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Governments have conferred ownership titles to many citizens throughout the world in an effort to turn things into property. Almost all elements of nature have become the target of property laws, from the classic preoccupation with land to more ephemeral material, such as air and genetic resources. When Things Become Property interrogates the mixed outcomes of conferring ownership by examining postsocialist land and forest reforms in Albania, Romania and Vietnam, and finds that property reforms are no longer, if they ever were, miracle tools available to governments for refashioning economies, politics or environments.
List of contents
Preface
List of Acronyms
Introduction: Turning things into property
PART I: AGRICULTURE: NEGOTIATING PROPERTY AND VALUE
Introduction
Chapter 1. Transnational migration, ethnicity, and property in Albania
Chapter 2. Livelihood traditions, worker-peasants, and peasant entrepreneurs in Romania
Chapter 3. Modernity, fantasies, and property in Vietnam
PART II: FORESTS: CONTESTING PROPERTY AND AUTHORITY
Introduction
Chapter 4. Forests, state, and custom in Albania
Chapter 5. Property, predators, and patrons in Romania
Chapter 6. Land allocation, loggers, and lawmakers in Vietnam
Conclusion: Postsocialist propertizing and the dynamics of property
Index
About the author
Thomas Sikor was Professor of Environment and Development at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.
Stefan Dorondel is Senior Researcher at the Francisc I. Rainer Institute of Anthropology Bucharest and is affiliated with the Institute for Southeast European Studies Bucharest.
Johannes Stahl, former Ciriacy-Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellow in Natural Resource Economics and Political Economy at the University of California at Berkeley, now works for a multilateral environmental agreement dealing with trade in endangered species of fauna and flora.
Phuc Xuan To is Research Fellow at Resources, Environment and Development Group of Crawford School of Public Policy, at the Australian National University.
Summary
Governments have conferred ownership titles to many citizens throughout the world in an effort to turn things into property. Almost all elements of nature have become the target of property laws, from the classic preoccupation with land to more ephemeral material, such as air and genetic resources. When Things Become Property interrogates the mixed outcomes of conferring ownership by examining postsocialist land and forest reforms in Albania, Romania and Vietnam, and finds that property reforms are no longer, if they ever were, miracle tools available to governments for refashioning economies, politics or environments.
Additional text
"I think this is an excellent book. The command of the empirical material allows the authors to drive home a series of points that have theoretical purchase far beyond the analyzed contexts. This is an exciting contribution to the understanding of major social transformations." � Christian Lund, University or Copenhagen
