Brenna Bhandar

Professor Brenna Bhandar

Small Group Project 2020-22

From Acts of Dispossession to Practices of Commoning: Re-considering the Life-worlds of Property

The historic and ongoing dispossession of land and resources from First Nations and indigenous communities throughout the Americas is both a site of intensive academic and scholarly investigation, and social mobilisation and resistance. Today, the threat posed by extractivist industries to the health and survival of First Nations and the environment have prompted coalitional and solidarity activism at sites such as Standing Rock Indian Reservation in the U.S., and the Unist’ot’en Camp in Northern British Columbia, Canada. These protests embody a resurgence of indigenous claims for sovereignty over their land, and a rejection of the colonial settler property relations and legal forms that are at the root of their dispossession.

More information

Areas of interest

Property Law Law Property Critical Theory Colonial History Legal History Critical Race Theory Feminism

Cohort

FG6

Biography

Prior to joining the Peter A Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia in 2021, Brenna Bhandar was a Reader in Law and Critical Theory at SOAS, University of London, and previously held faculty positions at Queen Mary School of Law, Kent Law School and the University of Reading Law School. She has also held visiting appointments at L’École des hautes études en science sociales (Paris) and the Stellenbosch University Faculty of Law (South Africa).

Professor Bhandar’s research and teaching lie within the fields of property law, critical theory, colonial legal history and critical race feminism. She is the author or editor of 4 volumes, including Colonial Lives of Property: Law Land and Racial Regimes of Ownership, published in 2018 with Duke University Press, and the co-authored book of interviews (with Rafeef Ziadah) Revolutionary Feminisms: Conversations on Collective Action and Radical Thought published in 2020 with Verso. Her work has been translated into Catalan, Spanish, German and Italian.

Brenna is a research associate at the Centre for Palestine Studies, SOAS, University of London, and a member of the Radical Philosophy editorial collective. She is happy to supervise doctoral and post-doctoral researchers working broadly in the areas of property, critical theory, race, geography and colonialism.

Biographical details correct as of 29.04.26