The Birth of Territory
... Boundaries which act as spatial barriers are most often expressed institutionally, with very strong protection achieved in regard to neighbouring enemies. Barrier effects, especially those achieving strong protection of territory, a specific geopolitical aspect and an effective blockading of border crossings, can be further intensified through the designation of closed zones and areas (Elden, 2013;Guichonet & Raffestin, 1974). Peripheries isolated in this way may indeed become closed zones in which it is not only crossing the border per se that is forbidden entry, but also encroachment upon the wider border zone. ...
... The effect is always to promote the real and perceived (sense of) isolation in borderlands. Often these were actually areas, representing limits and edges of control that might be exercised, but also offering a kind of buffering, while also embodying and even encouraging or enhancing emptiness (Elden, 2013;Guichonet & Raffestin, 1974). Sometimes border areas are isolated, for military reasons, e.g. in circumstances of countries being enemies and seeking to protect their own territory. ...
The paper develops a conceptual framework for interpreting the process of border changes in Poland since 1945. In this article, the author presents directions of change, and the functions, characterising Poland’s borders. A synthesis of relevant literature on borders shows how the specific functions of borderlands can be categorised into at least four overarching types, including by reference to barriers, peripherality and isolation, line of differentiation, and axis of integration. This then gains verification through empirical analysis of processes actually taking place along the borders of Poland. It proves possible to identify and take account of periods of isolation, transformation and European integration. However, the analysis also takes account of the most recent phenomena characterising the last few years (2020–2024), during which the Polish borders have moved back in a “rebordering” direction. The Author proposes the new concept of dynamic (cyclical) change of border function types after using Polish borders as an example of empirical analysis.
... Son extensos los estudios en torno al papel del espacio y la arquitectura dentro de los dispositivos soberanos y disciplinares (Elden, 2013;Wallenstein, 2009); sin embargo, hay un trabajo pendiente para entender las arquitecturas de la ambientalidad, 2 donde los espacios, y nuestra capacidad de acción en ellos, se definen a través del medio. ...
... The studies around the role of space and architecture within sovereign and disciplinary devices are extensive (Elden, 2013;Wallenstein, 2009); however, there is work pending to understand the architectures of environmentality, 2 where spaces, and our capacity of action in them, are defined through the milieu. ...
En 1979, Michel Foucault define la ambientalidad como una forma de poder en la que el control se ejerce a través del diseño y la modulación del medio. Un medio tecnosimbiótico donde se fusionan el medio (milieu) de la biología, la geografía o la historia, y el medio (media) de la comunicación y las tecnologías de la información. Si el papel de la arquitectura en los dispositivos soberanos y disciplinares es más conocido, hay un trabajo pendiente para entender la arquitectónica en el corazón de la ambientalidad. Partimos de una diagramación afectivo- espacial del mundo circundante, entendido como una ecología de signos capaces de afectar a un individuo – semióticas texturales–, para analizar después la aparición de semióticas infraestructurales en el capitalismo del siglo XX, conjuntos de señales discretas que dirigen y disponen al cuerpo, modulando sus ámbitos de posibilidad y automatizando sus comportamientos. En el conflicto entre ambas semióticas, apuntamos la posibilidad de pensar la textura, el ruido y los afectos como fuente de rebelión, en tanto afirmación de un nosotros más-que-humano.
... While borders and bordering practices are commonly unquestioned as one of the main pillars of the modern, territorial state (Elden, 2013), it is no longer a matter of debate that all boundaries are a historical-social construction (Agnew, 1994;Penrose, 2002). Of course, this is also undisputable for the so-called natural borders. ...
... For Porto-Gonçalves, territory is a dense category that presupposes a geographical space that is appropriated, and this process of appropriation, that he calls "territorialization" is what "gives rise to identitiesterritorialities -that are inscribed in processes, therefore, dynamic and mutable, materializing at each moment a specific order, a specific territorial configuration, a social topology" (Porto-Gonçalves, 2002, p. 230). According to Elden (2013) the territory emerges in Western political thought, because of the relations between place and power. Taking the sum of these elements he understands territory "as a distinctive mode of social/spatial organization, one that is historically and geographically limited and dependent, rather than a biological drive or social need. ...
This article analyses the ties to the territory and peacebuilding processes in the rural populations of the municipalities of La Unión and El Carmen de Viboral in the region of eastern Antioquia, a territory heavily affected by the Colombian armed conflict. A qualitative methodology was employed under a historical-hermeneutic approach, using in-depth interviews, focus groups, and pedagogical workshops as data collection techniques. The information was analysed following the guidelines of grounded theory. Land restitution in the studied area is progressing slowly, in a fragmented and inequitable manner, affecting the rooting of the rural population to the land; however, the organizational processes shape practices of situated peace, as they are produced from the experience of subjects and collectives with the capacity for agency and transformation. This is a practice that generates knowledge on how peace is built in the territory. RESUMEN Este artículo analiza los vínculos con la tierra, y los procesos de construcción de paz en las poblaciones rurales de los municipios de La Unión y El Carmen de Viboral en el Oriente antioqueño, territorio fuertemente golpeado por el conflicto armado colombiano. Utilizamos una metodología cualitativa bajo un enfoque histórico-hermenéutico, empleamos como técnicas de recolección de información entrevistas a profundidad, y grupos focales. La información la analizamos siguiendo los lineamientos de la teoría fundamentada. La restitución de tierras en la zona estudiada avanza lenta, fragmentaria e inequitativamente afectando el arraigo de la población rural a la tierra, no obstante, los procesos organizativos configuran prácticas de la paz situada, en tanto es producida desde la experiencia de sujetos y colectivos con capacidad de agencia y transformación. Es una práctica que genera un saber sobre cómo se construye la paz en el territorio.
