ABSTRACT
Sites are contested places. There can be many claims to them, and these claims are often a function of differing ideas about what ownership “means,” and what are the rights attendant to ownership. This essay seeks to explicate American social and legal ideas about site-based ownership and rights. One argument is that any contemporary ambiguity about ideas of ownership and rights is a function of unresolved debates from the colonial period, encapsulated in America's founding national documents. A second argument is that ideas about ownership and rights have evolved over the course of the nation's history. This flow of the national social-legal dialogue about ownership and rights is traced through to the present day. Technological development and changes in social values are offered forth as the two primary forces driving changing ideas about ownership and rights. The essay closes with predictions as to how this situation might unfold during the 21st century. I argue that more claimants will assert more legitimacy for site use, and thus debates over sites will become more heated. There is no formulaic way to solve this problem; there never has been. The only vehicle Americans have developed is rooted in dialogical democratic processes.
