ABSTRACT
It is possible to see property as part of a wider socio-ecological network of connections rather than as separate from and imposed on a ‘natural’ world. In order to advance such a position, this chapter sketches what might broadly be termed process views of life, which emphasise its emergent, distributed, and networked character. The position I outline sees habitat as the contextual surround and bedrock of the interconnected life forms within which human societies and human beings are positioned. I consider home as affective bond to place and to others created as part of the world-forming capacity of each life form. This position neutralises and inverts the premises upon which private property is classically based: the individual human cannot be seen as primary, or even secondary, to inter-human relations, but is always reliant upon a dense network of emergent connections. The consequences for theoretical justifications of property are far-reaching and the chapter concludes by considering further trajectories for embedding property within a socio-ecological frame.
