ABSTRACT
This chapter foregrounds property, arguing that rather than simply a relation between owners and objects, property regulates relations between people. Property rules determine who can, who can’t, and who may conditionally use and access certain vital resources, like land. Because property is a relation between people, this means that those who are empowered by property rules have power over other people. As such, it needs to be understood as a means by which social power is allocated and sustained, including racialized social hierarchies. Property relations, therefore, are power relations. We can think about the ways property structures social relations by noting the ways in which it organizes the ‘property space’, situating the participants in any property relation, specifying what the participants can do to each other, framing alternatives to transacting, and communicating powerful meanings to the participants.
