Anthropological approaches to property law and economics

Abstract

This paper confronts law and economics approaches to property with empirical and theoretical insights from legal anthropology. It is argued that law and economics scholars have given little attention to the elaboration of a comparative analytical framework with which to describe and analyze property rights systems. Property is dealt with mainly in the sphere of private law and in the synchronic dimension. Consequently, little attention is given to the political nature of (public) property rights and to processes of inheritance. Moreover, its methodological (individualist) assumptions leave little room for the analysis of the interrelations between individual interactions and social change, in particular in plural legal property systems. The normative and teleological orientation of law and economics are quite different from legal anthropology, an academic specialism primarily devoted to description, analysis and cautious theoretical generalization. It is concluded that law and economics is more an ‘economic jurisprudence’ than a social scientific study of law in society.