... 9 Unter einer liberal-repräsentativen Modulation des Demokratischen kann mensch eine spezifische "In-Form-Setzung" (Lefort 1999, S. 39) verstehen, die gleichzeitig "den Begriff des In-Sinn-Setzens und den Begriff des In-Szene-Setzens der sozialen Beziehungen impliziert" (ebd.). Oder noch anders: Aus einer multitudo, einer wilden Versammlung von Leidenschaften, Bewegungen, Kräften, Materialien, Säften, Geräuschen, Geschwindigkeiten, Festigkeiten, Flächen, Unebenheiten, Körpern, Symbolen, Verdichtungen wird durch die Modulation ein Territorium gerendert, in dem Individuen verteilt sind (siehe Foucault 2004a;Foucault 2004b;Elden 2013;Virno 2019;Friedrichs 2023). In diesem Sinne ist die Modulation eine Verräumlichung, die in einer Synthetisierung/Ausrichtung der multitudo und (und!) einer Verteilung von Positionen besteht: "[S]pace may be envisaged as relational arrangements in which actors, objects, and technologies are both placing and being placed. ...
... There are others. The overall point is that it might be helpful to think of this logic as being guided by a principle of control over the relations involved, both 302 Fences and Biosecurity to define what those relations consist of and to attempt to control how they are territorially arranged (a concept of place as territory is evidently an important part of that; see Elden 2013). This underlying logic appears to be particularly prevalent in contexts such as those described in this book, where Euro-American concepts developed since the eighteenth century prevail over at least administrative and scientific management. ...
Fences and Biosecurity explores the role of fencing as a mechanism of control, exclusion, and power in the name of biosecurity. While biosecurity is broadly understood as the set of measures taken to prevent the introduction and spread of harmful organisms – thereby protecting humans, animals, and plants – this volume critically examines how fencing has become a key tool in these efforts. Through an interdisciplinary lens, the chapters reveal the ways in which fences, both physical and symbolic, shape social, political, and ecological landscapes.
This volume brings together scholars from different regions to investigate the ways in which biosecurity fencing is deployed across different contexts in Europe and North America. As fencing practices increase in scope and intensity, it becomes imperative to assess their effects – both intended and unintended – on human and non-human life. More than passive structures, fences actively participate in the governance of space, reinforcing borders, and regulating mobility. They embody biosecurity concerns, turning abstract discourses into tangible barriers that impact everyday life. Yet, fences are not merely practical tools; they also serve as powerful symbols of fear, control, and exclusion. While they may provide protection, they also create division, evoking a range of intellectual and emotional reactions and raising questions about their long-term implications.
Fences and Biosecurity highlights how fencing, as a manifestation of biosecurity anxieties, is not only about managing biological threats but also about organizing the world into hierarchies of value. By delineating spatial boundaries, fences impose distinctions between what is considered safe and what is framed as dangerous or invasive. This separation of differently valued species and biological matter is not neutral; rather, it is deeply entangled with political imaginaries, economic interests, and global trade dynamics. Fences facilitate the circulation of capital while simultaneously restricting the movement of certain species and populations, making them instruments of governance rather than mere physical barriers. While fences physically separate spaces, they also reshape cultural understandings of risk, security, and belonging. By shifting the focus from biosecurity as an abstract policy concern to fencing as a material and discursive practice, this volume reveals the ways in which security measures are enacted on the ground.
... There are others. The overall point is that it might be helpful to think of this logic as being guided by a principle of control over the relations involved, both to define what those relations consist of and to attempt to control how they are territorially arranged (a concept of place as territory is evidently an important part of that; see Elden 2013). This underlying logic appears to be particularly prevalent in contexts such as those described in this book, where Euro-American concepts developed since the eighteenth century prevail over at least administrative and scientific management. ...
Fences and Biosecurity explores the role of fencing as a mechanism of control, exclusion, and power in the name of biosecurity. While biosecurity is broadly understood as the set of measures taken to prevent the introduction and spread of harmful organisms – thereby protecting humans, animals, and plants – this volume critically examines how fencing has become a key tool in these efforts. Through an interdisciplinary lens, the chapters reveal the ways in which fences, both physical and symbolic, shape social, political, and ecological landscapes.
This volume brings together scholars from different regions to investigate the ways in which biosecurity fencing is deployed across different contexts in Europe and North America. As fencing practices increase in scope and intensity, it becomes imperative to assess their effects – both intended and unintended – on human and non-human life. More than passive structures, fences actively participate in the governance of space, reinforcing borders, and regulating mobility. They embody biosecurity concerns, turning abstract discourses into tangible barriers that impact everyday life. Yet, fences are not merely practical tools; they also serve as powerful symbols of fear, control, and exclusion. While they may provide protection, they also create division, evoking a range of intellectual and emotional reactions and raising questions about their long-term implications.
