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.