Delaney, David (2009), “Territory and
Territoriality”, en Rob Kitchin and Nigel Thrift
(eds.), International Encyclopedia of Human
Territory and Territoriality Geography, Vol. 11, pp.196–208.
D. Delaney, Amherst College, Amherst, MA, USA
& 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Introduction
Territory and territoriality are among the most basic and
significant terms in human geography. Territories and
territorial ensembles are fundamental elements of human
sociospatial organization. Although most commonly as
sociated with the modern nation state, this is merely
one – albeit, highly significant – manifestation of terri
toriality. Territoriality is much more pervasive. Indeed, it
is inescapable. Its operations have become increasingly
recognized in other ‘nonpolitical’ contexts.
The present era can be regarded as something of a
golden age of reflection on territory and territoriality
within human geography and other disciplines. This, in
part, is the result of increasing theoretical pluralism and
interdisciplinarity. How territory looks from one theo
retical or disciplinary perspective may differ markedly
from how it looks from other perspectives. Scholarly
cross fertilization has been productive of novel under
standings. The increasing attention to territory is also the
result of profound perceived transformations in the
worlds of experience associated with, among other things,
globalization and the emergence of the Internet. In short,
the ways in which territory and territoriality had ap
peared to work have changed sufficiently to require
fundamental rethinking. This reinvigorated scholarship
highlights what may be the central paradox of the topic.
Long regarded as a social device for simplifying and
clarifying the scope and limits of power through its in
side/outside, either/or dichotomizing effects, territori
ality has been revealed to be complex, subtle, often
ambiguous and unstable. Still, it continues to ‘work’, that
is, to have effects, even if many of these effects are not
intended by anyone.
This article examines some of the complexities of
territory and territoriality. First, it touches on some
preliminary and definitional issues. This is followed by an
analytic examination of the topic in terms of the con
nections with space, power, and meaning. Finally, the
topic is situated historically vis à vis a discussion of the
relationship to time and notions of modernity.
Preliminaries Issues
Basic Definitions
A territory is a bounded, meaningful social space the
‘meanings’ of which implicate the operation of social
196
relational power. It is, in a sense, an expression of the
fusion of meaning, power, and social space. The proto
type territory may be that of the territorial nation state.
Here, territory delimits the spatial scope and limits of
sovereignty, jurisdiction, administration, and citizenship.
But there are innumerable other generic forms and ex
pressions of territory. Many directly implicate govern
ance, for example, municipalities, voting and school
districts, indigenous reserves, police precincts, and na
tional parks. However, many exist in and give spatial
expression to the so called private realm – residential
lots, the micro spaces of work places, dioceses, and sales
territories of businesses. In some situations even the
human body can usefully be regarded as a kind of ter
ritory. Some territories are formal and relatively enduring
(e.g., Bolivia). Some are informal and relatively ephem
eral (my seat in a diner). Some aspire to general com
prehensive application (the nation state); some are very
specific (the protest buffer zone around an abortion
clinic).
Among the most pervasive and significant, if over
looked, territories are those organized by ‘the public/
private distinction’ itself. Regardless of the form it takes,
one never encounters a territory in isolation. Rather,
territories are organized in relational ensembles or mo
saics that have the effect of differentiating segments of
social space. Again, this pertains as much to the smaller
territorial constitution of rooms, cells and neighborhoods
as to the global grid of the international system of states,
as well as to intermediate configurations such as those
associated with federal political structures. This differ
entiating is not simply a matter of sorting. Rather, it
entails the inscription of meaning (e.g., in the form of
rules, or the terms of access, entry, confinement, or ex
clusion) and the spatialization of power of various kinds.
The term ‘territoriality’ is used in a number of senses.
It has often been noted that these senses do not neces
sarily add up to a coherent definition, and that the term is
frequently used in vague or ambiguous ways. Con
ventionally, if ‘territory’ refers to a bounded space, ‘ter
ritoriality’ refers to behaviors related to the establishment
and defense of territories. Such behaviors include de
marcating or partitioning space; classifying spaces as
territories; communicating that a territory exists and
where the boundaries are; communicating the conditions
for entering or leaving the territory; communicating the
consequences for not abiding by the conditions; and
following through with the implicit or explicit threats.
 Territory and Territoriality 197

‘Territoriality’ may also refer to the involvement of

territorial ensembles with other social phenomena such
as power or identity. In this sense of the term one might
say that the international system of states represents the
territoriality (or territorialization) of sovereignty; or that
South African apartheid gave expression to the terri
toriality of ruling racial ideologies. Similarly, the terri
toriality of labor can be seen to involve various
components that include border control and the seg
mentation of tasks on the shop floor. Territoriality in this
sense often implicates specific projects and practices such
that verb forms such as ‘territorialize’, ‘de territorialize’,
or ‘re territorialize’ become useful.