Fences and Biosecurity highlights how fencing, as a manifestation of biosecurity anxieties, is not only about managing biological threats but also about organizing the world into hierarchies of value. By delineating spatial boundaries, fences impose distinctions between what is considered safe and what is framed as dangerous or invasive. This separation of differently valued species and biological matter is not neutral; rather, it is deeply entangled with political imaginaries, economic interests, and global trade dynamics. Fences facilitate the circulation of capital while simultaneously restricting the movement of certain species and populations, making them instruments of governance rather than mere physical barriers. While fences physically separate spaces, they also reshape cultural understandings of risk, security, and belonging. By shifting the focus from biosecurity as an abstract policy concern to fencing as a material and discursive practice, this volume reveals the ways in which security measures are enacted on the ground.
Annika Pohl Harrisson is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Southern Denmark. Michael Eilenberg is an associate professor of anthropology at Aarhus University.
... Over the past fifteen years, the related concepts of territory and territoriality (referring to spatial practice) have been revaluated within the field of human geography. Understood historically as spatial expressions of power and control by nation states (Elden 2013), territories are increasingly understood as political constructs emerging from social interactions and processes (Raffestin 2012). This social basis implies that they can be understood as spatial expressions of broader dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. ...
... 28 It is in the anglophone historiography that they are 25 www.atlantium.org. 26 Maier (2006: 37), and Elden (2013). 27 Muldoon (1999: 17). ...
What are empires and are they qualitatively different from other political forms like the state? Empire is a contested term. It is used in different and inconsistent ways in not only the lay discourse, but also in the social sciences. I contend that there is no stable definition, and that the employed meaning of empire by academics variously stresses purpose, process, and different aspects of structure. These usages can be contradictory because each meaning implies different conceptual limits to the concept of empire, resulting in surprising outcomes in terms of what counts. I do not argue that one meaning should be adopted over others; the term is contested, and scholars will employ the meaning that is consistent with their research agenda. However, I caution that conceptual stretching is bound to happen if scholars adopt a meaning from one discourse and apply it elsewhere.
... In this sense, transport infrastructures support and normalise a set of structures -automobile industries, ownership relations, material flows, ideas about private property and freedom of movement... -that go far beyond mere 'engineering' issues (Featherstone et al., 2005;Urry, 2007;Urry & Sheller, 2000). The second example is that of maps and territory: creating a map (Crampton & Krygier, 2015;Dorrian & Pousin, 2013;Harley, 1989) or delimiting a territory (Elden, 2001(Elden, , 2013) is a normative act, a social act that modifies reality, establishing a new order. ...
This paper contextualises the analysis of hegemony from a spatial perspective. For this, it opens with a discussion of planetary urbanisation and the production of space as a spatial fix of capitalism - which posits space as a key instrument for the exercise of contemporary hegemony. The discursive analysis of the rejection of two plans for a new national park by Alpine communities in Italian-speaking Switzerland allows us to contextualise ‘the rural’ as a political force that is still present and influential. Communities that recognise themselves as rural do not have hegemonic ambitions, but can contribute to the emergence or decline of other actors who wish to strive for hegemony instead. In this sense, the paper concludes that in a capitalist society increasingly marked by planetary urbanisation, it is crucial in the analysis of hegemony to fully consider rural actors as well and not invisibilise their motivations – as these can significantly alter the existing hegemonic balance.
... An insight on how space-time is being constructed in the political domain provides the most direct definition of territory, when the history of the term, which is mostly related to geography and power, is considered. (Elden, 2013) All the actors -human or nonhuman-that are participating in the construction of space-time come to be part of the state territory. That relation cannot be reduced to the state space marked only by national boundaries. ...
... At the turn of the twenty-first century, when talk of globalisation was at its height and seen by many to be a generally good thing, there were some suggestions that territory no longer matters as much as it once did. That talk was rather short-lived, territory still seems to matter as much as ever (Elden 2013), which is why more than two-thirds of all the world's states are involved in at least one territorial dispute of some kind or another. Based on data drawn from various United Nations bodies and other international institutions, in all there are approximately 175 disputes involving competing claims to more than 100 distinct territories. ...
More than two-thirds of all the world’s states are involved in at least one territorial dispute. Overall, there are approximately 175 disputes involving competing claims to more than 100 distinct territories. If maritime boundaries are included, the number of disputes multiplies more than two-fold. Since at least the thirteenth century, frontier buffer zones with length and breadth have been an important mechanism in managing territorial disputes along contested borders. These historical examples have much to teach us about containing contemporary territorial disputes.
... These relational diversities connect various entities and influence the formation of socio-political constructs such as nation-states. Nationstates, in turn, establish their identity claims through mediated relations of extraction, utility, and territoriality (Elden, 2013). However, the chaotic interplay of competing claims, diverse relational histories, and fractured identities necessitates resolution. ...
This paper explores the relational and dynamic nature of time and history, challenging foundationalist and essentialist perspectives. Drawing on insights from Leibniz, ancient Indian philosophy, and modern thinkers like Ernst Mach and Julian Barbour, it argues that time is an abstraction derived from change and history a negotiated field of interpretations. By examining concepts such as genealogical sequencing, relational inertia, and historical dialectics, the essay proposes frameworks like General and Special Historical Relationalism to reimagine temporal and historical narratives. It highlights the interplay of relational diversity in shaping civilizational progress, aligning with philosophical traditions that emphasize harmony and interdependence. This perspective offers a pathway to rethink historical and temporal constructs in social sciences and humanities, fostering a deeper understanding of the dynamic interrelations that underpin human existence.
