Topics in Anthropology (490-0-2)

Topic

Property and its Critics

Instructors

LaShandra Patrice Sullivan

Meeting Info

ANTHRO Sem Rm 104 - 1810 Hinmn: Thurs 2:00PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

This course aims to extend critiques of property through close readings and discussions of foundational and contemporary readings. We especially attend to the workings of demarcation: how lines get drawn on bodies and things in ways that make property possible. Entities ranging from land to airwaves to genes can become property once they are delimited and defined as discrete objects. We will investigate how processes of demarcation produce material objects, such as land, while simultaneously producing specific kinds of (often racialized, gendered, sexual, and classed) subjects, as lines are drawn marking and de-marking material and social boundaries, objects in landscapes, legal interests and ownability, human and more-than-human subjects, and spaces of inhabitation and violence. We further examine the varying frameworks and concepts scholars deploy to address the contemporary decolonial and environmental stakes of property, the wide array of ethnographic contexts for research, and possible ways forward considering current and longstanding challenges.

Class Materials (Required)

All class materials are available electronically.