Communal organization and collective use of resourceshave long been an integral part of the economic lifeof cities. In recent years, these practices havebeen increasingly associated with the notions of thecommons and ‘commoning’, which refer to analternative self-governing order that contrasts withthe profit-driven development model of a capitalistsystem (Casas- Cortes et al., 2014; Dellenbaugh,2015; Hou, 2017). The conception builds on earlierworks that examine everyday practices of socialreproduction and the ways in which community groupsresist dominant market relations by taking controlover the management of resources (Hardin, 1968;Ostrom, 1990). In more recent writings, scholarshave sought to develop the concept of ‘urbanco-presence and the shared use of space andresources in urban contexts (Borch and Kornberger,2015; Stavrides, 2016; Ferguson, 2014; Dellenbaughet al., 2015). The idea has often been linked to thenotion of ‘bottom-up urbanism’, underpinned byemergent struggles against the acceleratingprivatization of public assets and services amongstgrassroots communities (Harvey, 2012; Casas-Corteset al., 2014; Kickert and Arefi, 2019).

This chapter engages with the idea of ‘urban commoning’by examining the collective activities of HongKong's foreign domestic workers that have allowedthem to build up a set of resource networks withsignificant impacts on their daily lives andprospects in the future. In particular, we focus onthe organization of events relating to beautystyling that enlist the participation of a largenumber of Filipino and Indonesian female workers.These activities were first initiated by localunions as a means to raise political awareness andrecruit new members amongst migrant communities.