Territoriality can also refer to these projects and
practices themselves. In many treatments of the topic it is
common to focus attention on those actors who engage in
creating territories or enforcing territoriality in order to
control others through the control of territories. These
sorts of practices are, of course, significant. Many such
practices, however, concern not only the establishment of
territories but the activities bearing on already existing
lines and spaces. At least as significant as the practices of
the controllers, territoriality is also performed by those Figure 1 Squatters united against global gentrification. Source:
www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/02/333663.html.
who would be controlled. This can be seen in the simple
compliance or conformity with the asserted rules of
space. Or it may be seen in the evasion or overt resist
ance. Squatters, smugglers, intruders, fugitives, and asy may be supported by the apparent cultural universality of
lum seekers participate in territoriality no less than do human territoriality. However, even if one were to grant
owners, customs officials, and prison guards (Figure 1). the innateness of territoriality to human beings as such,
Also, not all expressions of territoriality are centrally one would not get very far in understanding its operations.
concerned with hierarchy or the maintenance of dom Language is also a human cultural universal but there are
ination and subordination. Other kinds of social relations (or have been) tens of thousands of languages. Just as one
(e.g., those based on equality, cooperation, solidarity, and cannot argue for the naturalness of ‘King Lear’ or ‘Smells
mutual respect) may also be given territorial expression. Like Teen Spirit’ from the innateness of language, one
These might be implicated in common property spaces cannot derive the naturalness of the modern territorial
predicated on the right not to be excluded or in the state, historical forms of gender segregation, or the exist
constitution of sanctuaries. Regarded holistically, terri ence of supermax prisons from the apparent cultural
tories are artifacts that give spatial and material ex universality of human territoriality (Figure 2). The issue
pression to a wide range of social relations which are matters, however, because ‘naturalizing’ territory and ter
themselves instantiated through a range of socially sig ritoriality may have the effect (intended or otherwise) of
nificant (or even trivial) practices and projects. What naturalizing what is associated with it or what it is giving
makes these relations and practices ‘territorial’ is their spatial–material expression to. For example, the state,
involvement with the dynamic interplay of power, identity, private property, and various sorts of hierarchies
meaning, and bounded space. that have been territorialized (such as those associated
Another preliminary issue concerns the naturalness of with racism, colonialism, male supremacy, or homo
territoriality. There is a long tradition of conceiving phobia) have all commonly been naturalized. In these
human territoriality as ‘natural’ in some nontrivial sense. contexts ‘naturalizing’ may imply the denial of contin
This may involve pseudo biological claims about terri gency, and the de politicization (and thereby, the tacit
torial instincts that are attributed to individuals or col justification) of inherited or proposed territorializations.
lectives (tribes and nations). In this tradition human Naturalizing power also commonly facilitates justifying
territoriality is continuous with the territorial behavior of opposition to proposed changes. Naturalizing territory also
other primates, or, indeed, birds and insects. Of course, the facilitates simplifying territory.
distinctive characteristics of each species – language, flight, In contrast to the innateness tradition are more
and olfactory repellent – are recognized as contributing to ‘constructionist’ understandings that locate the practical
the distinctive territorializations. The naturalness claim operation of territoriality and its profusion of forms and
198 Territory and Territoriality
Figure 2 Supermax prison. Source:
www.polilceinteractions.com/homepage.html.
expressions in the contingencies of history, culture, pol
itics, ideology, and agency. Constructionism locates ter
ritoriality in ‘social’ as opposed to ‘natural’ processes. In a
sense this framing posits a false dichotomy. In any case,
seeing territories or territoriality as ‘natural’ or as ‘so
cially constructed’ (and therefore, perhaps, as contingent,
arbitrary, or illegitimate) are not simply descriptive acts.
They may represent political–normative positions. As
such, they may be not only views about territory, but
interventions in the politics of territory. To that extent
they might better be understood as internal to the
practice of territoriality itself.
Another related preliminary issue concerns the func
tions of territoriality. Territory is commonly discussed in
terms of the social or psychological functions it serves. It is
seen as a device for accomplishing certain ends. Among
these may be control of resources, efficiency or conveni
ence, stability or security, and clarity of definition. There is
no doubt that territory is functional insofar as it may help
to accomplish desired ends. But too narrow a focus on
functionality may have the effect of concentrating ex
clusive attention on ‘the controllers’ (those who are em
powered to impose their will on others) and the facile
identification of ‘function’ with their desires and inten
tions. As already mentioned, this tends to exclude from
consideration the ‘others’ who act in relation to the con
trollers. Functional analysis also tends to privilege rational
calculation over other modes of behavior that, in a given
context, may be as or more significant. Often territoriality
is used as a means toward ‘irrational’ ends such as the
expulsion or confinement of feared others. Finally, func
tional views may be relatively blind to the unintended
effects and consequences of territorialization. In sum,
while particular instances of territoriality may accurately
be assessed in terms of functions (whether successfully
realized or not), functionality cannot be attributed to
territoriality as such or to complex territorial configur
ations. Indeed, its dysfunctional features may be as or
more salient.
Analytics
By definition, territory and territoriality involve the
practical interrelationships among ‘space’, ‘power’, and
‘meaning’. Each of these refer to complex social phe
nomena in their own right. In combination they account
for much of the complexity of territory and territoriality.
In this section we examine territory and territoriality
through an analysis of these three components.
Space
‘Space’ is a basic vocabulary item in English. One might
imagine that it does not need to be defined. Space simply
is. But some features and distinctions should be noted.
Our concern here is with social space – space as a fun
damental element of social formations, social relations,
and social life. Space often refers to two dimensional
extent. It may be conceptualized in terms of distance and
proximity; betweenness; distributions of phenomena
across space; or motion through it. Not all that is spatial
(or ‘sociospatial’) is territorial, but territoriality neces
sarily implicates partitioned social space.
By definition, territories are bounded spaces. Even the
simplest territory, then, is a composite of at least three
components: (1) the boundary or line that defines the edge
of the territory, (2) the enclosed space, and (3) ‘the outside’
to which ‘the inside’ is set in relational contrast. Territories
need not be entirely closed, though typically they are.
