Contestation over Property Regimes and Housing: (Un)doing Commodified Urban Land Ownership in India and Germany (B01)

• Subject Area: Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 424638267

The project undertakes a comparative investigation of the contestation over urban land/housing property regimes in two “Global North” and “Global South” contexts. It sheds light on how various social groups contest commodified urban land ownership in India and Germany against the backdrop of increasing social inequalities, spatial polarization, lack of affordable housing as well as access to infrastructure, and ecological devastation. We base our analysis on critical legal, sociological, and anthropological understandings of property, taking ownership not as a legally fixed category, but as engrained and realized in power relations and everyday practices.

• DFG Programme: CRC/Transregios
• Subproject of: TRR 294: Strukturwandel des Eigentums
• Applicant Institution: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
• Project Heads: Professor Dr. Martin Konrad Fuchs; Professorin Dr. Beatrice Renzi, until 12/2024; Dr. Lisa Vollmer, since 1/2025