The stealing of the seashore as a second wave of the enclosure movement: Examples from the Mediterranean.

The liminal space between the land and the sea has become a space which facilitates society's understanding regarding the notion of the commons. By commons in this case we refer to the cultural and natural resources which are held or produced in common and are accessible to all members of a society. They have no official legal status particularly in the Western societies as physical space is defined as either public or private property. The commons are enclosed during times of crisis, and transformed into private property. The first wave of enclosures intensified in England around the 17th century and in the rest of Western Europe around the 19th century – a process which social historians and commons theorists attribute to the changes in the relations between society, land and property. In this paper the proposition that the seashore is analogous to the common lands of the past is put forward, and current attempts for privatization and commercial exploitation of the seashore can be understood as a modern wave of enclosure. By referring to theories and existing literature linked with the commons, enclosures and Lefebvre's understanding of space, this paper explores the links and the analogies between the first wave of enclosures (common lands) and the more recent second wave focusing on the seashore in three Mediterranean countries, namely Lebanon, Greece and the Republic of Cyprus. With regards to the second enclosure in particular, attention is given to the policy tools which are being put forward so that the seashore's enhanced economic potential can be fully exploited. The first enclosures in the studied countries created a large pool of small land-owners and thus a specific conception of land and private property as an important feature of land. Nevertheless, there is still societal opposition to the enclosure of the seashore, something which can be linked to society's experiences and the conception of the seashore as a commons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]