‘Public space’ can be understood as a kind of territory even
though it may be defined by its relative openness. Even so,
as a territory, public space may be highly regulated. Insofar
as it is, it works like other kinds of territories. What is
necessary is that there be a differentiation that establishes
an in/out or off/on orientation.
Often, ‘like’ territories (territories of the same general
kind) are organized in horizontal complexes. Political or
administrative territories border each other. People and
things can pass from one to another, for example, at an
international border. Instances of passing (of crossing the
lines) may be governed by complex rules of ingress and
egress, and the passage itself may be consequential in
ways that motion within a given space is not. The same is
true with respect to other kinds of spaces: property lots,
rooms, or cells, may border each other and this bordering
has effects. As this list suggests, different kinds of terri
tories are used to accomplish a wide variety of different
social objectives. A prisoner’s cell, the designated critical
habitat of an endangered species, and a gated community
are established for different purposes. The social world is
also composed of and structured by heterogenous en
sembles of territories. These may be arranged in more
complex configurations. For example, private property
lots abut wildlife refuges and military bases. Movement
across these lines is also movement across kinds. These

territories are also embedded within jurisdictions, dis
tricts, and zones of various kinds. While to some extent a
prison cell is a prison cell, it might matter a great deal
whether that cell is also located within the territorial
spaces called China, Sweden, or Guantanamo Bay Naval
Station.
The signs of partitioned space are ubiquitous. The lines
and spaces that constitute territoriality are rarely ques
tioned. The spaces themselves can appear to be self
evident, quasi natural ‘containers’, or compartments
within which social life takes place. Indeed, this apparent
self evidentness is important to how territory works.
Contemporary human geographers (and other scholars),
however, have developed alternative understandings of
social space that render such assumptions problematic.
Among the many recent ‘retheorizations’ of social space
that have a direct bearing on territory four are of par
ticular significance: (1) the mutual constitutivity of ‘soci
ety’ and ‘space’, (2) space as product and process, (3) the
production or construction of scale, and (4) the geo
graphical imagination and its relation to identity.
One important strand of recent sociospatial theory has
shifted attention away from ‘spaces’ as such and turned
attention toward a concern for ‘spatiality’ or ‘the spati
ality of social life’. Among the fundamental premises of
this conceptual reframing is the idea that ‘space’ is not
simply a backdrop or context against which social events
take place. Rather, the spatial and the social are under
stood as inextricably bound to each other. Spatiality is a
fundamental dimension of ‘the social’ through which the
social becomes as it is and operates as it does. As Edward
Soja has put it, ‘‘As a social product, spatiality is simul
taneously the medium and outcome, presupposition and
embodiment of social action and relationship.’’ Thinking
about social space this way means that ‘space’ or any
given space or spatial arrangement is not self evident or
quasi natural. Therefore, understanding spatiality (and
territoriality) requires a deeper (i.e., more sophisticated,
noncommonsensical) understanding of the social order of
which it is a constitutive element or ingredient. For ex
ample, the whys and hows of spatiality (and therefore
territoriality) under conditions of modernity, capitalism,
or liberalism may differ markedly from their dynamics
under other conditions. This assumption then directs
attention toward the ways in which spatiality is ‘pro
duced’, and the historical conditions and social dynamics
of its production. It also raises questions about the social
and experiential consequences of how it is produced and
transformed.
This is a second strand of retheorization that has in
fluenced theorists of territoriality. Territories are in
creasingly understood less as inert things (‘containers’),
and more like activities or events. Prominent theorist
of territoriality Anssi Paasi (2003: 109–122) describes
‘‘yterritories as processes in which social space and
Territory and Territoriality 199
social action are inseparable.’’ The insistence on the
complex ‘mutual constitutivity’ of the social and the
spatial through the dynamics of territoriality has also
facilitated closer scrutiny of the various dimensions of
social life (e.g., economic, political, cultural, etc.) that
contribute to the dynamic spatialities of social life, in
cluding the specifically territorial. Territory, then, is less
like a grid and more like choreography.
Another development in sociospatial theory with
direct relevance for understanding territory has been
increased interest in the social – especially political –
construction of scale. In contemporary human geography
scale commonly refers to the spatial extent or ‘level’ of
operation of some relevant phenomenon. As with other
aspects of ‘space’ scale has conventionally been regarded
as a quasi natural ‘objective’ framework that sets the
scope and level of detail of analysis. Typically, ‘the glo
bal’, ‘the national’, and ‘the local’ are seen as the most
useful scales of analysis or description. For present pur
poses, ‘scale’ is used to identify processes and forces that
operate on or through territoriality at different ‘levels’.
Such processes may have different effects or character
istics when examined through different scalar lenses, or
when examined through interrelations among scales.
