Property Rights and Land Institutions: Global and Historical Perspectives (Part I)
Property Rights and Land Institutions: Global and Historical Perspectives (Part I)
Tuesday, 8 July 2025: 09:00-10:45
Location: ASJE016 (Annex of the Faculty of Legal, Economic, and Social Sciences)
RC21 Regional and Urban Development (host committee) Language: English
Transformations in landed property have been analysed in the urban studies literature under two overarching paradigms. The first is over-deterministic structural approaches such as neoliberalism, whereby local dynamics are all connected to and explained by macro-scale, often globalised dynamics. Conversely, the other paradigm focuses on specific situated dynamics, highlighting a certain incoherence of state authorities and illustrating them through arbitrariness, political discretion, and chaotic practices. Avoiding these two extremes, urban researchers are increasingly interested in historical institutionalism and institutional approaches to land and property rights (property regimes, registry, land management instruments, etc.) as institutions shape how land is coded and managed and its uses are regulated. In cities in the Global South, a plurality of property institutions – modern and customary, colonial and postcolonial, formal and informal – coexist, creating complex arrangements and, in some cases, conflicts. These “rules of the game” are not ever-lasting, neither are they constantly changing, but typically have enduring effects over long stretches.
With this lens, we propose a regular session that welcomes papers focusing on any geography and historical period aiming at understanding:
- The origins of institutional arrangements, categorisation, and coding of landed property
- The outcomes of property rights institutions in the distribution or access of land rights over time;
- The agency, or lack thereof, of actors (e.g., bureaucrats, law enforcement actors, brokers, etc.) in shaping these institutional arrangements and through which mechanisms (such as interpretation, (non)enforcement, inscription, etc.)
Session Organizers:
Oral Presentations