Private Property, No Trespassing: Signs of Trespass, or Mapping Property as Performance

Keywords: cartography, land ownership, policing, property, trespass, transgression, Vancouver, England
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Property is constantly performed, negotiated and redefined, but is often perceived as inherent, non-negotiable and fixed. Trespass, to cross the boundary of private property, lends particular insight into this conflict. Drawing from critical cartography and legal studies, this paper maps the performance of property and the policing of trespass in “Vancouver, Canada”, where I live and learn on unceded First Nations territories; and England, my home and fieldsite.

In 2020, the Vancouver Police Department launched the Trespass Prevention Program, expanding police powers under British Columbia's Trespass Act. In 2022, the UK Government introduced the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, which broadens the definition of ‘aggravated trespass’, a criminal offence. By redefining trespass, and empowering police to mediate between landowners and land users, these recent changes exacerbate the spatial marginalisation of unhoused and racialised communities.

Who becomes a trespasser, and when? Where exactly is the boundary? Answers will vary between spatio-temporal contexts. I use two spatial practices to understand the performance of property and the changing politics of landownership. Informed by deep mapping, I document every trespass sign I encounter in my everyday life, including decals introduced under the Trespass Prevention Program. Using mental sketch mapping, I explore how land rights activists in England understand enclosure as continuous; how organised trespass configures relationships to enclosed spaces and prefigures a ‘right to roam’. The paper reflects on these practices, and how they reveal ‘fixed’ property to be a legal fiction.