Hegel’s Hipsters
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663917701304 |
| Published date | 01 February 2018 |
| Author | Amelia Thorpe |
| Date | 01 February 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Social & Legal Studies
2018, Vol. 27(1) 25–48
Hegel’s Hipsters:
ª The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0964663917701304
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Amelia Thorpe
University of New South Wales, Australia
Abstract
Property is both revered and reviled. Praised for its connections to autonomy, agency,
power and community, property attracts scorching critiques for its implication in
exclusion, inequality and injustice. This article provides a new perspective from which to
examine this dual nature of property. Drawing on fieldwork in the United States, Canada,
Australia and New Zealand, property is examined in the context of citizen and
community-led ‘do-it-yourself’ interventions in the urban environment. Perhaps even
more than in formal planning processes, claims about ownership are central to these
activities. Finding multiple forms of property at work in the city, and noting that formal
legal title is often less important than more informal ownership, this article sheds
new light on some of the oldest debates in property. Amongst echoes of Lockean
labour-based theory, Hegelian personhood theory emerges as particularly helpful in
explaining the intimate connections between property and identity, community and
power in the city.
Keywords
Community, DIY urbanism, legal geography, identity, belonging, property theory
Introduction
Property, according to some, is at the heart of many of the great problems of society.
From Marx through to campaigners for decolonization, property has been blamed for
injustices from the exploitation of workers to the exclusion of minorities, from the
Corresponding author:
Amelia Thorpe, Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales 2052, Australia.
Email: a.thorpe@unsw.edu.au
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Social & Legal Studies 27(1)
dispossession of indigenous peoples to the entrenchment of gender inequality and, more
recently, vast environmental degradation (Blomley, 2004; Burdon, 2015; Davies, 2007;
Graham, 2011). Yet property is also highly valued and deeply desired, connected to
powerful human needs for autonomy, power, belonging and community (Alexander and
Pen˜alver, 2010; Davies, 2007). This dual character of property raises questions about the
source, the scope and the strength of property rights. Where does property come from,
and why do others respect property claims?
These are questions that have long troubled property scholars. In this article, I exam-
ine them through a range of informal or ‘do-it-yourself (DIY)’ interventions in the urban
environment: activities like street art, pop-up restaurants and community gardens.
Amidst increasing concern about the forces of neo-liberalism and globalization, the
concentrations of wealth, power and property in a rapidly shrinking proportion of society
have attracted heated responses. In contrast to the more direct and dramatic challenges
posed by actions like squatting, the Occupy movement or the 2016 rent strikes at
University College London, the practices considered here question the neo-liberal prop-
erty regime in more subtle ways.
Although DIY urban interventions may seem far removed from either the theories or
the challenges that animate property discourse, they provide important insights about its
nature. As Andres Van Der Walt (2009) has argued, there is much that can be gained by
approaching property from the margins. Unlike conventional accounts, a focus on the
margins reveals the central role that both law and society give to property.
The marginal approach in this article reveals that property is multiple and dynamic,
that it features in different ways for different people in different contexts, and that these
shift in time and space. In DIY urban interventions, property law operates in conjunction
with a more informal ‘sense of ownership’. Although distinct from legal title, a sense of
ownership may provide many of the benefits sought from property in its conventional
sense: inclusion, community, power and political voice. Ownership can impact formal
property rights, shifting the scope and operation of legal frameworks in various ways:
from triggering direct policy and regulatory changes to imposing more indirect con-
straints on the rights of landowners. The activities considered here thus provide further
evidence of the way in which law must constantly ‘accommodate, and in certain cir-
cumstances appropriate, a vast array of meanings, logics, values, identities and
cultural contexts emerging inside and outside of established jurisdictional lines’
(Darian-Smith, 2004: 546).
Beyond the particular activities in question, understanding a sense of ownership – its
importance, its sources and its connection to community and to power – is valuable also
for understanding property as an institution. The reasons for which a sense of ownership
is sought, and the reasons for which other people respect such claims to ownership, shed
light on the nature of property more generally.
The article begins with an overview of the various urban interventions on which it is
based. I then discuss the claims that participants make about property in these activities,
emphasizing the particular importance of a sense of ownership. This is followed by an
examination of the ways in which participants understand such ownership, and partic-
ularly the ways in which it is produced. While noting echoes of labour-based property
theories, the analysis reveals a much stronger emphasis on identity and relationality as
Thorpe
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the source of ownership, and in turn as central to its importance for participants and its
impacts on others. The connections between property, power and community are consid-
ered in the final section. Ownership, rather than related concepts like community, is
emphasized by participants because of its connection to agency and political voice. Prop-
erty matters deeply.
Research for this article included semi-structured interviews over a period of 2 years
with more than 65 people involved in various urban interventions in and around Sydney,
Australia, Montreal, Canada, the California Bay Area, United States of America and
Christchurch, New Zealand. This was supplemented by site visits with photo-
ethnography and background research on practices, participants and contexts. Individ-
uals were identified through online research, with invitations sent to participants from a
range of different professions and organizations (designers, community workers,
engagement professionals, officials, members of the public) as well as dates of engage-
ment (some who had participated multiple times, some just once, some recently,
some earlier). A snowball referral method and ongoing investigation yielded additional
participants. Property was not specifically targeted until late in interviews, allowing
themes to emerge from more open questions. Interviews were recorded and transcribed
with participant consent. Transcripts were then coded thematically using nVivo software
version 11.0.
Coding and analysis approximated the grounded theory approach set out by Kathy
Charmaz (Charmaz, 2014), but, in line with David Snow, Calvin Morrill and Leon
Anderson’s proposal, with attention given to the potential for the refinement of existing
theories as well as theoretical discovery (Snow et al., 2003). Analysis was undertaken
bearing in mind a range of property theories ‘more in terms of repertoires than blue-
prints’ (Snow et al., 2003: 193). The data and the field were revisited as certain theories
emerged as particularly relevant, with the 2-year duration of research enabling the
tailoring of later interviews to evolving theoretical refinements.
From Hipsters
The images below are two examples of the more than 40,000 street libraries (also known
as book shares or little free libraries) now operating worldwide (Figure 1, Figure 2). Like
these two, most are installed in front of a house, provided and maintained by the resident,
with books taken and contributed by various members of the local community. Street
libraries can be found by wandering down the street, or by searching on the website
littlefreelibrary.org, an informal network for sharing advice and information about these
installations. As the website explains, street libraries have been popular since around
2010 but draw on much longer traditions in their mission of ‘sharing good books and
bringing people together’(Little Free Library, 2016).
Street libraries are just one of many practices through which citizens and communities
shape and reshape the city. Like street libraries, many of these practices are loosely
connected, making use of online networks to share ideas and information. Community
gardening, for example, is increasingly benefiting from organizations such as 596 acres
in New York, which helps citizens to identify and access unused urban spaces in which to
create parks, playgrounds and productive gardens (596 acres, n.d.). Some draw directly
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Social & Legal Studies 27(1)
Figures 1 and 2. Street libraries, Perth, Western Australia and Berkeley, California.
on international models, such as BellaStock, a practice originating in France in which
communities (typically featuring large numbers of young designers) build temporary
squares or villages in which they imagine and test alternative visions for the city, or
Better Block, an approach first developed in Texas, in which citizens add features such as
seating, trees, bike lanes and pop-up shops in an effort to catalyze more...
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