Description
This paper looks at the ways in which colonial and modern ideas of property and possession structure international politics. Addressing a certain elision in International Relations (IR) theory concerning the role of property in global dynamics of power and security, the paper contends that looking at property can further IR's understanding of key dimensions of international order. In conversation with postcolonialism and race studies, this paper starts by addressing the foundations behind the idea of modern property, illuminating its enmeshment with racial-colonial dynamics of subjugation, exploitation, and accumulation. It then explains how colonial imaginaries of property and property-making practices were involved in the making, reproduction, and policing of the so-called modern international order. Specifically, it shows how (dis)possession, as both a process of making property and dispossessing others, was central to the production of modern sovereignty and the constitution of global colour lines, two foundational pillars of our (post)colonial international order. The paper finalises by illustrating how a critical engagement with ideas of property as simultaneously an idea, object, and praxis can advance and bridge contemporary debates on coloniality and race in IR.