Labor migration, for example, looks different (different
aspects are highlighted or obscured) when situated at
different scales of analysis. However, social actors may
have an interest in asserting or denying the relevance or
appropriateness of one or another posited scale over
contenders. For example, a particular event (say, an in
stance of violence against women, or the detention of
‘unlawful combatants’) may be conceptualized as impli
cating human rights and international law (global scale),
or as implicating civil rights and sovereignty (national
scale), or as implicating privacy rights or local control
(local or corporeal scale). As with other aspects of spa
tiality, contemporary geographers have come to see
‘scale’ not as a quasi natural, objective framework for
analysis but as an interpretive construct. The ‘(political)
construction of scale’ suggests that claims about the ap
propriate scale of analysis are not necessarily disinter
ested. Another implication of this is that the sociospatial
dynamics associated with territoriality can be seen to
unfold not only with respect to two dimensional space –
but also as may be commonly represented on maps. In
stead, territoriality as process takes place within multiple,
perhaps overlapping or interpenetrating spaces. Much of
the practical work of territoriality, then, concerns the
‘vertical’ relationships between or among these overlap
ping, mutually conditioning ‘levels’ – again, commonly,
but not only, ‘the global’, ‘the national’, and ‘the local’.
A fourth recent development in geographical theory
that pertains directly to territory is the attention paid
to ‘the geographical imagination’. This notion addresses
the ways in which images, concepts, dispositions, or
200 Territory and Territoriality
ideologies about social space condition forms and ex
pressions of self and social consciousness, and thereby
inform the practices associated with the production of
space. One implication of this is that space generally, and
territory more specifically, are understood not as external
to human thought, imagination, and language. One might
say, in fact, that territories are primarily ‘imagined’. This
is not to say that they are ‘subjective’ or ‘not real’, only
that they necessarily implicate aspects of social and self
consciousness. Of special importance for understanding
territory are the connections among material territorial
spaces, geographical imaginaries, and aspects of ‘identity’
(nationality, citizenship, race, and gender). Themes of
identity and difference are commonly expressed through
the territorialization of elements of self and social
consciousness. Consider how images of territory stabilize
(or potentially de stabilize) categorical identities such as
‘American’ and ‘Mexican’, ‘citizen’ and ‘alien’, ‘legal’ and
‘illegal’, and ‘rights holder’ and ‘rightless’ and how these
reciprocally stabilize conceptions of territory. Other ex
amples of territorial imaginaries may come into play in
contexts involving racial or gender segregation, privacy,
or ownership.
As can be seen, ‘space’ has come to refer to much
more than the apparently self evident, ‘objective’ features
of the external world. It also implicates the dynamic
relationship between ‘material’ spaces (such as states, lots,
rooms, and zones) and the ideologies that inform and are
reinforced through them. We will return to this theme
below. For the present it is sufficient merely to note that
there are different ways of understanding the spatial, and
that which view among competing views is taken as more
accurate or explanatory will have consequences for how
territory and territoriality are understood.
Power
By definition, territory and territoriality implicate social
relational power. But, as with ‘space’, this concept is, in its
own right, among the most fundamental, if complex and
controversial, terms of social analysis. One can take a
rather simple, unexamined understanding of power and
draw inferences from it, or one can avail oneself of any
number of more sophisticated theories and problematize
it. As is the case with ‘space’, different conceptions of
power are likely to yield different understandings of
territory and territoriality.
By ‘power’ one often simply means the capacity to act
or the capacity to impose one’s will against the will of
others. Power may be expressed, exercised, and experi
enced in countless ways. Scholars identify and dis
tinguish, for example, political, economic, military,
ideological, familial, and other forms or sources of power.
Each of these, by itself or in complex combinations, may
be territorialized or may condition the workings of
territoriality in a wide variety of ways. Military power
may be effected through a territoriality of ‘theaters’,
fronts, war zones and free fire zones, invasions, and oc
cupations, whereas economic power may more com
monly implicate trade zones, trade barriers, investment
zones, and real property. Also, different social formations
(‘cultures’, historical eras) exhibit differing sources, bases,
and expressions of power. The workings of power in,
say, tenth century Hopi culture, fifteenth century France
and contemporary France all differ significantly from
one another. The dynamics of power under conditions
of modernity operate differently than under other
conditions.
Here simply mention some common limiting as
sumptions about power. Then I sketch more complex
elements as they pertain to contemporary scholarly
understandings of territory and territoriality. First, al
though in ordinary speech we might say that power is
something that persons or institutions ‘have’ and ‘use’,
one important feature of most theoretical conceptions of
social power is that it is relational. Second, discussions of
power are frequently short hand for ‘power over’ (A ‘has
power over’ B). This formulation privileges certain forms
such as domination and coercion within hierarchical re
lations. But power can also be manifest as ‘power to’ in
the absence of domination. As mentioned earlier, power
might also reflect relations of cooperation, solidarity,
protection, and altruism. As reference to protection
suggests, ‘power over’ and ‘power to’ are not mutually
exclusive. Indeed, they may be mutually dependent.
Third, discussions of power are frequently cast in bi
lateral (often zero sum) terms (again, A and B, ruler and
ruled). But, while bilateral power relations have an un
deniable experiential significance, it is also useful to
consider power relations in terms of complex networks or
configurations. Fourth, power can usefully be analyzed in
more or less structural terms, as intrinsic to any social
order. Power as it relates to capitalism, patriarchy, racism,
caste, etc., can usefully be thought about in structural
terms. This is especially important for understanding
(and misunderstanding) territoriality. One highly sig
nificant feature of power is the degree to which it is
institutionalized. Indeed, many expressions of territory
are themselves institutionalized structures of power.
Power is often most clearly discerned through examining
enduring impersonal role relations that an agent (this or
that person) contingently occupies or engages (think of
the supervisor, the bishop, the teacher, the border patrol
agent; Figure 3). At the same time, power can be ana
lyzed in more situational terms. Power is realized, per
formed, and experienced by and through agents in actual
contexts in relation to specific others. Examining power
situationally draws attention more precisely to the
practical strategies and tactics, accommodations, and
negotiations through which it is realized. That is, while

Figure 3 A border patrol agent frisks a would-be crosser.
