Theft Is Property!: Dispossession and Critical Theory

“Theft Is Property! is an intellectually riveting and necessary critical consideration of the genealogy of dispossession as it is used to different ends by Indigenous scholars and activists and within Marxist critiques of capitalism and labor. Its emphasis on the normativity of dispossession as a recursive theft into property formation that explains the structural formation of settler colonialism will be a central text in shaping discussions around why Indigenous critique matters beyond identity politics.” — Jodi A. Byrd, author of The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism

“In this extraordinary work of political theory, Robert Nichols offers a wholesale revision of the conceptual problematic of dispossession in light of the history of settler colonialism and in a context of contemporary Indigenous resurgence. Through sustained engagements with critical race theory, Marxism, and feminism, Nichols forcefully reanimates the moral sense and political understanding of Indigenous dispossession as a recursive process by which proprietary claims of settlers have been constituted and Indigenous subjects simultaneously made bereft of something they never claimed to own—a transformation of theft into property. This profound and pathbreaking work will change the conversation across several fields.” — Nikhil Pal Singh, author of Race and America’s Long War

"Nichols’ book certainly adds to the scholarly literature about the subjects of property, dispossession, slavery, and the resistance of the various people affected to the injustices done to them. The book is timely: this is the right moment in history for such a book to appear. . . . The book is highly recommended." — John T. Sneed, International Social Science Review

"Theft is Property! will prove an important and influential book. It is an exemplary work of political theory, which makes its political and methodological arguments with exceptional clarity and precision. The dialogue Nichols stages, drawing from anarchism, Marxism, critical race theory, and feminism alongside Indigenous political thought, is sure to have a wide-ranging impact across multiple fields. Most significantly, Theft is Property! will prove a landmark text in studies of dispossession and counterdispossession, centering Indigenous scholarship and activism while elaborating a broader problematic that requires further attention and investigation." — Christopher Balcom, Contemporary Political Theory

"Nichols’s historically grounded text is essential reading for anyone seeking a broader critical understanding of dispossession at the intersection of contract law, land seizure, and class warfare." — Caitlin Simmons, Western American Literature

"With incredible precision, dexterity, and clarity, Theft is Property! leaves us with the diverse modalities of dispossession in relation to bodily integrity and selfhood as well as land and the nonhuman world—which far exceed the discrete parameters of property and territory." — Iyko Day, American Quarterly

"Theft is Property! is an act of expressive insurgency.… This is a complex and deeply layered book that will repay multiple readings." — Shane Chalmers, Theory & Event

"Theft is Property! powerfully demonstrates the rich promises and remaining challenges of scholarship on [settler colonialism, race, and capitalism]—and the potential role for critical theory therein." — Paul M. Gutierrez, Perspectives on Politics

"An erudite, nuanced, and politically incisive work, Robert Nichols moves deftly in Theft is Property! through the interstices of political theory, critical Indigenous studies, and the Black radical tradition, revealing points of contact by recasting and reorienting enduring questions of dispossession and alienation." — Brenna Bhandar, Political Theory

"Theft Is Property! quietly but decidedly calls us to collective action and expressive insurgency, laying the groundwork for multigenerational, transnational struggles of counter-dispossession." — Sandy Grande, Political Theory

"For those of us outside of the field of political/critical theory, Nichols’s Theft Is Property! is an important reminder of the instability of core critical concepts and the advantages of putting them into dialogue with the conditions of their specific contexts." — Rita M. Palacios, Native American and Indigenous Studies

"For scholars of critical agrarian studies, Nichols’s work provides room for extension into scholarship of empire, Marxism, and critical race theory while remaining true to the field’s interrogations of rights and property. As it is demonstrated so beautifully throughout the text, to engage with the paradoxes and contradictions in our work might require us to zoom out enough to see the relationships across multiple methodologies and macrohistorical processes." — Donna Doan Anderson, Journal of Peasant Studies

"Nichols’s disaggregated synthesis of the insights of Marxism and the Indigenous and Black traditions of the Anglosphere will be a vital guide." — Christopher Geary, Qui Parle

Honorable Mention, 2021 Charles Taylor Book Award, presented by the American Political Science Association

About the Author

Robert Nichols is Associate Professor of Political Theory at the University of Minnesota and author of The World of Freedom: Heidegger, Foucault, and the Politics of Historical Ontology.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments  ix
Introduction  1
1. That Sole and Despotic Dominion  16
2. Marx, after the Feast  52
3. Indigenous Structural Critique  85
4. Dilemmas of Self-Ownership, Rituals of Antiwill  116
Conclusion  144
Notes  161
Bibliography  203
Index  225