Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-qxdb6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T09:06:20.535Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Borrowed View: Privacy, Propriety, and the Entanglements of Property

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Nicholas Blomley
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A dominant characterization celebrates property as a means to attain privacy and autonomy. Drawing on recent scholarship, I compare this idea with a proprietarian perspective, which emphasizes the ways in which private ownership comes freighted with public responsibilities. The garden, I shall argue, reveals both dimensions to property. Drawing from gardening debates over the past century and an empirical survey of gardening in Vancouver, Canada, I conclude by arguing, first, that the ends of property are more diverse than we suppose, and second, that these two conceptions should in fact be thought of not as incompatible and opposed, but as entangled and interrelated. While judicial and academic evaluations tend to rely on a binary view of property, so that privacy and propriety seem to live in different spaces, my findings suggest a more fluid cohabitation.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , Fall 2005 , pp. 617 - 661
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2005 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ajax in Bloom, http://www.townofajax.com/public-works/enter-bloom.pdf.Google Scholar
Alexander, Catherine. 2002. The Garden as Occasional Domestic Space. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 27(3): 857–71.Google Scholar
Alexander, Gregory. 1997. Commodity and Propriety: Competing Visions of Property in American Legal Thought, 1776–1970. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Alexander, Gregory. 1998. Property as Propriety. Nebraska Law Review 77: 667–702.Google Scholar
Alexander, Gregory. 2003. Property as a Fundamental Constitutional Right? The German Example. Cornell Law Review 88: 733–78.Google Scholar
Anon. 1991. Adverse Possession Suit Goes to Trial on Conveyance Issue: Aitola v. Chickara, Supreme Court IA Part II, Justice Ramirez. New York Law Journal, February 26, p. 21.Google Scholar
Anon. 2003. Mr. Leyland's Legacy. The Guardian, October 18, p. 12.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah [1958] 1998. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Banner, Stuart 1999. Two Properties, One Land: Law and Space in Nineteenth Century New Zealand. Law & Social Inquiry 24: 807–52.Google Scholar
Basu, Srimati. 1999. She Comes to Take Her Rights: Indian Women, Property, and Propriety. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Bhatti, Mark, and Andrew, Church. 2004. Home, the Culture of Nature, and Meanings of Gardens in Late Modernity. Housing Studies 19(1): 37–51.Google Scholar
Blackstone, William. [1766] 1979a. Commentaries on the Laws of England. Vol. 1, Of the Rights of Persons; vol. 2. Of the Rights of Things. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Blomley, Nicholas. 2003. Law, Property, and the Spaces of Violence: The Frontier, the Survey, and the Grid. Annals, Association of American Geographers 93(1): 121–41.Google Scholar
Blomley, Nicholas. 2004a. The Boundaries of Property: Lessons from Beatrix Potter. Canadian Geographer 48(2): 91–100.Google Scholar
Blomley, Nicholas. 2004b. Un-real Estate: Proprietary Space and Public Gardening. Antipode 36(4): 614–41.Google Scholar
Blomley, Nicholas. 2004c. Unsettling the City: Urban Land and the Politics of Property. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Blomley, Nicholas. 2005. Flowers in the Bathtub: Boundary Crossings at the Public-Private Divide. Geoforum 36: 281–96.Google Scholar
Blomley, Nicholas, Delaney, David, and Ford, Richard T., eds. 2001. The Legal Geographies Reader: Law, Power, and Space. Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bromley, Daniel W. 1998. Rousseau's Revenge: The Demise of the Freehold Estate. In Who Owns America? Social Conflict over Property Rights, ed. Jacobs, Harvey J., 19–28. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Bobbio, Norberto. 1989. Democracy and Dictatorship: The Nature and Limits of State Power. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Brace, Laura. 1999. Husbanding the Earth and Hedging out the Poor. Paper presented at Land and Freedom, conference of the Australian and New Zealand Legal History Society, July, University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia.Google Scholar
