Law, Property, and the Geography of Violence: The Frontier, the Survey, and the Grid
2003/03/01 by Nicholas Blomley · 748 citations
Environmental Science · Social Sciences · #Economic geography #Epistemology #Frontier #Geographies of human-animal interactions #Geography #Law #Law in Society and Culture #Political science #Property (philosophy) #Property law #Property rights #Regional science #Wildlife Conservation and Criminology Analyses
paper · doi:10.1111/1467-8306.93109
published in Annals of the Association of American Geographers 93(1), 121-141 (American Association of Geographers)
openalex publication_date 2003/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/21
Abstract
Physical violence, whether realized or implied, is important to the legitimation, foundation, and operation of a Western property regime. Certain spatializations—notably those of the frontier, the survey, and the grid—play a practical and ideological role at all these moments. Both property and space, I argue, are reproduced through various enactments. While those enactments can be symbolic, they must also be acknowledged as practical, material, and corporeal.
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