... Si entendemos el territorio como tecnología política, como lo hace Elden (2013), las zlan y las ZdeP son tecnologías políticas pacifistas. Los gobiernos y los movimientos sociales pacifistas utilizan estas tecnologías pacifistas a través de nucleares relacionadas con Estados Unidos en Nueva Zelanda, pero de inmediato los activistas saltaron a escalas local e internacional (macrorregional). ...
La paz se construye en lugares específicos, que no son intercambiables, a través de prácticas espaciales definidas que construyen estructuras espaciales a diferentes escalas. Existe una gran cantidad de literatura sobre los procesos utilizados para construir la paz —el cómo de la construcción de la paz—; sin embargo, hay poca investigación que examine la cuestión de dónde ocurren la paz y la consolidación de la paz. Las zonas libres de armas nucleares (ZLAN) y las zonas de paz regionales (ZdeP) —y también las ZdeP locales— son espacios delimitados. Es decir, tienen un carácter principalmente territorial, aunque no en los habituales términos militaristas, porque todas ellas son iniciativas de desarme, por lo que son formas alternativas de entender la defensa. Las ZLAN son un concepto relacionado con la política de seguridad, de hecho, es una política de seguridad alternativa. En efecto, si entendemos el territorio como tecnología política, las zlan y las ZdeP son tecnologías olíticas pacifistas, que destacan entre las que se proponen en este trabajo.
... Territory, as a historically-specific conception of space that emerged alongside colonial and imperial projects, is dependent on ways of measuring and mapping that make it possible to codify territorial control. In this vein, territorialization is a way of conceiving of geographic space as something that can be owned, controlled, and administered (Elden, 2013b;Storey, 2001). In the UK, the mapping of wind has long been engaged in the co-production of both territory as well as ideas about its rightful use, possession, and appropriation. ...
This article explores the co-production of wind energy resources and UK maritime territories in the North Sea. It shows how endeavors to map wind for energy are shaped by specific spatial imaginations, which are in turn making it possible for the UK to advance sovereign claims over volumetric spaces offshore. This follows a long history of efforts to study and map wind movements alongside significant chapters of colonialism, imperialism, and territorial dispossession. The practices involved in the transformation of atmospheric circulations into territorial claims center on what I call ventography: the systematic study and cartographic representation of wind in relation to political boundaries, a project which is shaped by, and subsequently enrolled in, territorialization, sovereign performances, and border regimes. In this vein, the intangible nature of wind, often thought to be beyond the grasp of spatial politics, is being transformed into a resource that is coming to play a role in the production and reconfiguration of space in altogether new ways. Through a focus on the UK’s attempts to transmute wind power into territorial power, this article traces how ventography is reshaping the scales and configurations of contemporary political geographies.
... In light of the relational turn in human geography since the 1980s, territory, a concept formerly taken for granted as a regulated-bounded space has been interrogated and updated to make it relevant for our understanding of the changing political geography of the state (and beyond) in a globalizing era (Delaney, 2008;Novak, 2011;Sack, 1986;Schwarz & Streule, 2016). In his now classic intervention, Elden (2007Elden ( , 2010Elden ( , 2013 invites us to revisit territory as a predominantly political technology practiced to control a certain place rather than a solid geographical container. From this perspective, Elden argues that there has been a long-standing tension between the territorial aspirations of maintaining particular spatial orders and the actual treatment of territory as a contingent (and violable) spatial process contested by related subjects. ...
A new trend has been emerging in China's urban and regional politics, as it becomes prevailing to extend one municipal authority to another with the boundary transcended, often through the establishment of joint development zones. These newly produced subnational territories are worth further attention to clarify the underlying political dynamics of China's changing state space. This paper examines the Shenzhen-Shanwei Special Cooperation Zone in Guangdong and analyses the political-spatial processes through which a certain area of Shanwei has been transformed into the ‘Eastern frontier of Shenzhen’. Looking into the relational power nexus that has also been inflected by trans-scalar and cross-boundary dynamics, as well as its manifestations in urban landscapes, we propose extended local territory as a key analytical concept to explore how and how far the rise of extensive territoriality has been articulated with intensive localities. Empirically, we elaborate on the ways in which the territorial ambition and authority of Shenzhen have been managing to traverse boundaries, while also recognise that Shenzhen's aspiration of materializing its extensive territoriality is challenged by both scalar constraints and the grassroots politics rooted in local history and geography. Addressing the dialectics between the extensive territoriality and intensive locality, we should attend to the inter-topological effects and trace the patterns of correlation that are involved in this process, which also turns out to be a critical approach to better understand changing state spaces in and beyond China.
... 9 Unter einer liberal-repräsentativen Modulation des Demokratischen kann mensch eine spezifische "In-Form-Setzung" (Lefort 1999, S. 39) verstehen, die gleichzeitig "den Begriff des In-Sinn-Setzens und den Begriff des In-Szene-Setzens der sozialen Beziehungen impliziert" (ebd.). Oder noch anders: Aus einer mulitudo, einer wilden Versammlung von Leidenschaften, Bewegungen, Kräften, Materialien, Säften, Geräuschen, Geschwindigkeiten, Festigkeiten, Flächen, Unebenheiten, Körpern, Symbolen, Verdichtungen wird durch die Modulation ein Territorium gerendert, in dem Individuen verteilt sind (siehe Foucault 2004a;Foucault 2004b;Elden 2013;Virno 2019;Friedrichs 2023). In diesem Sinne ist die Modulation eine Verräumlichung, die in einer Synthetisierung/Ausrichtung der multitudo und (und!) einer Verteilung von Positionen besteht: "[S]pace may be envisaged as relational arrangements in which actors, objects, and technologies are both placing and being placed. ...
