The English land question, and how trespassers map epistemic enclosure
department or school: Arts, Faculty of
department or school: Geography, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Pojuner, Isabella
issued: 2025-01-13T21:28:56Z
issued: 2024
related degree: Master of Arts - MA
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: Since the 19th century, national debates surrounding the English land question have both declined and narrowed in scope. In this thesis, I survey academic and independent research into the contemporary political economy of land in Britain. Finding these contributions are institutionally constrained, I turn to examine the broader political economy of knowledge production since the English enclosure movement. The development of land registration infrastructure, associated surveying practices, and uses and disciplining of ‘trespass’ each have consequences for customary, collective, and institutional memory. Who owns land? Who can access it? Who defines the land question? These are related concerns. I coordinate these consequences and concerns into the concept of epistemic enclosure. In light of the initial breadth and subsequent decline of the English land question, I analyse Right to Roam, a national campaign for greater land access rights. Rooted in a breadth of discursive contributions to the land question, it mobilises public support by organising mass and local acts of civil, intentional trespass. As it aims to transform English property culture, I characterise Right to Roam as a relational rather than recreational access campaign, in part because it exercises a memory of dispossession in England and beyond. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews, I give an account of four trespasses I participated in from 2022-2023. These trespasses act as spaces to engage with the English land question and develop responsible relationships to land. Deploying the critical cartographic method of mental sketch mapping with participants in trespass, I demonstrate the method itself performs property relations. Alongside acts of trespass, it enables participants to address their ‘mindwall’, or relationship to performances of private property, and reinscribe collective memory of land relations in enclosed space. In doing so, they trace terra incognita through trespass, mappin…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/90116
note: THE ENGLISH LAND QUESTION, AND HOW TRESPASSERS MAP EPISTEMIC ENCLOSURE by Isabella Pojuner BSc Government and History, London School of Economics, 2020 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (Geography) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) December 2024 © Isabella Pojuner 2024 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled: The English land question, and how trespassers map epistemic enclosure submitted by Isabella Pojuner in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Geography Examining Committee: Dr. Trevor Barnes, Professor, Department of Geography, UBC Supervisor Dr. Priti Narayan, Associate Professor, Department of Geography, UBC Supervisory Committee Member iii Abstract Since the 19th century, national debates surrounding the English land question have both declined and narrowed in scope. In this thesis, I survey academic and independent research into the contemporary political economy of land in Britain. Finding these contributions are institutionally constrained, I turn to examine the broader political economy of knowledge production since the English enclosure movement. The development of land registration infrastructure, associated surveying practices, and uses and disciplining of ‘trespass’ each have consequences for customary, collective, and institutional memory. Who owns land? Who can access it? Who defines the land question? These are related concerns. I coordinate these consequences and concerns into the concept of epistemic enclosure. In light of the initial breadth and subsequent decline of the English land question, I analyse Right to Roam, a national campaign for greater land access rights. Rooted in a breadth of discursive contributions to the land question, it mobilises public support b…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2025-05
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0447738
language: eng
degree discipline: Geography
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Barnes, Trevor J.
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/90116