In Colonial Lives of Property Brenna Bhandar examines how
modern property law contributes to the formation of racial subjects
in settler colonies and to the development of racial capitalism.
Examining both historical cases and ongoing processes of settler
colonialism in Canada, Australia, and Israel and Palestine, Bhandar
shows how the colonial appropriation of indigenous lands depends upon
ideologies of European racial superiority as well as upon legal
narratives that equate civilized life with English concepts of
property. In this way, property law legitimates and rationalizes
settler colonial practices while it racializes those deemed unfit to
own property. The solution to these enduring racial and economic
inequities, Bhandar demonstrates, requires developing a new political
imaginary of property in which freedom is connected to shared
practices of use and community rather than individual possession.