... The relations between land and power so central to the formation of territory are concretized through the maps and other daily texts and practices that frequently reference place names and put them to work in social life. Building upon the influential work of Elden (2013), place naming is one of the many technologies responsible for defining and controlling territory in legal and practical terms and thus represents an important extension of state power. Through the symbolic or material appropriation of space, "the actor 'territorializes' it," while also (re)producing social values embraced by those systems of power (Gallia, Muti, and Pecorelli 2023, 8). ...
In recent years, commemorative naming has been discussed and called into question in the U.S. military, and with the establishment of the Confederate Naming Commission by Congress in 2021, representatives for branches of the US military and Department of Defense were tasked with evaluating commemorative practices associated with valorizing Confederate history. In this paper, we focus specifically on place naming patterns on US Marine Corps bases through an engagement with
military archives. These archives are part of a hegemonic control of memory that sits uncomfortably at the intersection of the racialized history of the Armed Forces and its growing reliance on a multicultural America. We argue and find early evidence that the archives constitute contested terrain and the commemorative audits conducted by military institutions are a potentially fraught practice
given possible self-interest and potential lack of a critical perspective on the past and place. We encountered many of the difficulties that complicate name reform and the commemorative audits, such as negotiated access to the physical archives and data, inconsistent practices and documentation which contributed to an incomplete audit, and conflicts with institutional interest. Even with the
Confederate Naming Commission’s recent reports and recommendations for renaming some military bases and structures, there remains a demand for greater attention to the audits of commemorative place names utilized to make such recommendations. This demand necessitates a recognition
that the legacy of racism and racial violence goes far beyond the years of the Confederacy, particularly regarding the landscapes of the United States military.
Inspired by Gunnar Olsson, this article critiques the use of cartographic reason in the process of creating an accessible city for people with disabilities. It also borrows Gregory's ontological conceptual pair of cartography and corpography, showing the ontological transformations that occur within this pair during the practical removal of barriers to mobility in Brno, Czech Republic. The methodology employed involves semi‐structured interviews with members of the city's Advisory Board for Accessibility. Our primary aim is to demonstrate how the imperative to eliminate specific barriers in the urban environment responds to the dominance of cartographic reason in planning and political decision‐making. Findings indicate that this dominance often obscures the fact that what may appear as safely accessible in cartographic representations can manifest as inaccessible and hazardous corpography. However, the cartographic visualizations serve as the initial driving force behind bringing about potential improvements in corpographic accessibility. Urban space is mapped into myriad legal and political areas, which complicates accessibility. The cartography of accessibility is becoming utopian, and, through a critique of utopia, we show how a corpographic emphasis on multisensory experience can make the city more effectively accessible. We introduce the concept of a ferryman, one who facilitates navigation through urban space.
The recent decades have witnessed a proliferation of theorising about borders. Having moved away from the positivist paradigm that views borders as static ‘lines in the sand’, a myriad of different conceptualisations of borders as continuous socio-political processes have emerged: bordering, borderscapes and borderlands are just some of the more common ones. In this paper we aim to contribute to this processual turn in border studies by offering a philosophical critique of the typical appropration logic - the claim to own our ‘Us’ again - in nationalist b/ordering and othering processes. Specifically, we theorise about the critical potential of the concepts of community and immunity in understanding these appropriative nationalist bordering processes. To that end, we notably draw on the works of philosophers Jean-Luc Nancy and Roberto Esposito. Both agree that community – human coexistence – is not an object and therefore cannot be appropriated. Esposito takes this further by elaborating on the logic immunity, through which the order deemed to be ‘Ours’ is meant to be protected from the disorder represented by an Other. He explains that immunisation is an attempt to appropriate an inappropriable identity. Ultimately, drawing on both thinkers, we argue that bordering efforts are self-defeating. B/ordering attempts to enclose a supposed identity to protect ‘us’, but in so doing the ‘us’ becomes owned by this supposed identity rather than vice versa. Immunity, Esposito specifies, eliminates community, and therefore ultimately so does b/ordering.
This essay explores the relationship between law and the city, with a specific focus on the reformulation of rights within the urban space, reviewing some classifications of citizenship and democracy defined in the light of their state dimension in order to assess how such theorizations can also be applied to the urban dimension. To this end, it will be necessary preliminarily to investigate the transformations that the public space (physical and symbolic) – that is, the reference framework for the configuration of rights and subjectivities – is undergoing in an urban context.
