Relationships of owning and appropriating: Local disruptions of global neoliberal regime

Abstract (English)

It is beyond any doubt that rising inequalities and shrinking resources are among the biggest global challenges of our times. It is in this context that we would like to re-examine the notions of property, a central category of contemporary neoliberal regime, and a subject of long term anthropological and sociological interests. Currently, scholarly discussions on the notion of property focus on identifying its historical and political roots, as well as destabilizing the assumptions that underlie it. Adopting a processual and relational perspective shifted attention from a static understanding of ownership to the concepts of owning and appropriating and the ways in which they are established (Strang, Busse 2011). As it was noted by Morris Cohen, ‘a property right is a relation not between an owner and a thing, but between the owner and other individuals in reference to things’ (Cohen 1927, cf. Humphrey, Verdery 2004). Obviously, the relational approach towards ‘ownership’ and ‘property’ puts new light on the socio-economic and cultural groups (be it a class, caste, or other identity groups) that negotiate practices of owning and appropriating in their everyday lives.
This panel focuses on relationships of owning and appropriating, especially those of them that may serve as alternatives to the dominant neoliberal property regime, and those which show a potential to disrupt the regime. We invite contributions based on case studies that discuss possibilities, challenges, and infrastructures of relationships between people in reference to ‘resources’, as well as various ways of negotiating control and struggles over their use. The panel also invites papers that explore the modes and techniques of individual/freehold property formation in the neoliberal regime, the displacement of other ways of owning and valuing that it entails, and the ways in which people and movements have resisted and continue to resist that displacement. Once again, we believe that new ways of understanding should be forged considering shrinking global resources and rising inequalities between people – locally and worldwide. Our aim is to analyze local cases in order to address global, universal challenges.