Whiteness as Property

This volume revisits legal scholar Cheryl I. Harris' influential concept of ‘whiteness as property,’ which shows how racial identity has been transformed into a legally protected property interest throughout U.S. history. Building on Harris' groundbreaking analysis, this book traces how this logic has shaped legal orders, property relations, and everyday life from colonial origins to the present day. Through eight compelling case studies, contributors reveal how whiteness operates within legal and political institutions, continually securing advantages for some while systematically denying them to others. The volume explores the racialization and criminalization of poverty, exploitation of Black labour, challenges to affirmative action, and dispossession of non-white communities through land and housing policies.

Timely and incisive, this collection illuminates how the past lives on in the present, offering a powerful lens for understanding widening inequalities, the current racial backlash, and the high stakes struggles that are redefining American democracy today. It is essential reading for scholars and students of American studies, critical race theory, legal history, and sociology. The chapters in this book were previously published as a special issue in Ethnic and Racial Studies.