In this term’s online seminar series – Owning Natures: Property, Ecology and Conservation – we’ve been thinking about the relationships between ecologies and property regimes. How do different schemes of property or use rights over land and waters shape people’s interactions with the ecosystems present? Who owns land, and what effects does this have on other people, plants, and animals? And in the face of multiple environmental crises, what kind of ownership structures might be models to work towards for a just, more livable future?

In this seminar we venture to address these questions through a look into the more distant past, with talks from two different scholars examining early land ownership regimes in Europe. In her talk, Mette Løvschal (Aarhus University) will explore anthropogenic heathlands in late prehistoric Northern Europe, while Susan Oosthuizen (University of Cambridge) will take us to a peat wetland in early medieval Britain. 

Further details on the talks and biographies of the speakers are included below. To attend the seminar, please sign up here.