Is what’s mine really mine?: re-imagining resource ownership and control through post-apocalyptic fiction

Abstract

What does it mean to “own” something? Does it mean that we have absolute and unrestricted rights to use that thing as we wish?
In 1753, pre-eminent English legal scholar Sir William Blackstone described ownership as a “sole or despotic dominion” over the thing owned (1753/1922, 1). Yet, he also acknowledged that “there is no foundation in nature or in natural law, why a set of words upon parchment should convey the dominion of land” (3). Over three hundred years later, French economist Thomas Piketty points to the omnipresence of a “neo-proprietarian ideology” which encourages us to believe that we do have absolute and unrestricted rights to use what we own (2020). However, Piketty also argues that this ideology lacks genuine foundation, further adding that it neither reflects current practice nor exhausts future possibilities. Others, such as Rose (1998) and Murphy & Nagel (2002), similarly question the inevitability and immutability of ownership.
It may at first seem odd to connect canonical questions about the nature of ownership with post-apocalyptic fiction. However, the genre provides a unique setting through which to explore relationships between people and property. Works like Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven (2014), Frank Tayell’s Surviving the Evacuation series (2011-2020), and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006/2010) take place in worlds of extreme resource scarcity where formal institutions such as governments, courts and police have disappeared. Survivors are thus forced to make decisions amongst themselves regarding the “rightful” distribution of resources, cognisant that such decisions can literally be a matter of life and death.
Drawing on an archive of 63 novels and contrasting them with contemporary case law and legal thinking, this thesis explores how post-apocalyptic fiction thinks ideologically and imaginatively about ownership. From examining the criteria upon which ownership is granted in these extended thought experiments to considering specialised sites of ownership such as the home, the person and the nation-state, this thesis uncovers and analyses gaps between how contemporary popular culture reflects and conceives of property and the law. In doing so, it refreshes thinking on the topic more generally. While the fiction in the archive can struggle to do truly imaginative thinking, failures in imagination can nonetheless provide important insights into contemporary society. The glimmers of truly imaginative or even utopic thought, on the other hand, can help us see beyond a “neo-proprietarian ideology”.

Date of Award	2024
Original language	English
Supervisor	Paul MAGEE (Supervisor) & Tony EATON (Supervisor)