Property, Place and Piracy Routledge Complex Real Property Rights Series

This book takes the concept of piracy as a starting point to discuss the instability of property as a social construction and how this is spatially situated. Piracy is understood as acts and practices that emerge in zones where the construction and definition of property is ambiguous. Media piracy is a frequently used example where file-sharers and copyright holders argue whether culture and information is a common resource to be freely shared or property to be protected. This book highlights that this is not a dilemma unique to immaterial resources: concepts such as property, ownership and the rights of use are just as diffuse when it comes to spatial resources such as land, water, air or urban space.

By structuring the book around this heterogeneous understanding of piracy as an analytical perspective, the editors and contributors advance a trans-disciplinary and multi-theoretical approach to place and property. In doing so, the book moves from theoretical discussions on commons and property to empirical cases concerning access to and appropriation of land, natural and cultural resources. The chapters cover areas such as maritime piracy, the philosophical and legal foundations of property rights, mining and land rights, biopiracy and traditional knowledge, indigenous rights, colonization of space, military expansionism and the enclosure of urban space.

This book is essential reading for a variety of disciplines including indigenous studies, cultural studies, geography, political economy, law, environmental studies and all readers concerned with piracy and the ambiguity of property.

1. Introduction: Property, place and piracy

Martin Fredriksson & James Arvanitakis






2. On Decolonising our Thinking and Cultural Exchange






Ingrid Matthews






3. Commons, Piracy and Property: Crisis, Conflict and resistance




James Arvanitakis & Martin Fredriksson






4. Property, Sovereignty, Piracy and the Commons: Early Modern Enclosure and the Foundation of the State




Sean Johnson Andrews






5. Unreal Property: Anarchism, Anthropology and Alchemy




Jonathan Paul Marshall & Francesca da Rimini






6. Piratical Constructions of Humanity: Innocence, Property, and the Human-Nature Divide




Sonja Schillings






7. Mobility in Early Modern Anglo-American Accounts of Piracy




Alexandra Ganser






8. Compensation in the Absence of Punishment: Rethinking Somali Piracy as a Form of Maritime Xeer






Brittany Gilmer






9. Commodification of Country: An Australian Case study in Community Resistance to mining




Ingrid Matthews






10. Privateering on the Cosmic Frontier? Mining Celestial Bodies and the ‘NewSpace’ Quest for Private Property in Outer Space




Matthew Johnson






11. ‘The Ancestry Land’: China’s Pursuit of Dominance in the South China Sea




Jingdong Yuan






12. Nuclear Testing and the ‘Terra Nullius Doctrine’: From Life Sciences to Life Writing




Mita Banerjee






13. From Biopiracy to Bioprospecting: Negotiating the Limits of Propertization




Martin Fredriksson






14. Gated Housing Hierarchy




Franklin Obeng-Odoom




15. Pirate Places in Bangkok: IPRs, vendors and Urban Order




Duncan McDuie-Re & Daniel F. Robinson






16. The Real Gruen Transfer - Enclosing the Right to the City




James Arvanitakis & Spike Boydell






17. Epilogue

James Arvanitakis & Martin Fredriksson

Martin Fredriksson Almqvist is Assistant Professor at the Department for Culture Studies, Linköping University, Sweden

James Arvanitakis is Professor and Dean of Graduate Studies at the University of Western Sydney, Australia