Full Description
Governments have conferred ownership titles to many citizens throughout the world in an effort to turn things into property. Almost all elements of nature have become the target of property laws, from the classic preoccupation with land to more ephemeral material, such as air and genetic resources. When Things Become Property interrogates the mixed outcomes of conferring ownership by examining postsocialist land and forest reforms in Albania, Romania and Vietnam, and finds that property reforms are no longer, if they ever were, miracle tools available to governments for refashioning economies, politics or environments.
Contents
List of Abreviations Preface Introduction: Turning things into property PART I: AGRICULTURE: NEGOTIATING PROPERTY AND VALUE Chapter 1. Transnational migration, ethnicity, and property in Albania Chapter 2. Livelihood traditions, worker-peasants, and peasant entrepreneurs in Romania Chapter 3. Modernity, fantasies, and property in Vietnam PART II: FORESTS: CONTESTING PROPERTY AND AUTHORITY Chapter 4. Forests, state, and custom in Albania Chapter 5. Property, predators, and patrons in Romania Chapter 6. Land allocation, loggers, and lawmakers in Vietnam Conclusion: Postsocialist propertizing and the dynamics of property Bibliography Index
