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

A03 Property and habit. On the political anthropology of ownership in Western modernity

Subproject A03 in the SFB TRR294 "Structural Change of Property". The project is dedicated to the political anthropology of ownership between the eighteenth and early twentieth century. It investigates an assumption that is widespread in the humanities: that ownership structures bring about the formation of specific habits. (Funding phase 1)

Duration
01/2021 - 12/2024

Project management

Holder of the Chair for the History of Science (History Department)
Prof. Dr. Martin Mulsow
Holder of the professorship Wissenskulturen der Europäischen Neuzeit (Faculty of Philosophy)

Main project

Related projects

C06: Property as a World Relationship: Disposal, Care, Use: A Comparative Analysis in Ger-many and China Prof. Dr. Carsten Caspary,
Prof. Dr. Hartmut Rosa,
Dr. Jörg Oberthür
A01: Ambiguous Property: From Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages Dr. Sofia Bianchi Mancini,
Prof. Dr. Jörg Rüpke,
Prof. Dr. Markus Hermann Vinzent
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
A02 Property in the body Prof. Dr. Jürgen Martschukat,
PD Dr. Felix Krämer
A01 Divine property Prof. Dr. Jörg Rüpke,
Prof. Dr. Markus Hermann Vinzent

The project's central hypothesis, which stems from the dichotomy between nomadism and permanent settlement, is the belief that private ownership gives rise to good habits, such as self-discipline, making it beneficial to the development of civilisation.

It juxtaposes the academic history of the corresponding positions and their incorporation into various patterns of interpretation and logics of development, ranging from the theory of the four humours to the psychology of peoples, with a Governmentality-based historical analysis of government through ownership.