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Elden, Stuart (2010) 'Land, terrain, territory.', Progress in human geography., 34 (6). pp. 799-817.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0309132510362603
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1
Land, Terrain, Territory
Introduction
Political theory lacks a sense of territory; territory lacks a political theory.
1
Although a central term within political geography and international relations, the
concept of territory has been under-examined. Jeffrey Anderson notes that
―politics is rooted in territory… [but] the spatial dimension of the political
economy is so prevalent that it is easily, if not frequently, overlooked‖ (1992:
xiii). Bertrand Badie suggests that ―the principle of territoriality often eludes
critics because it seems so obviously universal. It is a decisive component in the
actions of the state, but it is, nevertheless, linked to a historical development‖
(2000: 58). Claude Raffestin argues that ―the problem of territoriality is one of
the most neglected in geography‖, and that ―the history of this notion remains to
be done‖ (1980: 143).
2
It is worth noting that Badie and Raffestin talk of
‗territoriality‘ rather than ‗territory‘; a point to which this paper will return.
While there are some excellent and important investigations of particular
territorial configurations, disputes or issues (see, for example, Sahlins 1989;
Winichakul 1994; Paasi 1996; Jönsson et. al. 2000), and some valuable
textbooks on the topic (Storey 2001; Delaney 2005), there is little that
investigates the term ‗territory‘ conceptually or historically.
3
This is, in part,
because territory is often assumed to be self-evident in meaning, allowing the
study of its particular manifestations—territorial disputes, the territory of specific
countries, etc.—without theoretical reflection on ‗territory‘ itself. Where it is
defined, territory is either assumed to be a relation that can be understood as an
outcome of territoriality, or simply as a bounded space, in the way that Giddens
described the state as a ―bordered power container‖ (1981: 5-6, 11; see 1987).
4
In the first, the historical dimension is neglected, since it appears that territory
exists in all times and places; in the second the conditions of possibility of such a
configuration are assumed rather than examined. Both take the thing that needs
explaining as the explanation; the
explanandum
as the
explanans
. Rather,
territory requires the same kind of historical, philosophical analysis that has been
undertaken by Edward Casey for another key geographical concept, that of place
(1997).
5
Linda Bishai suggests that territory ―may be examined in a similar fashion as
sovereignty—through conceptual history‖ (2004: 59). Yet conceptual history,
Begriffsgeschichte
, has, with partial exceptions, not been turned towards the
question of territory explicitly. There is, for instance, no explicit discussion of
territory in the
Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe
, the
Handbuch politisch-sozialer
Grundbegriffe in Frankreich
, or the
Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie
,
which are the most comprehensive works of the
Begriffsgeschichte
approach
2
pioneered by Reinhart Koselleck (see Bruner et. al. 1972-97; Reichardt and
Schmitt, 1985-; Ritter et. al. 1971-2007; Koselleck 2002, 2006). The work of the
Cambridge School of contextualist approaches to the history of political thought,
of which Quentin Skinner and J.G.A. Pocock are perhaps the most significant
figures, offers substantive help in its methodological principles, but only
tangentially in terms of its focus (Skinner 1978, 2002; Pocock 2009). Important
though such methods are, the approach employed here is closer to a
genealogical account, of the type Foucault developed from Nietzsche and
Heidegger‘s work (see Elden 2001, 2003b). Genealogy, understood as a historical
interrogation of the conditions of possibility of things being as they are, is helpful
for a number of reasons. It makes use of the kinds of textual and contextual
accounts offered by
Begriffsgeschichte
or the Cambridge school; but is critical of
notions that the production of meaning is reliant on authorial intent.
It makes
use of the full range of techniques—including etymology, semantics, philology
and hermeneutics—that should inform the history of ideas; but pairs them with
an analysis of practices and the workings of power. And it is avowedly political;
undertaking this work as part of a wider project that aspires to be a ‗history of
the present‘.
6
The best general study of territory remains Jean Gottmann‘s
The Significance of
Territory
(1973; see Muscarà 2005). It trades on his earlier book
La politique des
États et leur géographie
, where he claims that ―one cannot conceive a State, a
political institution, without its spatial definition, its territory‖ (1951: 71).
Nonetheless, in both works he tends to use the term in an undifferentiated
historical sense, as a concept used throughout history (see for example 1951:
72-3). Thus while he makes a detailed and valuable analysis, he is still perhaps
too willing to see territory existing at a variety of spatial scales and in a variety of
historical periods. This tends to create an ahistorical, and, potentially,
ageographical analysis. One of the very few attempts that begins to offer a more
properly historical account of territory is found in the work of the legal theorist
Paul Alliès in his book
L‘invention du territoire
, which was originally a thesis
supervised by Nicos Poulantzas in 1977. Alliès suggests that ―territory always
seems linked to possible definitions of the state; it gives it a physical basis which
seems to render it inevitable and eternal‖ (1980: 9). It is precisely in order to
disrupt that inevitability and eternal nature that an interrogation of the state of
territory is necessary.
This paper outlines some of the issues at stake in undertaking such a project. It
proceeds through a number of stages. First, it asks why territory has been
neglected as a topic of conceptual analysis, and critically interrogates work on
territoriality. Second, it suggests that often territory is effectively taken as ‗land‘
or ‗terrain‘; political-economic and political-strategic relations which are essential
but ultimately insufficient. Third, it argues that territory needs to be interrogated
in relation to state and space; and that its political aspects need to be
3
understood in an expanded sense of political-legal and political-technical issues.
