Franz von Benda-Beckmann is head of the project group "Legal Pluralism" at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology at Halle, Germany. He is professor for law in developing countries at Wageningen University, the Netherlands and honorary professor at the University of Leipzig. His research in Malawi and Indonesia focuses property and inheritance, social security, decentralization and legal anthropological theory.

“Collections often are uneven and not coherent enough; fortunately, this is not the case at all here: in spite of the great number of contributions they complement each other well, with many cross references…”  ·  Verfassung und Recht in Übersee“The volume represents an excellent model for what may be considered a constant duty of the researcher: always questioning the epistemological validity of concepts, theories, main instruments in research work, always trying to readjust them in order to avoid over-generalise erroneous assumptions. This implies a dynamic and flexible positioning toward empirical data and theory at the same time, something that the contributors to this volume accomplished with success, thus opening new paths in property analysis.”  ·  Social Anthropology

• List of Maps, Figures and TablesChapter 1. The Properties of PropertyFranz von Benda-Beckmann, Keebet von Benda-Beckmann and Melanie G. WiberChapter 2. Ownership in Stateless PlacesCharles GeislerChapter 3. The Romance of Privatisation and Its Unheralded Challengers: Case Studies from English, Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet HistoryEsther Kingston-MannChapter 4. Beyond Embeddedness: A Challenge Raised by a Comparison of the Struggles Over Land in African and Post-socialist CountriesPauline E. PetersChapter 5. Land as Asset, Land as Liability: Property Politics in Rural Central and Eastern EuropeThomas SikorChapter 6. Property, Labour Relations and Social Obligations in Russia’s Privatised Farm EnterprisesOane VisserChapter 7. Cooperative Property at the LimitJohn R. EidsonChapter 8. Who Owns the Fisheries? Changing Views of Property and Its Redistribution in Post-colonial Maori SocietyToon van MeijlChapter 9. How Communal is Communal and Whose Communal is It? Lessons from MinangkabauFranz and Keebet von Benda-BeckmannChapter 10. Moving Borders and Invisible Boundaries: A Force Field Approach to Property Relations in the Commons of a MexicanEjido Monique Nuijten and David LorenzoChapter 11. ‘The Tragedy of the Private’: Owners, Communities and the State in South Africa’s Land Reform ProgrammeDeborah JamesChapter 12. The Folk Conceptualisation of Property and Forest-related Going Concerns in MadagascarFrank MuttenzerChapter 13. Property Rights, Water and Conflict in the Western U.S.Edella SchlagerChapter 14. Appropriating Family Trees: Genealogies in the Age of GeneticsGísli PálssonChapter 15. Cultural Property, Repatriation and Relative Publics: Which Public? Whose Culture?Melanie G. WiberNotes on ContributorsIndex