Contested Property Claims

‘Contested Property Claims’ will investigate struggles over the control of urban spaces with a special focus on the claims prompted by (personal and political) squatting. The interdisciplinary project integrates an anthropological study of the Danish ‘freetown’ of Christiania, an intellectual history of the struggle surrounding Christiania and the Copenhagen ‘Youth House,’ and a philosophical study of moral and legal theories in which squatters’ claims are conceptualised and judged. These studies are drawn together under a shared theoretical framework that conceptualises property as a dynamic process shaped and challenged by the practices and arguments through which social actors communicate, defend, and critique property claims.