Adverse commoning: Tracing contested legal geographies of the urban commons
Authors
Noterman, E
Publication Date
2022Journal Title
Environment and Planning D: Society and Space
ISSN
0263-7758
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Volume
40
Issue
1
Pages
99-117
Language
en
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Noterman, E. (2022). Adverse commoning: Tracing contested legal geographies of the urban commons. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 40 (1), 99-117. https://doi.org/10.1177/02637758211053339
Description
Funder: Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Abstract
<jats:p> Under threat of enclosure in rapidly gentrifying cities, some urban commoners are turning to legal tactics to ward off dispossession. In this article, I explore the contested legal geographies of urban commoning, considering some of the challenges, stakes, and opportunities that emerge in the effort to gain legal recognition. Specifically, I examine the use of the doctrine of adverse possession by Philadelphia gardeners to claim title to the community farm they cultivated as an urban commons for decades. In the context of a neoliberal settler colonial city, I argue that the gardeners’ adverse commoning, involving an il/legal counterclaim to property, facilitates consideration of the ways urban commoners are both enrolled in normative property regimes and have the potential to resist these regimes through errant performances of proprietary continuity, exclusivity, notoriety, and hostility. </jats:p>
Keywords
Articles, Property, adverse possession, urban commons, performativity, squatting, legal geography
Sponsorship
National Science Foundation (Graduate Research Fellowship)
University of Wisconsin-Madison Institute for Legal Studies (Law and Society Graduate Fellowship)
American Council of Learned Societies (Dissertation Completion Fellowship)
Identifiers
10.1177_02637758211053339
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/02637758211053339
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/333856
Rights
Licence:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
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