Governments have conferred ownership titles to many citizens throughout the world in an effort to turn things into property. Almost all elements of nature have become the target of property laws, from the classic preoccupation with land to more ephemeral material, such as air and genetic resources. When Things Become Property interrogates the mixed outcomes of conferring ownership by examining postsocialist land and forest reforms in Albania, Romania and Vietnam, and finds that property reforms are no longer, if they ever were, miracle tools available to governments for refashioning economies, politics or environments.

Thomas Sikor was Professor of Environment and Development at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.

Preface
List of Acronyms

Introduction: Turning things into property

PART I: AGRICULTURE: NEGOTIATING PROPERTY AND VALUE

Introduction
Chapter 1. Transnational migration, ethnicity, and property in Albania
Chapter 2. Livelihood traditions, worker-peasants, and peasant entrepreneurs in Romania
Chapter 3. Modernity, fantasies, and property in Vietnam

PART II: FORESTS: CONTESTING PROPERTY AND AUTHORITY

Introduction
Chapter 4. Forests, state, and custom in Albania
Chapter 5. Property, predators, and patrons in Romania
Chapter 6. Land allocation, loggers, and lawmakers in Vietnam

Conclusion: Postsocialist propertizing and the dynamics of property

Index