Abstract
The discourse of International Relations, or at least that part of it concerned with the nature and evolution of the states-system, constructs theory on the grounds of the territorial a priori. Territory is conceived of as a material object, a portion of the earth’s surface, a universal sine qua non of political community. In this chapter I want to propose an alternative understanding of territory that counters the claims inherent in the territorial a priori. First, against the assertion that territory is an objective material resource, I want to recast it as an idea, a component of the social imaginary that is produced in discourse. Second, rather than conceiving of territory exclusively from within the paradigm of political theory, I shall propose that discourses of territoriality, which produce and naturalize the politics of space, need to be related to the ideas and practices that permeate a society’s culture of space. Third, I question the assumption that territory is a universal feature of human society shared by all political communities. Rather, I shall suggest that since the territorial imaginary is a cultural product it changes as societies develop new representations and understandings of their being-in-space.
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Notes
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Eugene W. Holland, “Deterritorializing ‘Deterritorialization’: From the Anti-Oedipus to A Thousand Plateaus,” SubStance, 20:3, 1991, pp. 55–65, at p. 63.
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© 2010 Jeremy Larkins
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Larkins, J. (2010). Theorizing Territoriality: Discourse, Culture, History. In: From Hierarchy to Anarchy. Palgrave Macmillan History of International Thought Series. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230101555_3
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