Who Owns the Land? A New Theory of Rights & Responsibilities

In partnership with Dark Matter Labs

Property rights are increasingly recognised as a structural problem and one of the root causes of the crises of climate change, biodiversity and inequality. Property rights, taken for granted as the foundation of ‘civilised’ societies, are themselves arbitrary legal fictions that vary across histories, jurisdictions, and worldviews. Yet the idea of ownership, an exclusive and almost-total dominion over the ‘owned’, has become ingrained. In turn, these legal fictions bolster practices of financialisation, extraction and monopolisation. They have added layers of abstraction, taking ownership far away from that which is owned, unbundling rights from their responsibilities, and removing co-existence and care from how we ‘own’ and allocate resources.

In the same way that we cannot address our biodiversity crisis by simply planting additional forests, we suggest that we cannot address the structurally detrimental effects of property rights by tinkering at the edges, using surface-level tweaks such as taxes, regulations and contracts. If deep-rooted reform is necessary, do we need to move beyond land and property ownership rights entirely? And if so, what would a world beyond property look like?

This event is part of the series of 5 events around the theme of beyond property and ownership. The other 4 events are Verbs not Nouns - The Role of Language in Scaffolding Alternative Worldviews and Futures, Everyday Life as a Knot of Flows: Conversations Along the River Don, Everyday Life as a Knot of Flows - Collective Mapping for River Don Entanglement, Who Owns The River Don? Exploring Rights of Nature, Self-Ownership & Reciprocal Stewardship. You are encouraged to participate in them all but it's ok if not. Each event will recap the previous ones and some parts will be documented.

Zoom Webinar Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81535514844