Property, Territory, Globalization

In a world of flux, when old territories are dissolving and new nations and entities such as the European Union are coming together, who controls goods and services, ideas, information, and creativity? Who patrols the new frontiers?

This volume opens a window to the dark side of globalization and the struggles for autonomy it has generated. The chapters focus on property regimes in crisis as sites where globalization, autonomy, and the political economy of international capitalism intersect. Sites of friction – from indigenous land claims to disputes over forests in British Columbia to conflicts between traditional farmers and the patent owners of genetically modified seeds – demonstrate not only how property laws and intellectual property rights are supporting the expansion of private property regimes through enclosures but also how local activists are using a politics of place to resist these forces.

Indigenous peoples around the world continue to win major land claims during an era of increased corporate control over property. The work of Palestinian poets, whose attachment to the land is explored in a powerful Coda in the last chapter of the book, shows that a politics of place can help local actors build new bases of autonomy to withstand the forces of globalization.