Colonial Lives of Property: Law, Land, and Racial Regimes of Ownership (Global and Insurgent Legalities)

Bhandar, Brenna

ISBN 10: 0822371464 / ISBN 13: 9780822371465

Published by Duke University Press, 2018

About this Item

Seller Inventory # I-9780822371465

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Colonial Lives of Property: Law, Land, and Racial Regimes of Ownership (Global and Insurgent Legalities)
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Publication Date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0822371464
• ISBN 13: 9780822371465
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

In Colonial Lives of Property Brenna Bhandar examines how modern property law contributes to the formation of racial subjects in settler colonies and to the development of racial capitalism. Examining both historical cases and ongoing processes of settler colonialism in Canada, Australia, and Israel and Palestine, Bhandar shows how the colonial appropriation of indigenous lands depends upon ideologies of European racial superiority as well as upon legal narratives that equate civilized life with English concepts of property. In this way, property law legitimates and rationalizes settler colonial practices while it racializes those deemed unfit to own property. The solution to these enduring racial and economic inequities, Bhandar demonstrates, requires developing a new political imaginary of property in which freedom is connected to shared practices of use and community rather than individual possession.

About the Author

Brenna Bhandar is Senior Lecturer in the School of Law at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and coeditor of Plastic Materialities, also published by Duke University Press.