ÖZET
İslam’ın şiddeti teşvik eden baskıcı bir din olduğu düşüncesinin etkileri, günümüzde Müslüman azınlıkların ötekileştirilmesinden askeri müdahalelerin gerekçelendirilmesine değin birçok alanda izlenebilir. Bununla birlikte benzer tezlere yönelik eleştirel yaklaşımlar da yok değildir. Ancak bu eleştiriler İslam’ın şiddetle ilişkisine dair yaygın söyleme karşı argümanlar üretse de bu söylemin modern öznelerde neden bu kadar kolay yankı bulabildiğini yeterince açıklayamamaktadır. Bu çalışma, söz konusu açığı kapatmak üzere, “dini şiddete” yönelik modern toplumların tepkilerini anlamak için modern öznelliklerin şekillenme koşullarına bakmak gerektiğini önermekte ve dini şiddet anlatısını kendi içinde anlamak yerine; kavramsal, kurumsal ve tarihsel bağlamı içerisinde çözümlemeye odaklanmaktadır. Bu amaçla makale, eleştirel sekülerizm ve postkolonyal/dekolonyal bir yaklaşımı benimseyerek bir soy kütüğü çalışması olarak okunmalıdır: İlkin Avrupa içi bir gelişme olarak modern devlet, “Avrupa Din Savaşları”nda görülen “dini şiddet” mitiyle kurulmuştur. Orada ortaya çıkan şiddeti “dini” olarak tanımlayabilmek ise din kavramının modern dönemde belirli dönüşümleri geçirmesiyle mümkün hale gelmiştir. Ayrıca bu gelişmelerin de gömülü olduğu bir “modern zaman rejimi” ortaya çıkmış ve bunun içinde din, geçmişin bir dinamiği olarak konumlandırılarak modern öznellik için zamansal bir öteki işlevi görmüştür. Avrupalı sömürgeci “keşifler” ile zamansal ve mekansal atıfların iç içe geçtiği ve Batılı olmayan coğrafyaların çeşitli düzeylerde geri kalmışlığı temsil ettiği bir kolonyal modern zaman-mekan rejimi ortaya çıkmıştır. Bu karşıtlıkların kurulabilmesi için tutarlı, bütünlüklü ve kontrast üzerine kurulan öznellikler inşa edilmişse de hem modern hem de diğer öznellikler doğaları gereği aslında müphemdirler ve çoklu referanslar içermektedirler. Buradan hareketle “cihatçı terör” de dahil olmak üzere modern dönem şiddetinin önemli bir kısmını üreten şeyin tam da bu tutarlılığa ve bütünlülüğe zorlayan öznellik inşaları olduğunu söylemek dahi mümkündür.
Although the ongoing Lefebvre renaissance has recently generated interest in many areas of sociology, contemporary relational sociology has not specifically considered Lefebvre's potential contribution to it. The article introduces a concept of relational spatiality based on the epistemology of relational sociology by reconsidering Lefebvre's inquiry into modernity and space. The article first briefly explains Lefebvre's epistemological critique of modernity, including everyday life and space, and then constructs the relational spatiality by combining Lefebvre with the relational and processual viewpoints of relational sociology. The article accordingly characterizes relational spatiality by combining Lefebvre's critique of “abstract space” as a crucial case with the de‐reification of relational sociology. At last, we further explore the trans‐actional perspective of relational sociology to motivate the deep relationalist understanding of space. From the “inter‐actional” premise to “trans‐actional” processes, relational spatiality reveals and avoids the underlying abstract purification, substantialism, and dualism in the analysis and cognition of space. We hope to lead sociologists to recognize that space involves a relational‐ sociological concept constantly produced, functioned, and emerging through iterative trans‐actions rather than an objective entity or geographical premise waiting to be influenced by society, demonstrating the possibility of a spatial epistemology based on relational sociology.
This article explains how the fluctuating, ever-changing elemental entity of wind is constructed as a stable renewable energy resource through a global wind energy infrastructural model promoted by the Danish wind energy industry. Examining Denmark’s project to build the world’s first “Energy Islands,” or offshore wind energy hubs, the article accounts for how wind is shaped into “energy” as a media environment, just as wind as medium and milieu shapes the infrastructural forms of wind power. The article thinks through wind with the elemental orientations of “matter,” “molecule,” “milieu,” and “medium,” as well as the mediated conditions of its legibility, to explicate the global wind infrastructural model as a multimodal elemental media assemblage. Wind’s ontological qualities as an infrastructural medium are transduced through apparatuses of environmental data, such as graphical “island” figures and models of landscape featured on promotional websites, wind turbine test sites, and wind atlases that are constructed with numerical data and statistical models. The article argues that the metonymic visibility and invisibility of wind energy infrastructural components enable the territorialization as well as deterritorialization of wind through the strategic projection and displacement of spatial boundaries and geographical situatedness. This extends the infrastructural scope of wind power across various scales, which also contributes to a milieu of geopolitical and economic speculation. Although wind energy is projected as a stable resource, it should be described as a speculative milieu of long-term projections, intermittent changes, and sudden crises, which renders the “Green Transition” an uncertain landscape of environmental futures.
In March of 2020, the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID‐19) escalated into a global health emergency. In Madrid, public institutions were overwhelmed by this crisis, and mutual aid networks were deployed in multiple neighbourhoods to assist thousands of families—approximately 15,000 households—with food and care in the absence of actions taken by the Madrid City Council. Drawing on a mixed methodology that combines discourse analysis and statistical data from social actors and multi‐level institutions, this study aims to highlight the patterns of socio‐spatial inequalities in Madrid in light of the urban impact of pandemic regulations and the role of public institutions in re‐territorialising its already existing inequalities through legal zoning. In particular, this study examines the relationship between the territorial irruption of COVID‐19‐related collective action initiatives and the re‐spatialisation of social inequalities in Madrid. In line with this objective, two additional questions are addressed. The study highlights the value of a legal geography theoretical framework in examining how law works as a political technology over territory and also shows how social organisations and networks have claimed legal regulations as bottom‐up social change processes, challenging the dynamics in the political production of law. The aim of this work is twofold: on the one hand, we wonder to what extent the solidarity networks could be related to urban territorialities and the spatialisation of social inequalities in Madrid. On the other hand, we aim to show how a legal geography perspective could be useful in examining how law is used over territory as a political technology and as a surveillance tool and, conversely, how from social movements representing social networks in pandemic, many regulations are demanded and vindicated as bottom‐up social change processes that mean a contention of former dynamics in the political production of law.
