defied established rules and norms of the Church.