Property Taskforce

A former initiative of POLIS, Property Taskforce was an action-oriented think-tank active in 2006-2008 that addressed the barriers private property regimes pose to ecological governance, indigenous sovereignty and political freedom. Property Taskforce sought to explore and expose a common technology of control underpinning the expansion of property rights found, for example, in software development, agricultural production, patents on life, the public sector and ecosystem services. Property Taskforce also sought to highlight worldwide indigenous, peasant, and urban resistance to the propertization of life itself through the adoption and persistence of collective property enterprises and forms of life.

Some projects that Property Taskforce was involved with include research and action collaborations around affordable housing and mapping “off grid” spaces in urban centres. 

The Property Taskforce website was moderated by Shiri Pasternak. 

Related Resources and Links

• “Property, Power, Freedom” by Shiri Pasternak (Z Mag, 2006)
• “Polis Project on Ecological Governance: Private/Public Lives” Plenary Panel, Canadian Association of Law Teachers Conference 2006 
• The Commons Conference, co-sponsored by POLIS in April 2006 as part of the Forum on Privatization and the Public Domain
• National Conference on Organized Resistance (NCOR) 2007 
• Renewing the Anarchist Tradition (RAT) 2007