What usually happens to me when I fix my gaze at an object offered up for
cyber discussion like this is that it starts crumbling. It goes fractal...
where are we? Let me just catalogue some of the possibilities I'm not
following through:
If lazy Marxism says ownership is all about capitalism then the meticulous
version of Marxism would write tomes about the historical development of
ownership up to and through capitalism -- the different meanings and
structures of socially practiced ownership in different societies over
time. Then the descriptions of these forms of ownership in term of defining
essentials might be made in terms of economic process or in terms of
legislation or...
Where are we?
And turning to the languages: the galaxy of means for mediating possessive
relations... I should think it is quite dazzling and quite heterogeneous --
just observing that what is "mine" can be a part of me, or something that
I am a part of just as well as something that I have bought, inherited or
been given. A characteristic, an affliction... what have you (what can I
call mine?)...
The psychology of all this I won't even mention... except for noting that
the linking of the processes of ownership and identity sounds like a
productive approach (for the appropriate purpose, of course).
Eva
eva.ekeblad who-is-at ped.gu.se