Brett, Nathan. 2003. Private Life: Biotechnology and the Public-Private Divide. In New Perspectives on the Public-Private Divide, ed. Law Commission of Canada, 68–93. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.Google Scholar
Buck, F. E. 1927. The Point Grey Horticultural Society. Gardening in British Columbia 1(6): 180–81.Google Scholar
Butler-Bowdon, Eddie. 2001. Lawn and Order: Aesthetics and Architecture in Australian Suburbia. Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes 21(2): 108–14.Google Scholar
City of Vancouver Planning Department. 1996. Strathcana/Kiwassa RT-3 Guidelines, April. Vancouver, British Columbia: City of Vancouver.Google Scholar
City of Vancouver Urban Landscape Task Force. 1992. Greenways/Public Ways: Final Report. Vancouver, British Columbia: City of Vancouver.Google Scholar
Communities in Bloom. Strathcona County. http://www.strathcona.ab.ca/Strathcona/Departments/Recreation+Parks+and+Culture/Outdoor+recreation/Communities+in+bloom.htm.Google Scholar
Coombe, Rosemary, and Andrew, Herman 2000. Trademarks, Property, and Propriety: The Moral Economy of Consumer Politics and Corporate Accountability on the World Wide Web. DePaul Law Review 50: 597–632.Google Scholar
Craig, Carys J. 2002. Locke, Labour, and Limiting the Author's Right: A Warning against a Lockean Approach to Copyright Law. Queen's Law Journal 28: 1–60.Google Scholar
Cronon, W. 1983. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. New York: Hill and Wang.Google Scholar
Darian-Smith, Eve. 1999. Bridging Divides: The English Channel Tunnel and English Legal Identity in the New Europe. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Dennis, R. 1997. Property and Propriety: Jewish Landlords in Early Twentieth Century Toronto. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 22(3): 377–97.Google Scholar
Dobriner, William. 1963. Class in Suburbia. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Donahue, Charles. 1998. Property Law. New Encyclopedia Britannica. 5th ed., 180–205.Google Scholar
Elshtain, Jean Bethke. 1999. Public and Private in American Political Life and Thought. In The Public and the Private in the United States, ed Hitoshi, Abe, Hiroko, Sato, Chieko, and Kitagawa, Otsuru, 23–34. Osaka: Japan Center for Area Studies.Google Scholar
Engel, David. 1995. Law in the Domains of Everyday Life: The Construction of Community and Difference. In Law in Everyday Life, Austin, Sarat and Kearns, Thomas R., 123–70. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Feagan, Robert, and Michael, Ripmeester. 2001. Reading Private Green Space: Competing Geographic Identities at the Level of the Lawn. Philosophy and Geography 4(1): 79–95.Google Scholar
Ford, Susan. 1991. Landscape Revisited: A Feminist Appraisal. In New Words, New Worlds: Reconceptualizing Social and Cultural Geography, ed. Philo, Chris, 151–55. Aberystwyth, Wales: Cambian Printers.Google Scholar
Francis, Mark, and Hester, Randolph T., eds. 1990. The Meaning of Gardens: Idea, Place, and Action. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fisher, William W. III. 1998. Symposium on the Internet and Legal Theory: Property and Contract on the Internet. Chicago-Kent Law Review 73: 1203–56.Google Scholar
Geisler, Charles, and Daneker, Gail eds. 2000. Property and Values: Alternatives to Public and Private Ownership. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.Google Scholar
Gobetti, Daniela. 1997. Humankind as a System: Private and Public Agency at the Origins of Modern Liberalism. In Public and Private in Thought and Practice, ed. Weintraub, Jeff, and Kumar, Krishan, 103–32. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Goodrich, P., and Hachamovitch, Y. 1991. Time Out of Mind: An Introduction to the Semiotics of Common Law. In Dangerous Supplements: Resistance and Renewal in Jurisprudence, ed. Fitzpatrick, Peter, 159–81. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Grampp, Christopher. 1990. Social Meanings of Residential Gardens. In Francis and Hester 1990, 178–83.Google Scholar
