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Pop‐Up Property: Enacting Ownership from San Francisco to Sydney
Author(s) -
Thorpe Amelia
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
law and society review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.867
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1540-5893
pISSN - 0023-9216
DOI - 10.1111/lasr.12347
Subject(s) - principle of legality , property (philosophy) , database transaction , context (archaeology) , situated , law , event (particle physics) , private property , property law , sociology , space (punctuation) , property rights , political science , history , archaeology , philosophy , physics , epistemology , quantum mechanics , artificial intelligence , computer science , programming language , linguistics
Through a detailed examination of PARK(ing) Day , a loosely organized international event to reclaim street space from cars, this article reveals the intimate connection between property and its social and material context. Private claims to public streets are not uncommon. In some cases, such claims are swiftly rejected. In others, they receive recognition and respect. Focusing on the particular set of proprietary claims within PARK(ing) Day , this article examines the ways in which property on city streets is claimed and contested. Drawing primarily on fieldwork in Sydney, Australia, the analysis emphasizes the degree to which property depends on the networks in which it is situated. PARK(ing) Day was based on a creative rereading of the property producible by paying a parking meter, and this link with legality plays a key role in the event. Yet the property at issue is based on much more than that simple transaction. A more emergent and socially constructed conception of ownership is central in understanding both the making of claims to city streets on PARK(ing) Day and the range of responses they generate.