Land Inequalities in the United States

Abstract

Outside of Indigenous studies, sociologists tend to treat land in the United States as governed exclusively by an entrenched private-property regime: Land is a commodity and an object for individual control. This review presents land in the United States as more complicated and contingent. State law and related ideas comprise a dominant, hegemonic power that often appears unitary, coherent, and all-powerful. And yet, land takes on diverse cultural, legal, and material forms-within written laws and official practices, and in informal practices and cultures. Inequalities emerge as these different forms of land provide power, material goods, and a sense of belonging to some while excluding others, and as marginalized groups assert access, security, and meaning in land. Three sections of the review-land tenures, land regulations, and social identities-present conversations about how human relationships with land diverge from the treatment of land as a settled object for individual control.