In the wake of ‘assembly movements’ such as Occupy Wall Street, the concept of ‘prefiguration’ has received increased attention in radical political theory. What remains undertheorised, however, is the manner and the extent to which prefiguration often implies a territorial claim as a way to secede from existing power relations and institutions. This article seeks to establish this relation between prefiguration and the appropriation of space. It first retraces the idea of prefiguration as a revolutionary strategy to the Paris Commune of 1871 and reconstructs how this experience led to a split within the international workers’ movement. It then continues to distinguish between prefiguration and ‘dual power’, which was introduced by Lenin, and argues that the latter does not bear the same territorial connotation. Finally, the paper turns to a contemporary example of prefigurative politics that is underpinned by a territorial claim – namely, the ZAD or zone à défendre in Notre-Dame-des-Landes.
This book analyses the formation and dynamics of political landscapes in the early Middle Ages. The aim is to check how political action shaped these landscapes through the study of settlements and burials, “central places” (churches, castles, buildings) and territories. A noteworthy feature was the emergence of new patterns, often linked to the growing autonomy of local societies. The concept of “micropolitics” provides a better understanding of the wide range of situations determined by the initiative of local notables and communities, embedded in overarching powers. The framework of the study is north-western Iberia, including the comparison to other regions of Southern Europe.
As socio-ecological crises deepen, it is increasingly important that analyses of territory consider the other-than-human. Through a detailed engagement with a range of territorial currents, Gonin et al. do just this, introducing the idea of ‘terrestrial territories’ as a way forward, shifting the focus of analysis from the ‘Globe’ to ‘Gaia’. While we welcome the diverse engagement with non-Anglophone understandings of territory, in this commentary, we suggest that decolonial feminist work on Cuerpo-Territorio (body territory) may offer a more grounded, praxis-focused way forward. In particular, we argue that this focus on embodiment over the terrestrial is potentially better placed to address powerful feminist critiques of the Gaia hypothesis.
This chapter opens up territory and borders as key concepts in political geography that offer methodological avenues for decolonizing the subfield. It reflects on current decolonial literature in political geography and draws on social science more broadly to push for evidence-based pathways to decolonizing fields of inquiry and knowledge domains. It argues that decolonizing the subdiscipline requires identifying and engaging ‘classic terms’ of political geography as a crucial step towards a decolonial political geographical research. Noting that concepts can serve as a barrier to understanding societies, the chapter suggests decoupling territory and land conceptually and empirically to focus attention on the politics of land as part of the phenomenon of territory in political geography. This can decentre themes and research questions dominant in the Global North and realign the bourgeoning work on border thinking to current realities. Decoupling the two help political geographers to appreciate the spatial imprint of global designs and to draw on insights from other cognate fields.
Acompanhando a tradução para o português do texto “Frontière: le mot et la notion” publicado em 1928 pelo historiador Lucien Febvre, o comentário em tela refletiu sobre o potencial de revisitar a história das práticas e dos conceitos que têm estruturado a formação das fronteiras territoriais. Antecipando a história dos conceitos [Begriffsgeschichte] desenvolvida por Reinhardt Koselleck décadas depois, observamos a tentativa de Febvre de retraçar as mudanças e os novos significados lexicais assumidas pela fronteira no âmago de uma história social de longa duração. Sinalizamos também a necessidade de ler a presente tradução em estreita conexão com o projeto interdisciplinar de uma “geografia humana modesta” elaborado por Febvre em seu clássica obra La terre et l’évolution humaine: introduction géographique à l’histoire de 1922. Por fim, consideramos como Frontière: le mot et la notion pode ser situado no interior de narrativas canônicas sobre as metamorfoses das idéias geográficas referentes às fronteiras políticas, além de como os limites de sua abordagem (especialmente no tocante ao Eurocentrismo) convidam os geógrafos de hoje a considerá-la em termos mais globais
“Land on Fire: The Spatial Production of the Mafia” proposes to address a major lacuna in geographic literature: How mafia groups are socially and spatially reproducing themselves through the intentional setting of fire. Analyzing the 2021 and 2023 wildfire seasons in Sicily, this research proposes that the Sicilian Mafia is operationalizing both rural and urban space in novel ways that reflect a transformation in their organizational structure. This work engages with Henri Lefebvre’s theory on the production of space but also uses ethnography in Sicily to reorient our understanding of mafia crime, suggesting that the Sicilian Mafia’s operationalization of the landscape reflects not only an evolution of the Mafia but also an altered relationship with the land itself.