Source: www.desertexposure.com/200707/200707 immigrat.
power often inheres (or is ‘deposited’) in institutions,
organizations, and broader social structures, it is realized
(exercised, experienced) in concrete situations.
Institutionalized power can be territorialized in vari
ous ways. The territorialization of forms of power
through the institutions of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘ownership’
(via the state and property) may be most obvious. But
there are many other significant power projects that also
implicate territoriality. Referencing a different sense of
‘institution’ one might consider how sexism and/or
homophobia, for example, are territorialized through
notions of ‘separate spheres’ for women and men, or
through the construction and deconstruction of the ma
terial spaces of ‘the closet’. Often these other dimensions
of structural (and situational) power work through the
fundamental liberal spaces of governance and property,
as, for example, the exclusion of gays and lesbians under
some immigration laws or the insulation of forms of
private power (domestic violence, workplace discipline)
from democratic intervention (Figure 4).
Social power can be understood as relatively static (as
corresponding to set roles within a hierarchy) or as more
dynamic. The operations of power are seen not only in
discrete events, they also condition the unfolding of
subsequent chains of events. Power is not only discern
able in explicit acts. Rather, we – collectively or indi
vidually – are never not engaged with, partaking of,
participating in the structures and situations of power.
Part of what exercising power means is the capacity to
exert control over future events. Each of these aspects of
power have important implications for territory and
territoriality.
That territoriality and power are intertwined is in
contestable, but the practical details of such intertwining
are complex and subtle. One might begin with analysis of
the power to ‘territorialize’ and inquire about the sources
of this power. One might ask: who ‘has’ the power (the
authority, the rights) to draw the lines, to create the
Territory and Territoriality 201
Figure 4 Territory as sanctuary. Source www.svsu.edu/clubs/
gsa/left.htm.
borders, to set or change the rules of entry and exit, of
inclusion and exclusion? Who has the power to partition,
or annex? Who has the power to disregard the desires of
others who may be effected: to invade, trespass, or oc
cupy? Who is obligated – or obliged – to acquiesce?
(Again, by ‘has the power’ here we mean, ‘who is pos
itioned within networks of power in relation to whom
such that these acts may be effectively performed’.) One
point of connection between power and territory involves
the structures of power that position different social
actors with respect to the power to engage in authori
tative (or otherwise effective) acts of territorialization.
Although all social actors ‘do’ or ‘perform’ territory
simply by virtue of being alive, some people do it in ways
that are more consequential than others.
Territorializing is often the prerogative of state agents.
The source of this power is usually ideologically de
rivable from notions of sovereignty. In the early twentieth
century, for example, Great Britain (which is to say,
agents such as High Commissioner Sir Percy Cox) par
ticipated in the invention of ‘Iraq’ by partitioning and re
assembling portions of the Ottoman Empire. Likewise,
just weeks before the British were to leave India, the
Viceroy established the Bengal Boundary Commission.
Its Chairman, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, partitioned India and
created Pakistan, the eastern portion of which became
Bangladesh in 1971. Boundary disputes may be resolved
by diplomats aided by cartographers. Municipal govern
ments (again, actual persons employed by these insti
tutions) create and revise school districts, voting wards,
and policing precincts. Other state agents may be em
powered to incorporate municipalities, set city limits,
annex territory; to establish wilderness areas, Native
202 Territory and Territoriality
Reserves, free trade zones, or free fire zones. Judges may
issue restraining orders that effectively create territories
around specific people or create buffer zones around
abortion clinics. The police may establish boundaries
around protesters at demonstrations or order a particular
space cleared of people. But it is not only official state
actors who may be empowered to territorialize (or de
territorialize). Property owners, employers, parents,
gangs, and even children may set rules along a line, ef
fectively ‘communicate’ these rules, ‘enforce’ compliance,
and punish noncompliance. It is no exaggeration to say
that one of the common incidents of ‘authority’ (of
whatever form) is the power to territorialize within one’s
space of authority. Obviously, this power to territorialize
is often deployed with the aim of achieving power over
others.
Territory is also commonly used to demarcate the
scope and limits of power itself (again, in various forms
and expressions). Property and jurisdiction tell the world:
my/our power (rights, authority) is presumptively su
preme and legitimate and requires deference within these
boundaries; it is presumptively illegitimate and imposes
no obligations just over the line. The boundaries of ter
ritory confine the practice of jurisdiction, and define the
edge of sovereignty or regulation. They may mark the
limit of legitimacy, membership, participation, and voice.
Territory is also important in establishing the spatial
scope of rule application. It delineates what is allowable,
forbidden, or mandatory where. That is, territory pro
vides communicable limits to spatial fields of action and
to the sociospatial applicability of power. Again, this
applies not only to political or governing spaces but to
households, workplaces, public space, personal space, and
other territories.
As will be discussed in detail in the following section,
any such performance of territorial authority may be
assessed in terms of its ‘legitimacy’. Legitimacy entails an
evaluation of the power claimed against possible sources
or justifications. Occasionally, assessments of the legit
imacy of a given territorialization can be negative.
