Reciprocal Repossession

Property as Land in Urban Australia

Bibliographic Data

ID7096423
AuthorsNaama Blatman (0000-0003-4523-0099, The University of Sydney, corresponding author), Naama Blatman‐Thomas (School of Geosciences University of Sydney Sydney NSW Australia)
Year2019
Volume51
Issue5
Pages1395-1415
Publication date2019-09-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAntipode (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0066-4812 • E-ISSN: 1467-8330
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/anti.12570
OpenAlexW2972111986
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited52

Repossession of land by Indigenous people is commonly understood as a legal act that unfolds within the confines of state apparatuses. But for many Indigenous urbanites, legal repossession is both impossible and irrelevant due to their histories of dispossession and dislocation. Moreover, while land repossession in Australia is predominantly non‐urban, I demonstrate that land is also reclaimed within cities. Urban repossession of land, considered here as reciprocal rather than legal, challenges the model of private ownership by asserting a territorially transferable relationship to property as land. The order of property entrenches Indigenous people's dispossession by demanding immobility as precondition to ownership and rendering Indigenous urbanites all “too mobile”. Against this framing and the liquidation of their lands as capital, Indigenous people practice reciprocal forms of repossession that challenge both liberal and traditional meanings of ownership. This helps retrieve urban Indigenous subjectivities while compelling partial relinquishment of non‐Indigenous properties

Archaeology · Business · Framing (construction · Geography · Indigenous · Political science · Private property · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Law · Mining and Resource Management · Urban Planning and Governance

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