Gray, Kevin. 1994. Equitable Property. Current Legal Problems 47: 157–214.Google Scholar
Grear, Anna. 2003. Theorizing the Rainbow? The Puzzle of the Public-Private Divide. Res Publica 9: 169–94.Google Scholar
Grey, Thomas C 1980. The Disintegration of Property. In Nomos, ed. Pennock, J. Roland and Chapman, John W., 22: 69–95.Google Scholar
Hacking, Ian. 1999. The Social Construction of What? Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hamilton, Jonette Watson. 2002. Theories of Categorization: A Case Study of Cheques. Canadian Journal of Law and Society 17(1): 115–38.Google Scholar
Harding, Vanessa. 2002. Space, Property and Propriety in Urban England. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 32(4): 549–69.Google Scholar
Harris, Dianne. 1994. Cultivating Power: The Language of Feminism in Women's Garden Literature. Landscape Journal 13(2): 113–23.Google Scholar
Harris, Marjorie. 1995. How to Garden Defensively. In Garden Voices: Two Centuries of Canadian Garden Writing, ed. von Baeyer, Edwinna and Crawford, Pleasance, 216–18. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Hessayon, D. G. 1993. The Garden Expert. London: Expert Books.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Harvey. 1998. Who Owns America? Social Conflict over Property Rights. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Keller, Catherine. 1986. From a Broken Web: Separation, Sexism, and the Self. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Kincaid, Jamaica. 1999. My Garden (Book). New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.Google Scholar
Kurtz, Hilda. 2001. Differentiating Multiple Meanings of Garden and Community. Urban Geography 22(7): 656–70.Google Scholar
Lacey, Nicola. 1998. Unspeakable Subjects: Feminist Essays in Legal and Social Theory. Oxford, U.K.: Hart.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Le Galliene, Richard. 1927. In a Small, Old Garden. Gardening in British Columbia 1(10): 296.Google Scholar
Lee, James. 1999. Housing, Home Ownership, and Social Change in Hong Kong. Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Locke, John. [1690] 1980. Second Treatise of Government. Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett.Google Scholar
Margoliouth, H. M., ed. 1971. The Poems and Letters of Andrew Marvett. Vol. 1, Poems. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl. 1978. On the Jewish Question. In The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. Tuckner, R. C., 26–52. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
McGregor, Joan L. 1999. Property Rights and Environmental Protection: Is this Land Made for You and Me Arizona State Law Journal 31: 391–437.Google Scholar
McClain, Linda C. 1995. Inviolability and Privacy: The Castle, the Sanctuary, and the Body. Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities 7: 195–241.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Don. 2003. The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space. New York . Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Timothy. 2002. Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-politics, and Modernity. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Molberg, A. G. 1927. Architecture and Gardening. Gardening in British Columbia 1(4): 122–23.Google Scholar
More, Thomas. [1516] 1971. Utopia. New York: Washington Square Press.Google Scholar
Nedelsky, Jennifer. 1989. Reconceiving Autonomy: Some Thoughts and Possibilities. Yale Journal of Law and Feminism 1: 6–36.Google Scholar
Nedelsky, Jennifer. 1993. Reconceiving Rights as Relationship. Review of Constitutional Studies 1(1): 1–26.Google Scholar
Newman, Oscar. 1972. Defensible Space: Crime Prevention through Urban Design. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Newman, Oscar. 1973. Architectural Design for Crime Prevention. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice.Google Scholar
Nichols, Beverley. 1932. Down the Garden Path. London: Jonathan Cape.Google Scholar
