Racial regimes of property: Introduction to the special issue

Abstract

It should be stressed, as Marxists have long done, that property, as an exchange commodity, is secured not simply through state, market, and so-called legal interventions - the price, the title, the deed, the survey, the land registry, the police, and so on - but also informal, unwritten, and coercive forces of looting and fraud ([46]). Two years into the COVID 19 pandemic, lockdowns and closures have left millions of the global majority out of work, hungry, facing eviction, and desperately navigating hollowed out, underfunded health and social service agencies and a patchwork of woefully inadequate tenant protection programs. The French used property as a barometer of civilizational status: a lack of private property norms among the ethnic Khmer was seen as backwards and called for paternalistic protection by colonizers, while high rates of property ownership among the Chinese were viewed as an economic threat and called for elimination by colonizers. Using the settler-colonial contexts of Canada, Australia, and Israel/Palestine, Brenna [4] tracks regimes of property law - the juridical formation underpinning capital accumulation - that unfolded together with racial schemas and state violence to produce colonial subjects. [Extracted from the article] Copyright of Environment & Planning D: Society & Space is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)