This podcast delves into the transformative journey of land's value, moving beyond simple market and state dynamics to explore its profound ontological shifts. Drawing on the insights of "Capital Redefined," we unravel the infra-processes of decommonization where land’s inherent worth – its "true value" as "place, territory, and ecological-social life support" – is perverted into "fetish value".In each episode, we will trace how:
• Reification strips land of its agency, converting it from a living territory into "real estate" or a mere object for extraction.
• Fetishization then elevates this reified land-as-asset, normalising its market form and making people existentially dependent on its valuations, often obscuring the loss of "community stability, conviviality, ecological integrity".
• Appropriation locks land into proprietary circuits through "enclosure, privatization, and new frontiers," redirecting its purpose from collective flourishing to private accumulation, as seen in "modern land grabbing" or the UK public land sell-off.
• We will also examine "civilizing meta-mechanisms" – regulations and policies that, while dampening instabilities, often leave the core perversion intact, sometimes even co-opting dissent.
Crucially, the podcast also explores the recommonization of land, a powerful counter-movement that reverses this trajectory. We’ll investigate:
• De-reification, which restores land's "lost subjectivity" and inherent relational qualities, as exemplified by community-supported agriculture and the legal personhood of landscapes like Te Urewera and the Whanganui River.
• De-fetishization, challenging the illusion that commodified nature is the only way to interact with land, often driven by Indigenous land rights and environmental justice campaigns.
• Reclaiming (de-appropriation), which liberates land from private control, fostering collective well-being through initiatives like "Land Back" movements, Community Land Trusts (CLTs), and Scotland's community right-to-buy schemes.
• These originative meta-mechanisms aim to generate "common graces" – measurable improvements in collective capabilities to thrive, such as permanently affordable housing, regenerated ecosystems, and democratic self-determination.
Through contemporary illustrations from "public land sell-offs and platformized housing to Land Back, personhood of place, CLTs, and community buyouts", this podcast asks a fundamental question: "which infra-processes are being activated, toward which final cause?". We aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of how land’s value is contested and transformed, exploring pathways towards a regenerative and shared flourishing beyond capital