Rule and measureKomel, Svit (Avtor) Škrubej, Katja (Mentor) Müller-Wille , Staffan (Komentor) surveypower-knowledgepractical knowledgefeudalism to capitalismhistory of propertycivil lawcodificationoriginal accumulationIn this dissertation, I argue that a particular form of power-knowledge emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which I call the survey. Examples of surveys include cadastral measurements, inventories of local measurement units, compilations of customary law, geological and meteorological surveys, etc. The common goal and result of these surveys was the systematic recording of local phenomena, objects, practices, and practical knowledge, like property boundaries or characteristics of land, plants, and animals. I illustrate how such surveys developed into a specific manner of governing the local through the production of knowledge about habitual social relations and material conditions of daily life by studying the example of the so-called redemption and regulation of peasant “easements”. The purpose of this reform, proclaimed by the Patent of 5 July 1853, was to record and abolish the collective rights of village communities in forests, pastures and other commonly exploited lands in the entire Habsburg monarchy. Together with the land relief, which abolished feudal land tenure, the redemption replaced old land property relations with a new form of undivided and exclusive ownership. Similar to previous attempts to restrict communal land rights, the contrivers of the redemption at the interior ministry classified these rights as easements—as burdens on lands that were attributed exclusively to another person, generally the former manors. However, they departed from both received Roman law and the Habsburg civil code, redefining the term easement as any land right that is “harmful to the national economy”. Examining petitions, protests, and complaints, I contrast the view of the surveyors with the juridical knowledge of the peasants, who often defended their rights as “parts” in communal land and as property. Analysing disputes reveals the extensive expropriation of village communities and the influence of the survey as a particular form of power-knowledge on the transformation of land property, proletarianization, and the development of capitalism in the Austrian Empire.20252025-12-19 09:00:16Doktorsko delo/naloga177266VisID: 135646sl