Others – particularly the others over whom power is
wielded, or those whose actions are to be constrained
by territory – may not recognize the legitimacy of the
territorializing power and with it the obligations imposed
through territoriality. The denial of legitimacy, in turn,
may provide justification for the deployment of other
forms of counter territorializing power in resistance.
Ultimately, though, claims of ‘legitimate authority’ (to
territorialize) may be put aside and replaced by physical
coercion and the violent imposition of will. But even this
may be insufficient to effect the desired territorialization.
For example, in the 1950s, the United States government
(again, some actors within that institutional structure)
and some Vietnamese collaborators asserted the exist
ence of ‘the Republic of Vietnam’ (South Vietnam) as a
sovereign space separate and separated from what they
called North Vietnam at the 17th parallel. Political actors
throughout Vietnam repudiated this fiction and, in 1975,
Vietnam was unified. This asserted partition proved no
more successful than the invention of the Confederate
States of America or many other secessionist projects
have been.
Territory effects other aspects of power (authority,
legitimacy, obligation, sanction) in various ways. Terri
torial spaces are frequently created in order to amplify,
intensify, or consolidate various forms of power. They
may simultaneously disempower, subordinate, or injure
others. Territory is commonly employed to divide and
conquer, to dilute opposition, to confine, exclude or de
prive others of access to necessities, to impose burdens, to
create relations of dependency or vulnerability, and to
dispossess. At the same time it may be a device for cre
ating the conditions for security, self determination, or
sanctuary. That is, it is frequently an instrument of power
(to and/or over) that further conditions the operations
and relations of power.
As with space and spatiality more generally, it is im
portant to look beyond a single space/line or a specific
territorializing event and examine more extensive en
sembles or configurations. Territory has the effect of
channeling the circulation of power through the social
world. Territorialized regimes such as apartheid (with its
‘group areas’, its ‘Bantustans’, its ‘influx control’, and
its political prisons) or classic American Jim Crow (with
its separate schools, seating assignments in busses and
waiting rooms, and racialized hospital wards) represented
the complex hyper territorialization of racialized power.
In practice, the territorialization of racialized power
provided innumerable occasions and opportunities to
‘enforce’, to perform whiteness as dominance, to compel
submission, to punish those who refused to submit. These
are extreme examples, but analogous arrangements
structure more ordinary territorial mosaics (Figure 5).
Social power is not static, it is political. ‘Politics’ here
refers to unfolding and shifting contests for and about
power. Just as discussions of territory are frequently
confined to (by) the territorial state, so ‘politics’ is often
restricted to contests for formal state power. Viewed
more expansively though, contests about power take
place in many other contexts. The old adage that ‘‘war is
politics by other means’’ and the feminist credo that ‘‘the
personal is the political’’ open up some of these other
possibilities for locating the political in contexts ranging
from the international to the interpersonal. Political ob
jectives can be accomplished through violence, voting,
negotiation, persuasion, bureaucratic rule making, legal
argument, economic transactions, and many other means.
Territorial politics, always about space and power, are
often focused on the politics of meaning and
interpretation.

Figure 5 Signs of racialized territories. Source: www.ferris.edu/
jimcrow/traveling2/THEM/34.htm. Ferris State University.
Meaning
Conventional treatments of territory recognize that in order
for it to ‘work’ – to do what is expected or intended –
something has to be ‘communicated’. At minimum some
agent, typically the controller, has to communicate to
relevant others that a territory exists or is being claimed;
that entry (or exit) is prohibited or conditional upon certain
specifications; and that there are consequences to be ex
pected if one disregards these claims. The image that this
calls to mind, perhaps, is that of a gate keeper or bar
bouncer. No doubt territoriality does seem to work this way
on occasion. But whether this is the usual way, and whether
thinking about territory and territoriality this way is most
useful, are debatable propositions. As with the components
‘space’ and ‘power’, communication – or what the author
refers to more broadly as ‘meaning’ – is much more com
plicated and has undergone rather profound rethinking in
contemporary investigations of territoriality. ‘Meaning’ here
refers to distinctively human social symbolic capacities in
volving consciousness, language, and communication. It
implicates thought, discourse, ideology, feelings, and prac
tical significance. This should give some suggestion as to the
potential complexity of its relationship to space and power
through territoriality. ‘Keep Out’ means (presupposes, en
tails) much more than keep out. The increased concern
with questions of meaning in human geography reflects, in
part, the heightened influence of the humanities, especially
Continental philosophy, in this and other social disciplines.
Taking questions of meaning, meaning production, and
signification more seriously – and more problematically –
reveals a greater degree of complexity and subtlety of
Territory and Territoriality 203
territoriality than is usually acknowledged. Of specific
concern here are meaning’s interconnections with ‘power’
and ‘spatiality’ that constitute territory. The discussion here
proceeds from rather simple to more complex and am
biguous connections.
