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Access and Property: A Question of Power and Authority
Author(s) -
Sikor Thomas,
Lund Christian
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
development and change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-7660
pISSN - 0012-155X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-7660.2009.01503.x
Subject(s) - property (philosophy) , institution , context (archaeology) , proposition , territoriality , natural resource , state (computer science) , power (physics) , law and economics , political science , law , sociology , authorization , property rights , computer security , epistemology , geography , computer science , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , archaeology , communication , algorithm
ABSTRACT In this introduction we argue that access and property regarding natural resources are intimately bound up with the exercise of power and authority. The process of seeking authorizations for property claims also has the effect of granting authority to the authorizing politico‐legal institution. In consequence, struggles over natural resources in an institutionally pluralist context are processes of everyday state formation. Through the discussion of this theoretical proposition we point to legitimizing practices, territoriality and violence as offering particular insights into the recursively constituted relations between struggles over access and property regarding natural resources, contestations about power and authority, and state formation.