Inheriting Entitlement: Property, Whiteness and Rape

Dr Sarah Keenan (School of Law, SOAS, University of London

This work in progress will begin to question the ways in which particular kinds of personal entitlement and structures of violence are maintained over multiple generations.  Specifically, the paper will draw on feminist and critical race theory to put forward a way of understanding whiteness and heterosexual masculinity as tangible forms of property that are passed down like other kinds of property, and that enable racialised and gendered violence.  Working with this understanding of property, the paper will then examine processes of inheritance to question how these properties are maintained over time.

Sarah Keenan researches and teaches feminist legal theory, post-colonial theory and property at SOAS School of Law.  Her book 'Subversive Property: Law and the Production of Spaces of Belonging' is forthcoming with Routledge Social Justice series in 2014.

Organiser: Gina Heathcote

Contact email: gh21@soas.ac.uk

Contact Tel: 020 7898 4367