Perhaps the simplest and most obvious role of
‘meaning’ in connection with territoriality implicates
territories as ‘meaningful’ spaces or spatial ‘containers’ of
social meanings. They are claimed, defined, dis
tinguished, and differentiated from other spaces. Lines
and boundaries are established as defining, differen
tiating, signifying features of the landscape. Often in
modern, literate contexts, territories are named (Bolivia,
Manitoba, Ludlow State Prison, Pine Ridge Indian Res
ervation), or numbered (714 Second Street, Apartment
4 G, Mining Concession Block 1240). They are identi
fied, mapped, and made known. In the modern world
there are innumerable generic territories (the state, the
refugee camp, the wilderness area) that designate an area
as a particular kind of space. Within each category there
may be innumerable instances of specific territories
(Australia, Jabalia Refugee Camp, Weminuche Wilder
ness Area). Through the establishment of generic kinds
and specific instantiations of territories, ‘meaning’, at this
most basic level, is ‘inscribed’ or projected onto social
space. The resultant territorializations can then mean
ingfully differentiate locations and events in space. This
sort of meaning is, of course, able to be communicated. In
the modern hyper literate world this level of meaning is
often communicated through both physical structures
and linguistic markers. Our world is saturated with signs
announcing, directing, prohibiting, allowing, and man
dating behaviors with respect to partitioned space. Per
haps the most salient effect of these communicative
events is their dichotomization: the inscription of either/
or; in/out; on/off; mine/not mine; public/private; and
domestic/foreign (and so on) categories onto social space
at territorial boundaries.
As we know from daily experience, territorial(ized)
meanings are frequently propositional. Propositions sig
nify, for example, what it means to cross the defining line.
Sometimes these are implicit. People in any social order
are habituated into the territorial regime that constitutes
that order. In our world a key component of this is seen in
the territorialization of privacy and publicity. But often
the propositional aspect of territorialized meaning is
explicit. Meanings are encoded on signs that state, for
example, the conditions of entry, or the rules of accept
able, unacceptable, or punishable behavior. These terri
torial meanings can be ‘performed’ in a number of ways,
for example, through the rituals of asking, granting, or
withholding permission to enter or leave; by knocking
and waiting; by demanding and presenting papers at the
border; or by being picked up and bodily thrown back
across the line.
204 Territory and Territoriality
As discussion of the propositional content demon
strates, the meanings of territory are frequently encoded
in rules. Rules are a special form of proposition; they
convey a special sort of meaning. Again, these (or some
small subset) may be ‘posted’ at the point of ingress or
around the perimeter. Rules, like territory itself, ‘work’
best to the extent that they are taken to be simple and
unproblematic. However, many rules that appear simple
and clear from one perspective can appear to be much
more complex or ambiguous when seen from a different,
perhaps less deferential, point of view. Moreover, when
one pulls on a rule (even the simplest, clearest of rules
such as ‘Keep Out’) one often finds that it is entangled in
a potentially endless cluster of other rules, principles,
exceptions, restrictions, syllogisms, ideologies, fears, de
sires, etc. These constitute what might be called the
‘deeper’ meanings of territory and territoriality.
Questions concerning rules (and ruling, being ruled)
connect most directly to questions concerning power. Rules
of territory are much more than direct propositions about
what it means to cross a line. A given territorial rule im
plicates other rules about the authority to rule (to inscribe
meaning). Not all commands to Keep Out issue from rec
ognized authorities. As we saw in our discussion of power,
questions about legitimacy may be raised. Sometimes the
appropriate response to Keep Out is ‘who says?’ (Were you
to encounter a sign reading: ‘You Are Now Entering The
Republic of Bonzonia: Underwear is Prohibited’, you might
reasonably disregard it. But if the sign said ‘Private Prop
erty: Trespassers will be Shot on Sight’ you might inquire
into the existence of the authority to claim or to shoot.)
Again, behind the question of authority is the question of
legitimacy of that authority. An agent may, in fact, be for
mally authorized to condition territoriality. For example,
during the period of classical American Jim Crow segre
gation conditioning entry and exit on the basis of ‘race’ was
not only allowed by law (presumptively legitimate author
ity) but also mandated by State Constitutions. Nonetheless,
the legitimacy of that authority was also repudiated by
relevant others. Pushing still further, one may challenge the
source of the asserted legitimacy of that claim to authority.
Significantly, claims to legitimate authority are often re
ferred back to territory itself by way of the (by no means
simple) notions of jurisdiction, sovereignty, or ownership: it
is simply, self evidently ‘the law of the land’. However, a
particular territorial (territorializing) rule may and often
does raise questions about the obligation to follow it, that is,
to conform one’s actions to the asserted meanings inscribed
through territory. This, in turn, may and often does raise
questions about the authority or legitimacy to compel
compliance with the rules laid down.
As a particular kind of proposition, a rule is typically
prescriptive. Prescriptive rules have a syllogistic
(IF>THEN) structure which, again, may raise questions
concerning the consequences (sanctions, immunities)
associated with not following the rule (>THEN). That is,
‘meaning’ as encountered in ‘rules’ implicates potentially
dense, open ended questions about power relations. This
potential open endedness or indeterminacy contributes
further to the complexity of territory. It reveals a dimen
sion of possible (and possibly useful) ambiguity. It opens
up the further possibility of multiple interpretations. With
the possibility of multiple plausible interpretations comes
the possibility of instability and of transformation through
re interpretation or re inscription. These possibilities are
commonly ignored in conventional treatments of territory.
The issue of interpretivity may be compounded in literate
social orders where much (by no means all) meaning is
textualized, not just in ‘signage’ (or what is called ‘official
graffiti’) but in treaties, deeds, contracts, constitutions,
policies, regulations, doctrines, etc., the interpretation of
which is required to stabilize the sometimes slippery
meanings of power in social space.
