Refusing land’s capture: a new status for a finite resource

Abstract

Through this argumentative essay, we seek to frame a new status for land. First, with the help of companion intellectuals we analyze the construction of land as stable property that ultimately became financial security, to the point that nation-states ended up providing the apparatus to secure land property. Then, based on different alternatives of refusal we aim to destabilize the ‘secure’ position of land as property. This opens the space to propose a new status for land: an infrastructure for coexistence, a scarce resource that escapes capture. For if private property is at the root of inequality, then we may start to think of strategies that run away from that condition to ensure the right of future generations to have a place to live with dignity.