Contested Property Claims

Property relations are such a common feature of social life that the complexity of the web of laws, practices, and ideas that allow a property regime to function smoothly are often forgotten. But we are quickly reminded of this complexity when conflict over property erupts. When social actors confront a property regime – for example by squatting – they enact what can be called ‘contested property claims’. As this book demonstrates, these confrontations raise crucial issues of social justice and show the ways in which property conflicts often reflect wider social conflicts. Through a series of case studies from across the globe, this multidisciplinary anthology brings together works from anthropologists, legal scholars, and geographers, who show how exploring contested property claims offers a privileged window onto how property regimes function, as well as an illustration of the many ways that the institution of property shapes power relationships today.

Private Law and Property Claims sets out a distinctive analysis of some general issues in private law, including the nature of categories such as contract, tort and property, duties and liabilities as the basis of claims in private law, and the relationship between primary rights and remedies. In the light of this analysis, it offers a new approach to property in private law, including claims that arise to protect and recover property. It goes on to discuss the law of trusts, fiduciary relationships, and tracing; the remedial role of the trust; the nature of equity as a legal category; and the relationship between property and claims in tort to protect property. It also exposes the misconceptions underlying the modern approach to restitution and unjust enrichment and the problems this is causing in private law.

Against the backdrop of international conventions and their implementation, Cultural Property and Contested Ownership explores how highly-valued cultural goods are traded and negotiated among diverging parties and their interests. Cultural artefacts, such as those kept and trafficked between art dealers, private collectors and museums, have become increasingly localized in a ‘Bermuda triangle’ of colonialism, looting and the black market, with their re-emergence resulting in disputes of ownership and claims for return. This interdisciplinary volume provides the first book-length investigation of the changing behaviours resulting from the effect of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. The collection considers the impact of the Convention on the way antiquity dealers, museums and auction houses, as well as nation states and local communities, address issues of provenance, contested ownership, and the trafficking of cultural property. The book contains a range of contributions from anthropologists, lawyers, historians and archaeologists. Individual cases are examined from a bottom-up perspective and assessed from the viewpoint of international law in the Epilogue. Each section is contextualised by an introductory chapter from the editors.

Contested Terrains and Constructed Categories brings together intellectuals from a variety of fields, backgrounds, generations, and continents to deepen and reinvigo-rate the theoretical and intellectual integrity of African studies. Building on recent debate within African studies that has revolved around the role of Africanists in the United States as “gatekeepers” of knowledge about Africa and Africans, this volume of interdisciplinary essays focuses on the contested character of the production of knowledge itself. In every chapter, case studies and ethnographic materials, drawn from such regions as South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, the Malagasy Republic, Angola, Ghana, and Senegal, demonstrate the application of theory to concrete situations.

Jane M. Gaines examines the phenomenon of images as property, focusing on the legal staus of mechanically produced visual and audio images from popular culture. Bridging the fields of critical legal studies and cultural studies, she analyzes copyright, trademark, and intellectual property law, asking how the law constructs works of authorship and who owns the country's cultural heritage.

Questions of land tenure and land reform, and their impact on poor and vulnerable communities, are of vital importance throughout Southern and Eastern Africa. From the vast literature on the subject, Robin Palmer has selected and summarized more than 300 recent books, articles, academic theses, and reports of conferences and workshops. This survey includes studies of Angola, Botswana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. In addition to major sections on economic and legal issues, special sections feature studies of Land and Pastoralism, and Land and Women.