Property and Social Citizenship: Social Policy beyond the North

Abstract

This article examines how the property rights in land have come to be a constitutive element of social citizenship. Reviewing the theoretical developments on the idea of social citizenship since Marshall’s seminal essay on Citizenship and Social Class (1950), this introductory article identifies four processes which bring property rights to the centre stage of social rights. First, recognition of entitlement beyond ownership opens up different social functions of property. Social citizenship as a tool is able to demand contextually appropriate rights from the bundle of rights that property is constituted of. Second, the idea of social citizenship is global today, and has transcended nation-state boundaries. How trade and communications impact property in land shapes the realisation of social rights. Three, active citizens contribute to the creation of public spaces in emerging urban residential areas. Citizens make social claims on such spaces through radical forms of insurgent citizenship. Four, planning as a tool, which organises property for the realisation of citizens’ social rights, is able to meet the competing objectives of human rights and speculative profiteering by real estate owners. These four aspects become essential to understand how social citizenship is unfolding, particularly in the Global South.

Plural Values of Land: An Empirical Investigation

“…On the other hand, the same informal courts pass egalitarian ‘not so restricted/ not so exclusionary’ land use. There is a reciprocity principle in property and obligations towards others (Alexander & Peñalver, 2012; Paine, 1797; Pellissery & Lødemel, 2020). Such practices fall between the Hardin’s (1968) tragedy and Rose’s (1986) comedy while managing resource and social relationships.…”

Smith’s paradox of price and negotiation: Empirical evidence from India

“…Land is one such property that has immense socio-political significance. In the Global South, to expand urbanisation, infrastructure development, and industrialisation, a vast area of land has been transferred from one use to another (Pellissery et al 2014 ; Balakrishnan 2019 ; Pellissery & Lødemel 2020 ). As a result, neither the state, nor the market, nor the citizens feel that the processes and outcomes of valuations of land are adequate and just (Alterman 2012 ; Dey Biswas 2020b , c ).…”