Property in Question Value Transformation in the Global Economy

by Verdery, Katherine; Humphrey, Caroline

• ISBN13: 9781859738825
• ISBN10: 1859738826
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-09-04
• Publisher: Berg Pub Ltd

Summary

How has it come about that indigenous cultures, body parts, and sequences of musical notes are considered property? How has the movement from collective to privatized systems affected notions of property? At what point in transaction chains do native cultures, indigenous medicines, or cyberdata become "objects" and therefore "propertized?" Property in Question interrogates the concept of property and what is happening to it in the contemporary world, in case studies ranging from North America to Romania, Kazakhstan to Africa. Authors address bio-transactions, music copyright, cyberspace, oil prospecting, debates over privatization of land and factories, and dilemmas arising with new forms of ownership of businesses. Offering a fresh perspective on contemporary economic transformation, this volume is a long overdue investigation of the power of the "private property" concept, as well as an exploration of how the global economy may be subtly changing what "property" means and how we relate to it.

Author Biography

Katherine Verdery is Eric R. Wolf Professor of Anthropology and Interim Chair, University of Michigan.

Caroline Humphrey is Professor of Asian Anthropology, University of Cambridge.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
List of Contributors	xi
Introduction: Raising Questions about Property
Caroline Humphrey and Katherine Verdery	1	(28)
Part I: The "Things" of Property
1 Bodily Transactions: Regulating a New Space of Flows in "Bio-information"
Bronwyn Parry	29	(20)
2 Heritage as Property
Michael A. Brown	49	(20)
3 The Selective Protection of Musical Ideas: The "Creators" and the Dispossessed
Anthony Seeger	69	(16)
4 Crude Properties: The Sublime and Slime of Oil Operations in the Ecuadorian Amazon
Suzana Sawyer	85	(30)
Part II: Property, Value, and Liability
5 Prospecting's Publics
Cori Hayden	115	(24)
6 The Obligations of Ownership: Restoring Rights to Land in Postsocialist Transylvania
Katherine Verdery	139	(22)
7 Proprietary Regimes and Sociotechnical Systems: Rights over Land in Mongolia's "Age of the Market"
David Sneath	161	(24)
Part III: Cultural Recognition
8 At Home in the Violence of Recognition
Elizabeth Povinelli	185	(22)
9 Cultural Rights and Wrongs: Uses of the Concept of Property
Michael Rowlands	207	(20)
10 The Menace of Hawkers: Property Forms and the Politics of Market Liberalization in Mumbai
Arvind Rajagopal	227	(24)
Part IV: Critiquing Property
11 Value, Relations, and Changing Bodies: Privatization and Property Rights in Kazakhstan
Catherine Alexander	251	(24)
12 Economic Claims and the Challenges of New Property
Carol M. Rose	275	(22)
13 Cyberspatial Properties: Taxing Questions about Proprietary Regimes
Bill Maurer	297	(22)
Index	319