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Chapter 2 by SG SG

Which tool?

Dispossesion.

Property ownership is, like many things, a social construct. We "own" something when everyone agrees that we own it. If someone is alone a desert island, they own everything and nothing - who's going to take it from them? If I give my friend a guitar, nothing changes intrinsically about the guitar. It's the same guitar as before with the same physical properties. The difference is that I no longer treat it like my possession, but like his. Some things are unpossessed, like an abandoned car or a tree in a public park. They may technically have a legal owner but they are treated as if they don't.

When a person is dispossessed, they lose the ability to own things. That includes the material (e.g. a computer, a house), social (e.g. a job, a name), and personal (e.g. a body, a mind). They may use these things, but not own them. For example, if Sophie is dispossessed:

  • She may live in a house, but she does not own it. She has no right to live in it and if anyone else makes a legitimate claim to it they can kick her out, charge her rent, and so on.
  • She may have access to the money in a bank account but if someone else demands it she has no right to refuse to give it to them. It's as though they asked her to pass the salt at dinner. Since the salt is within her reach and not theirs she technically controls access to it but she has no standing to deny access.
  • She of course lives in a body, but it's not hers to control. If someone demands to see the breasts, she has no real reason or right to refuse. After all, they're not hers - they're just attached to the body that she's using.

All of this is to say, she is dispossessed. She can move through the world as she did previously and largely lead a functional life as long as nobody takes advantage of her situation, but she'll never again own anything. She will use her body and her belongings the way she breathes air or walks on the sidewalk or visits a cemetery. She can use all of these things but she has no ownership of them.

Who gets dispossessed?

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