ABSTRACT
This chapter presents forward an understanding of property as a spatially contingent relation of belonging. It argues that property is a spatial formation that occurs when relations of belonging are held up by the spaces in and through which those relations exist. Conceptualising property in this way captures both the physical and social aspects of the space-subject connection; it focuses on what space does, and through this focus suggests an understanding of that connection that fits with anti-essentialist theories of identity and with critical geographical understandings of place and space. The theorisation of property as an essential part or extension of the subject has a long history in British and continental philosophy. Writing in seventeenth century England, John Locke argued that 'every Man has a Property in his own Person'. In contrast, Hegel's proper subject only achieves subjectivity through the process of appropriation.
