Property as citizenship: challenges to realising an inclusive citizenship

Part of the 2021/22 StadsSalonsUrbains lecture series ‘Cities for People, not for Profit. From private ownership to communal stewardship’.

This talk draws on empirical research in South Africa and India on land and housing tenure, property rights and ideas of citizenship coded in national legislation with rights in law and/or grounded claims of rights to the city. It explores through these two different country contexts, the role of property in awarding, renewing or denying individual claims to citizenship, moving between scales of the state and neighbourhood, to identify and articulate common processes. This is an exploratory talk in that there is no main argument that I advocate, but a deep discussion of evidence that illuminate the multiple connections between property and citizenship, and the multi-scalar barriers to realising an ‘inclusive citizenship’.