Faculty of Philosophy Religion, Society, and World Relations Knowledge, Spaces, and Media Research

A02 Property in one’s own body and in the bodies of others in the United States between the eighteenth and twentieth century

Subproject A02 in the SFB TRR294 "Structural Change of Property". The subproject explores the ownership of others’ bodies based on the history of slavery in the USA. (Funding phase 1)

Duration
01/2021 - 12/2024

Project management

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Martschukat
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Martschukat
Holder of the professorship for North American History (Nordamerikanische Geschichte) (History Department)
+49 361 737-4411
+49 361 737-4419
Dr. Felix Krämer
PD Dr. Felix Krämer
Neuere und Nordamerikanische Geschichte (History Department)
+49 361 737-2824
+49 361 737-4419

Team

Helen Anne Gibson

Moana Jean Packo

Main project

Related projects

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B01: Contestation over Property Regimes and Housing: (Un)doing Commodified Urban Land Ownership in India and Germany Prof. Dr. Martin Fuchs
A01: Ambiguous Property: From Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages Dr. Sofia Bianchi Mancini,
Prof. Dr. Jörg Rüpke,
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A03: Property as a Medium of Habit Formation: On the Political Anthropology of Property in the 19th Century Prof. Dr. Bernhard Lothar Kleeberg,
Prof. Dr. Martin Mulsow
A02: Racial Capitalism: Property Relationships of Black Families in the Age of Segregation Prof. Dr. Jürgen Martschukat
C06 Making things available Prof. Dr. Hartmut Rosa,
Dr. Jörg Oberthür
C01 Hybrid ownership structures Prof. Dr. Carsten Caspary
Clash or Convergence of capitalisms PD Dr. Stefan Schmalz
B01 Urban property regimes Prof. Dr. Martin Fuchs,
Prof. Dr. Beatrice Renzi
A03 Property and habit Prof. Dr. Bernhard Lothar Kleeberg,
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A01 Divine property Prof. Dr. Jörg Rüpke,
Prof. Dr. Markus Hermann Vinzent

The subproject focuses, firstly, on the question of how humans were made into objects of property and how that situation was transposed from the colonial era into the property structure of the new USA and legitimised as a racist social order.

Secondly, the project investigates the desire of the enslaved to become subjects of property – primarily, by buying themselves back. Thirdly, it examines the causal relationship between slavery and modern-day inequality of ownership through the lens of the current debate on reparation payments for the descendants of slaves.

Property research North American History

Cooperation partner

Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena

Universität Oldenburg

TU Darmstadt

FU Berlin

Profile field

Religion, Society, and World Relations

Knowledge, Spaces, and Media