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The Boundaries of Property: Complexity, Relationality, and Spatiality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Nicholas Blomley
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Abstract

What does the property boundary mean to laypersons? How do everyday geographies of property work? Merrill and Smith offer an influential set of hypotheses concerning the boundary's role in communicating simple messages of exclusion in the everyday world. The first goal of this article is to assess these claims. Drawing from qualitative data on gardening from Vancouver, I suggest that the messages of the boundary may also be complex, intersubjective, and ambiguous. The supposedly robust moral intuitions that inform people's interactions with boundaries are not always exclusionary.

Drawing from the sharp distinction between the heterogeneity of the empirical record and the studied simplicity of Merrill and Smith's account, my second goal is to make some broader claims regarding property and the boundary. Rather than seeking universality, simplicity, and singularity, I suggest the necessity and value of working with complexity. A relational view of property and space (or “spatiality”), I suggest, offers us a better perspective in which to begin to think about the complex work of the everyday property boundary.

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Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 224 - 255
Copyright
© 2016 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

The empirical research used in this article was funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council. A version was presented at the University of Cambridge in 2014. I am also grateful for the advice and comments of Joe Singer, Doug Allen, and Greg Alexander, and the LSR referees.

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