The instruction to become a "Landowner" : land privatization policies and the people in post-socialist Mongolia

This article deals with the land privatization that has been taken place in Mongolia since the post-socialist 1990s transition. It aims to describe the changes that this land privatization has brought to peoples lives. There are many theories that deal with the land privatization in non-Western societies. The anthropological works dealing with this subject have been focused on the relation that takes place between the native "traditional" possession system and the "modern" Western system. Nowadays this relation is increasingly being described in terms of a dichotomy: the global or the local. This article, however, will examine privatization policies from another perspective. In Mongolia, jurists and government officers instruct people on privatization policies. They explain to populace the meaning of being an owner,and teach them all the necessary procedures to become one. Instead of focusing on the law and the new ownership system, I will focus on the citizens' instruction that takes place during the land privatization. I focus on two families that live in the Ger district of the city of Ulaanbaatar. While examine these families' lives before and after the application of the 2003's Land Ownership Low, I aim to show how people differently interpret what means to "own" the land