Finally it proposes that territory can be understood as a political technology;
which is not intended to be an absolute definition, but to raise the questions that
need to be asked to grasp how territory has been understood in different
historical and geographical contexts.
The Neglect of Territory and the Problem with Territoriality
Why has territory been neglected? There are several reasons. First, the turn
away from reflection on the state, especially by post-structuralist approaches,
seems to have rendered suspect attention on these issues. As Joe Painter notes,
―conventional definitions of territory emphasize boundedness, identity, integrity,
sovereignty and spatial coherence—concepts that post-structuralism is often
thought to have demolished‖ (2009: 3). Second, and not unrelated, the fear of
what John Agnew identified as the ‗territorial trap‘ (1994a; 2009). Agnew
suggests that this is a threefold assumption of the conventional understanding of
the geography of state power: that ―modern state sovereignty requires clearly
bounded territories‖; that ―there is a fundamental opposition between ‗domestic‘
and ‗foreign‘ affairs in the modern world‖ and that ―the territorial state is seen as
acting as the geographical ‗container‘ of modern society‖ (1994a; see 2005: 41;
1994b). As Agnew notes the first assumption dates from the 15
th
-20
th
century;
and the second two from last 100 years, although there are of course earlier
precedents (2005: 41). Others have made similar claims. Gottmann, for instance,
notes that it is all too easy to assume uncritically the modern, or legal sense of
territory as a ―portion of geographical space under the jurisdiction of certain
people‖ (1973: 5). All-too-often though, interrogations have not led to a more
careful examination of what territory is, and its intrinsic limits, but rather to an
avoidance of the topic altogether. It is through a historical conceptual
examination that moving beyond ‗the territorial trap‘, rather than simply skirting
around it, is possible. Third, a degree of conceptual imprecision regarding the
terms of territory and territoriality. The slippage between these two distinct
terms was noted above in the quotes from Ruggie and Raffestin, but they are
hardly alone. (I have lost count of the number of times that I have said that I am
working on
territory
only for the person to reply with a reference to, or
discussion of,
territoriality
.) It is crucial to achieve clarity about the aim of the
investigation.
What is the problem with territoriality? The first thing to note is that unlike, say,
‗spatiality‘, which is generally understood as a property or condition of space,
something pertaining to it; ‗territoriality‘ has today a rather more active
connotation. The other, older sense of ‗territoriality‘, as the condition, or status
of territory, rather than a mode of operating toward that territory, is generally
lost. It would be good to retrieve it. Second, territoriality in that more recent
sense itself needs to be distinguished, as there are at least two conflicting
4
traditions in the use of the term, the first biological; the second social. These
may not actually be distinct, and care should be taken to suggest an implied
nature/culture divide, but advocates of territoriality do present them in this way.
There is therefore a logic to approaching these works under their own
terminological division.
Writers such as Wagner (1960), Ardrey (1967) and Malmberg (1980) outlined
ways where territory can be understood through a basis in a fundamental
biological drive and as a form of animal association. Their work often covers a
great deal of ground, within a broad historical sweep, but they continually blur
territory and territoriality together, seeing territoriality as a constant human
element, played out in different contexts. This is an important tradition of
knowledge.
7
Some geographers, particularly in the late 1960s and early 1970s,
utilised these behaviourist assumptions in the linkage between human and
animal territoriality.
8
Edward Soja, for instance, declared in 1971 that
―territoriality, as it is used here, is
a behavioural phenomenon associated with
the organization of space into spheres of influence or clearly demarcated
territories which are made distinctive and considered at least partially exclusive
by their occupants or definers
‖ (1971: 19). The problem with this is that while it
can tell us something about human behaviour in space, it is not at all clear that it
can tell us something about ‗territory‘. In part this is due to the obvious point
that human social organisation has changed more rapidly than biological drives.
Indeed, Soja recognises precisely these issues (1971: 28), and as a later section
of this paper will demonstrate, does offer a more useful approach to territory.
Indeed as Soja notes almost two decades later, ―much of this work had to be
purely defensive, for the then prevailing view of territoriality was filled with bio-
ethological imperatives which obscured any socio-political interpretation‖ (1989:
150 n. 9).
A rather different approach is offered by Robert Sack in
Human Territoriality
(1986; see 1983). Despite its title Sack does not suggest a purely biological,
determinist approach. He suggests that territoriality is a geo-political strategy,
and not a basic vital instinct. Sack claims that while he sees ―territoriality as a
basis of power, I do not see it as part of an instinct, nor do I see power as
essentially aggressive‖ (1986: 1). Sack labels the area or place delimited and
controlled through territoriality a
territory
, but the non-specific nature of his
enquiry becomes clear here. A place can be a territory at times but not at others;
―territories require constant effort to establish and maintain‖; and as a corollary
of the previous definition they are ―the results of strategies to affect, influence,
and control people, phenomena, and relationships‖ (1986: 19). Indeed, in his
later
Homo Geographicus
, Sack conceives of the general ―role of place as
territory‖, suggesting that ―the meaning of place in this current book is then very
much like that of territory‖ (1997: 272 n. 1).