Property

The idea of property carries both extensive symbolic resonance and significant practical implications in contemporary Western societies. Legal works on property emphasise formal legal regimes of property ownership, while philosophical treatments focus upon moral and economic justifications for property. Property and Critique examines property in a cultural, symbolic, and historical framework. One aim of the book is to outline the ways in which concepts of property are symbolically and practically connected to social relations of power. A second aim is to consider and critique the 'objects' of property in changing material contexts. Third, the book explores challenges to the Western idea of property posed by colonial and post-colonial contexts, such as the disempowerment through property of whole cultures, the justifications for colonial expansion, and biopiracy. These themes are considered in three central chapters dealing with the meanings of property, its history, and philosophical accounts of property. A final chapter considers some alternative narratives of property and possibilities for its reconstruction.Davies, Margaret is the author of 'Property ', published 2007 under ISBN 9781904385844 and ISBN 1904385842.