The Boundaries of Property: Complexity, Relationality, and Spatiality

What does the property boundary mean to laypersons? How do everyday geographies of property work? Merrill and Smith offer an influential set of hypotheses concerning the boundary's role in communicating simple messages of exclusion in the everyday world. The first goal of this article is to ass...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Law & society review 2016-03, Vol.50 (1), p.224-255
Main Author: Blomley, Nicholas
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Borders
Boundaries
Capitalism
Fences
Gardens & gardening
Heterogeneity
Human relations
Industrial development
Intuition
Laypersons
Neighborhoods
Private property
Property
Property law
Property rights
Public gardens
Public property
Qualitative research
Relational sociology
Space
White people
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Summary:What does the property boundary mean to laypersons? How do everyday geographies of property work? Merrill and Smith offer an influential set of hypotheses concerning the boundary's role in communicating simple messages of exclusion in the everyday world. The first goal of this article is to assess these claims. Drawing from qualitative data on gardening from Vancouver, I suggest that the messages of the boundary may also be complex, intersubjective, and ambiguous. The supposedly robust moral intuitions that inform people's interactions with boundaries are not always exclusionary. Drawing from the sharp distinction between the heterogeneity of the empirical record and the studied simplicity of Merrill and Smith's account, my second goal is to make some broader claims regarding property and the boundary. Rather than seeking universality, simplicity, and singularity, I suggest the necessity and value of working with complexity. A relational view of property and space (or "spatiality"), I suggest, offers us a better perspective in which to begin to think about the complex work of the everyday property boundary.
ISSN:0023-9216
1540-5893
DOI:10.1111/lasr.12182