Perin, Constance. 1977. Everything in Its Place: Social Order and Land Use in America. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Perin, Constance. 1988. Belonging in America: Reading between the Lines. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Peters, Brendan. 2004. Fourth Amendment Yard Work: Curtilage's Mow-line Rule. Stanford Law Review 56: 943–80.Google Scholar
Pollan, Michael. 1991. My Two Gardens. Forbes, May 13, 85–90.Google Scholar
Portugal Cove-St., Philips. 2003. Municipal Newsletter. August, p. 8. http://www.portugalcove-stphilips.com/pcsp_admin/upload/newsletter/August%202003%20newsletter.pdf.Google Scholar
Radin, Margaret. 1986. Residential Rent Control. Philosophy and Public Affairs 15(4): 350–80.Google Scholar
Reich, Charles. 1964. The New Property. Yale Law Journal 73: 733–87.Google Scholar
Robertson, Michael. 1995. Property and Ideology. Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 8(2): 275–96.Google Scholar
Robin, Libby. 2001. School Gardens and Beyond: Progressive Conservation, Moral Imperatives, and the Local Landscape. Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes 21(2): 87–92.Google Scholar
Rose, Carol. 1994. Property and Persuasion. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Rose, Gillian. 1993. Feminism and Geography. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Rössler, Beate. 2004a. Privacies: An Overview. In Rössler 2004b.Google Scholar
Rössler, Beate. ed. 2004b. Privacies: Philosophical Evaluations. Palo Alto . Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Sax, Joseph L. 1999. Placing Darts with a Rembrandt: Public and Private Rights in Cultural Treasures. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Seed, Patricia. 1995. Ceremonies of Possession in Europe's Conquest of the New World, 1492–1640. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Selznick, Philip. 2003. Law and Society Revisited. Journal of Law and Society 30(2): 177–86.Google Scholar
Sheller, Mimi, and Urry, John 2003. Mobile Transformations of “Public” and “Private” life. Theory, Culture, and Society. 20(3): 107–25.Google Scholar
Singer, Joseph. 2000. Entitlement: The Paradoxes of Property. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Spencer, G. 1994. Retroactive Effect Given Ruling Extending Privacy to Open Fields. New York Law Journal, Jan 21, 1.Google Scholar
Stein, Achva Benzinberg. 1990. Thoughts Occasioned by the Old Testament. In Francis and Hester 1990, 38–45.Google Scholar
Steinberger, Peter J. 1999. Public and Private. Political Studies 47: 292–313.Google Scholar
Sypnowich, Christine. 2000. The Civility of Law: Between Public and Private. In Public and Private: Legal, Political, and Philosophical Perspectives, ed. Passerin, D'Entréves and Ursula, Vogel, 93–116. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Teyssot, Georges. 1999. The American Lawn: Surface of Everyday Life. In The American Lawn, ed. Georges, Teyssot, 1–31. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Vancouver Town Planning Commission. 1929. A Plan for the City of Vancouver British Columbia Including Point Grey and South Vancouver and a General Plan for the Region. Vancouver, British Columbia: Wigley Printing.Google Scholar
Varley, Ann. 2002. Private or Public: Debating the Meaning of Tenure Legalization. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 26(3): 449–61.Google Scholar
Von Baeyer, Edwinna. 1984. Rhetoric and Roses. Markham, Ontario: Fitzhenry and Whiteside.Google Scholar
Walzer, Michael. 1984. Liberalism and the Art of Separation. Political Theory 12(3): 315–30.Google Scholar
Walzer, Michael. 1990. The Communitarian Critique of Liberalism. Political Theory 18: 6–23.Google Scholar
Williamson, Tom. 1995. Polite Landscapes: Gardens and Society in Eighteenth Century England. Stroud, U.K.: Sutton.Google Scholar
Wintour, Patrick. 2003. Leylandii Cut Back to Size in Bid to End Hedge Wars. Guardian, Oct. 18, p. 9.Google Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 1990. Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 2004. A Room of One's Own: Old Age, Extended Care, and Privacy. In Rössler 2004b, 168–86.Google Scholar