Extending and connecting scholarship on decolonial geopoetics, critical Mediterraneanism and maritime (wet and more-than-wet) ontologies, this paper discusses Genoese folksinger Fabrizio De André’s political, poetical, and geographical work on the Mediterranean Sea. De André has been considered as a pioneer of “World Music” for his linguistic and historical research on sounds and stories of the Mediterranean. Yet, a socially and politically committed intellectual, De André fostered agendas that went well beyond the role that this author played in the history of Italian and international folksong, and should interest scholars in geography, geopolitics and geopoetics. Exploring his original texts and recollections, I argue that De André’s works open ways to connect critical studies on the Mediterranean to broader scholarship on decoloniality and relational ontologies. This emerges especially through his commitment to challenge cultural and linguistic borders, listening to “histories from below” and denouncing the colonial violence of states and other oppressive powers in North-South Mediterranean relations. Furthermore, De André’s geopoetics fosters ideas of Mediterranean entanglements between land and sea that challenge statist territorialities, enhancing different geopoetic and geopolitical imaginations to address current matters on migration, racism and exclusion.
There has been an ecologisation of social and political thought in recent decades. The planetary crisis has prompted scholars in the humanities and social sciences to become more acutely sensitive to the conditioning effect of the physical environment on their varied disciplinary interests. The growing influence of post-structuralism has also been a critical factor, giving rise to the ecologically inflected tradition of new materialism, of which Bruno Latour has been a prominent advocate. Latour's later ‘ecological’ writings seek nothing less than a Copernican-scale revolution in modern cosmology, more applicable to living in the Anthropocene. As this important intervention from Gonin et al. elucidates, this presents a challenge to the longstanding Westphalian conception of territory, which remains a dominant framework in political theory. In this commentary, however, I question their intention to transcend the state, suggesting that Gonin et al. risk downplaying Latour's own mounting concern with sovereignty while overlooking the lineage of his thought in post-structural political theory. This post-structural tradition remains more relevant than ever in an era marked by ecological crisis and the resurgence of the nation-state.
In this article, an attempt is made to analyse the plight and predicament of illegal migrants crossing the Mexican border to reach the USA for a better life. Sonia Nazario’s Enrique‘s Journey is an account of a child protagonist Enrique, who travels from Honduras to North America through deadly routes to meet his mother and becomes the subject of an unjust border. Children like Enrique and other millions of migrants from underdeveloped countries like Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador undergo a arrowing experience when they cross the border to escape from civil war, impunity, and poverty in their countries. At the border, the inherent rights of all human beings with the promise of true democracy become meaningless: refugees and undocumented migrants are victimised by national sovereignty policy and compelled to live bare lives. In this paper, I will attempt to analyse the problems of displaced people based on different grounds: Who are undocumented migrants? What is the cause behind forceful exit from their own country? Why have they been encountering unspeakable suffering while crossing the border? How is the matter of hospitality understood? Do they find themselves in a safer zone and freedom in an unwelcome space? Such questions are discussed using theories on migrants and refugees.
Neste artigo, estudamos a construção do conhecimento e apresentamos nosso método para a análise da produção da geografia agrária brasileira, por meio de trabalhos apresentados desde o Congresso Brasileiro de Geógrafos de 2004 até o Encontro Nacional de Geógrafos de 2012, com algumas considerações sobre o Congresso Brasileiro de Geógrafos de 2014. Nosso objetivo é entender como os estudos brasileiros de graduação e de pós-graduação constroem o conhecimento sobre o campo brasileiro e sua questão agrária. Analisamos as mudanças temáticas no período, de acordo com o movimento da conjuntura da questão agrária, e identificamos a participação dos estudiosos brasileiros no debate paradigmático. Procuramos analisar as posturas dependentes de outras áreas do conhecimento e as autônomas, tanto de pesquisadores individuais como de coletivos de pensamento, por meio da construção de estilos de pensamento. Nos últimos dez anos, construímos um método e procedimentos metodológicos para analisar o avanço do pensamento na geografia agrária. Nosso trabalho consiste em analisar dados e conteúdos dos trabalhos apresentados nos eventos da Associação dos Geógrafos Brasileiros (AGB), a partir de pesquisadores individuais e de grupos de pesquisas, para a compreensão das mudanças recentes dos processos teórico e político dos temas agrários e da própria geografia. Este artigo não apresenta resultados conclusivos, mas o início do processo de uma pesquisa de longo prazo.
This chapter explores the issue of spatiality with respect to data. It addresses the reasons why the state’s sovereignty needs to apply the principle of territoriality to appropriate fictitious or physical shares of power. By introducing the notion of territoriality and the implications of its applicability to data, the chapter attempts to answer this question: whether territory can be deployed as a formal container or instead it is an inherent legal mechanism to exert sovereignty over data flows. Moving on this ambivalence, the relation between territory and data has been set up differently depending on the prominence of each concept. In the first case, data relates to a corporeal concept being able to occupy a limited space, which is territorial; in the second case, the relevance of territory is more normative in the sense that it exerts traction over objects regardless of their materiality.
This commentary revisits the main elements of Paasi's ideas about the institutionalisation of regions and bounded spaces. It reviews his analysis of the identity of a region and the regional identity of its residents (as addressed in his TESG 2002 article). Next, it discusses how his work on bounded spaces contributed to the reinvention of border studies in political geography and how his innovative conceptual work grounded in and written from Finland, was inspiring for a whole generation of researchers working at the margins of the Anglo‐American academic world. Finally, it reasserts the enduring value of his heuristic framework in a time where the complexity of social spatialisation and of spatial socialisation has greatly increased.
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