Land Inequalities in the US

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