Property, Territory, Globalization

This exploration of property regimes in crisis opens a window to the dark side of globalization and the struggles for autonomy that have erupted in its wake.

Focusing on sites of friction in property regimes, this book reveals that a politics of place can help local actors build bases of autonomy to withstand, and even reshape, the forces of globalization.

In a world of flux and globalization, when old territories are dissolving and new nations and political unions are coming together, who controls ideas, information, and creativity? Who patrols the new frontiers? This volume opens a window to the dark side of globalization and the struggles for autonomy it has generated. The chapters focus on property regimes in crisis as sites where globalization, autonomy, and the political economy of international capitalism intersect. Sites of friction – indigenous land claims, BC forest disputes, conflicts between farmers and the patent owners of genetically modified seeds – demonstrate not only how property laws and intellectual property rights are supporting the expansion of private property regimes but also how local activists are using a politics of place to resist these forces. The work of Palestinian poets, whose attachment to the land is explored in a powerful Coda at the end of the book, shows that a politics of place can help local actors build new bases of autonomy to withstand the forces of globalization.