Geographies of state power: Territory in historical and spatial perspective (original) (raw)
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A Research Agenda for Territory and Territoriality
2020
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"…territory is a compromise between a mythical aspect and a rational or pragmatic one. It is three things: a piece of land, seen as a sacred heritage; a seat of power; and a functional space. It encompasses the dimensions of identity (…)… of authority (the state as an instrument of political, legal, police and military control over a population defined by its residence); and of administrative bureaucratic or economic efficiency in the management of social mechanisms, particularly of interdependence….The strength of the national territorial state depends upon the combination of these three dimensions." (Hassner, 1997, p. 57)
Territory, territorialisation, territoriality: Problems of definition and historical interpretation
Plurimondi an International Forum For Research and Debate on Human Settlements, 2013
Territory, territorialisation and territoriality are polysemic concepts. Efforts to come up with a shared notion have been numerous, and also quite effective. But the etymology of the Latin word territorium had actually a plurality of meanings. In the Middle Ages the concept was mainly associated to the notion of Jurisdiction, and this link implied that for medieval jurists it became quite normal to imagine that a single area could be interested not only by many jurisdictions, but also by many territories and therefore different forms of territoriality. In more recent times, this idea have been lost in favor of a statecentric notion, according to which the concept of territory would be considered primarily as the spatial projection of modern states and the salient features of territoriality should therefore be continuity, homogeneity, and isotropism. This 'traditional notion of territory' seems to still enjoy some luck with many disciplines, and also with the historians. But actually the notion poses several problems, and so it had better to be abandoned to return to imagine-as suggested also by the ethological, biological, and ethno-anthropological studiesdifferent possible forms of territoriality and many possible forms of territorialisation.
Syllabus: Territoriality and territory in geographic thought (2016)
This seminar focuses on two related concepts—territoriality and territory—that occupy a central place in human geographic thought. We will examine classic theories of territoriality/territory as well as recent conceptual debates. The terms are traditionally most associated with the fields of identity, nationalism and state sovereignty. While we will cover these topics, the course will also focus on more recent research concerned with social movements, power, and environmental politics. The aim of the course is to provide a comprehensive overview of the lineage and development of territoriality/territory in the discipline as well as the potential uses to which the concepts may be put work in geographic research. Participants should note that this is a reading-intensive course, with an average of 5-7 theoretical and empirical readings assigned each week.
Antonsich, M., Territory and territoriality, in the Association of American Geographers, The International Encyclopedia of Geography, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell (forthcoming)
Territory and territoriality are generally regarded as key concepts in political geography. While Anglophone geographers have privileged a rather politico-institutional understanding, closely related to the state and the notion of sovereignty, Francophone geographers have privileged a social and semiotic approach, which emphasizes the role people play in the production of territories. After having been dismissed as a relic of the past in an age of flows and networks and obfuscated by the hegemonic role place has played in geography, territory seems to have attracted new interest and gained momentum in the discipline in the last few years.
The territorial structure of the state: some critical reflections
2002
Reforms in the territorial structure of the state, whether in South Africa, France or elsewhere, join up with more academic interests. But in talking about the territorial structure of the state, we obviously need to know what this rather vague term is about. We know it has to do with electoral districting, the design of service areas, spatial planning and much more. But do these various concrete issues fit into a more coherent conception of the state and the way in which space intersects with its activities? Providing some guidelines on this has been the first priority in these notes. The second thing which I have felt important is understanding the way in which state structure, including its territorial structure, is never socially neutral. It is a product of struggles in society as a whole, different social forces come to colonize an inherited structure to their own advantage and then resist its reform, others seek to revamp the structure of the state in ways that will advantage ...
From hinterland to the global: new books on historical and political understandings of territory
Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 2015
These four books all, in different ways, rely upon and contribute to understandings of territory. They move from the very historical to the resolutely contemporary, and in two cases combine the political-historical in important and insightful ways. The most fully historical is Tom Scott's The City-state in Europe, which takes a broad comparative approach to the formation and transformation of polities in Western Europe from the high Middle Ages to the beginning of the early Modern period. One of its key contributions is to offer analysis of city-states outside of the Italian peninsula. While it does discuss this area at some length, it also has insightful analysis of other parts of Europe, including the geographical region of Germany and some especially helpful discussion of Switzerland. The reading of Cologne, for example, notes how the extent of the city's power extended unevenly from its urban centre. The region must not, we are told, "be seen as uniform or integrated, a clearly delineated market area functioning as a contado by other means". Instead, different trade markets extend in uneven ways, creating what Scott calls a "variable geometry" which distinguishes the economic region of Cologne from a "territorial city-state" (page 147). This outlining of the multiple political-spatial forms which cities could take in relation to surrounding areas is one of the best aspects of the book. In this respect, the subtitle is revealing (see page 236). The analysis does indeed provide some valuable insights into the shifting interrelation between hinterland, territory, and region. One of the key developments in this period was from cities that had territories, in the classical Latin sense of surrounding lands, to territories within which there were cities-a more modern understanding that has become the dominant meaning. The older idea of a territory was indeed much closer to that of a hinterland, of areas outside an urban core. If the book lacks an explicit analysis of this transition in theoretical terms, it provides a great deal of historical-geographical detail that is very helpful in tracing those larger processes. The book as a whole tends to shy away from broad generalisations, but provides the kind of specificity that those kinds of analyses are often forced to neglect (see Elden, 2013). The book's strength, then, is in the historical evidence provided, in the documentary resources mobilized and the ability to work with sources in multiple languages. It is less secure conceptually, with occasional frustrating ambiguity. At one point Scott notes that "we are only tangentially concerned" with political theory (page 51), and this shows in the imprecision with which key terms are used. Unfortunately, one of these is the very idea of territory, which is often used to translate quite disparate terms. For example, with respect † A review of The Cartographic State: Maps, Territory, and the Origins of Sovereignty by