RETHINK: Property

FB06.153

Master In depth seminar 

C‐2.1‐40, C-2.1-52, D-2.1-40,  C-1.0-40, C-2.0-40

4 SWS, 6 ECTS 

Univ. Prof. Dr. Gabu Heindl
WM Ana Bisbicus M.A Arch

Thursdays, 10:00-13:30 hrs.

To build is also to destroy. This destruction goes hand in hand with the extraction of resources from territories and turns land into a commodity through displacement, occupation, and delimitation. A commodity, a piece of land, which may seem to be abstracted and sold freely through capital, cannot in reality be arbitrarily or speculatively multiplied or reproduced, or as the Indigenous Zapatistas say: one hectare remains one hectare, even if there are many papers (EZLN 2023). A world divided into compartments is a colonial world (cf. Fanon 1966, 29), a world in which spatial and property relations are violently ordered. The settler owes the fact of his very existence, that is to say, his property, to the colonial system (Fanon 1963,36). For example, around 70 percent of the land in present-day Namibia is still in the hands of white settlers (Wagener 2022). These property relations stem from Namibia’s colonial history as a German colony (German South West Africa, 1884–1915). 

In this advanced seminar we will dedicate ourselves through discussions, joint readings, and guest contributions to critically questioning private property and ownership, as well as exploring how power relations and various systems of oppression contribute to maintaining colonial property regimes. Together we will develop concepts and terminology and use cartographic methods to search for examples that, on the one hand, reveal everyday, spatially materialized colonial property relations, and on the other hand, illustrate strategies to break these continuities. Because if we examine closely this system of compartments, we will at least be able to reveal the lines of force it implies. This approach to the colonial world, its ordering and its geographical layout will allow us to mark out the lines on which a decolonized society will be reorganized. (Fanon 1966, 38).

Language:  Deutsche Lautsprache ggf. auch Englisch möglich/ German but English possible

Readings: EN/DE

Start: 16.10.25 10:00 Uhr/hrs.