In whatever manner they are communicated or stabil
ized, rules are just rules: words, propositions, categories,
syllogisms. But territorial rules are fundamentally lived. As
noted above, territorialized meanings may be internalized,
often as common sense dispositions toward social power
and space. We learn, and usually conform to, and thereby
‘perform’ territoriality. Occasionally, though, we disregard,
resist, or reject these ruling meanings. This is to say that
‘meaning’ is not free floating or untethered to lived ex
perience. Neither is it simply communicated un
equivocally. Like space and power, meaning is relational. It
is meaning for subjects and agents. This may have impli
cations for ‘meanings’ of a difference sort: meanings as
affective significance. Here consider the meanings of
‘home’ or ‘homeland’, and associated feelings of belonging
and attachment, or fear and aversion. These kinds of
meanings may align with more formal propositional or
prescriptive meanings (as ‘home’ may align with property,
or ‘homeland’ with citizenship and sovereignty), but they
may also be in tension with these formal propositional
expressions. These kinds of ‘meanings’ and their con
nections to space and power through territoriality are no
less important to understanding how territory works.
Digging still deeper beneath the apparent clarity of
territory there are other (in some sense subtler) contri
butions to the meaningfulness of territories that implicate
space and power. We can gather these under the headings
of ideology and discourse. For present purposes by
‘ideology’ is meant a more or less elaborate, internally
coherent, shared set of beliefs, dispositions, images about
power. Discourses can be thought of as conventional or
institutionalized ways of thinking; the categories through
which thinking (and doing and being) happens and which
determine the limits, in any given context, of what can be
thought or of what is acceptable thinking. Ideologies are
represented through discourses. Ideologies tend to be
justificatory, but (according to which among many

theories of ideology one accepts) they need not be. What
is important for present purposes is how ideologies can
inform and condition territory and territoriality. Like
wise, territorializing projects can give social–material
expression to ideologies. One might say that territoriality
is per se ideological insofar as any territory reflects
ideological conceptions of space and power. It has proven
useful to examine various territorial arrangements
through the interpretive lens of ideology.
A given ideology may be said to be hegemonic, or
taken as common sense for nearly all participants in a
social order – those who rule as well as those who do not.
One example of this is ideologies of statism. In our era,
claims about globalization notwithstanding, ‘the state’
and more specifically ‘the territorial state’ is such a taken
for granted feature of the social world that questioning it
or identifying the belief in it as ‘ideological’ is tanta
mount to a request not to be taken seriously in most
political discussions. In contrast, an ideology may be said
to be dominant (but not hegemonic) insofar as a large
number of people (or, at least a large number of the most
powerful people!) take it to be common sense, even
though it may be challenged, or resisted by a significant
number of others. Relevant examples of this include
ideologies of colonialism or racism that inform the
crafting and maintenance of colonial and/or racial(izing)
territorial structures. Likewise, territorially significant
ideologies may be seen as insurgent or emergent. At one
moment in time marginal or heretical, they may, over
time, become more plausible or acceptable. Examples
here include anti colonial, nationalist ideologies, and
ideologies of racial separatism or desegregation. It may
be useful to see these contending ideologies as giving
expression to rival geographical or territorial imaginaries
of how social worlds should be put together or how social
space should be organized so that desirable worlds might
result and undesirable worlds be avoided. These terri
torial and territorializing ideologies are at once a kind of
mapping, tools for making meaning, and tools for
(re )making worlds.
The meaning of ‘meaning’ in the context of territory,
then, is much richer, more complex, and subtler than ‘No
Trespassing’ or ‘Now Entering y ’ may suggest. Both the
complexity (and the obscurity of this complexity) are
important to grasp. The dynamic, intertwining, mutually
conditioning relationships of power, space, and meaning
(and, therefore, their connections to lived experience) are
much more complicated than is commonly acknow
ledged. This, again, is one of the central paradoxes of
territory and territoriality. The apparent (and func
tional?) simplicity and clarity of lines and spaces is belied
by the complexity and potential ambiguity and in
determinacy. Recognizing this is indispensable to
understanding how territory actually operates in the
world. Indeed, at least under conditions of modernity one
Territory and Territoriality 205
of the most important forms that the politics of terri
toriality takes is to be seen in efforts oriented toward
(selective) interpretive restructuring. Rival projects often
operate primarily – if not exclusively – at the register of
meaning: propositions, rules, ideological commitments,
and discourses, in order to effect the re signification of
space. Through the operations of the territorial imagin
ation spatialized meanings may be taken as self evident.
Old meaning may be repudiated, new meanings re
imagined, asserted, inscribed, and imposed. Spatialized
power – understood relationally – is continually re
configured both structurally and situationally.
Temporalities
Because territory is regarded primarily as a spatial phe
nomenon, and because space (and geography) is com
monly contrasted with time (and history) in social
thought, territory may too readily be understood as
relatively atemporal or static. Insofar as they implicate
relatively enduring spatial structures that give order to
elements of social flux, territories can easily be under
stood as effectively fixing aspects of social order in space.
This view is also facilitated by conventional cartographic
representations. The preceding discussion suggests
something different. Space, spatialities, and spatializa
tions are now frequently seen as more dynamic. Territory
as process; power as necessarily concerned with the un
folding of events in time; the making and remaking of
meaning; the increased prominence in theoretical writ
ings of process verbs such as ‘territorialize’ and ‘de or
re territorializing’ all suggest that temporality is an ir
reducible dimension (or co participant) in the workings
of territory and territoriality. Just as scale allows us to
comprehend a multiplicity of interpenetrating spaces, so
time can be parsed into time – frames of various inter
related durations from the momentary to the deep
historic.
As a practical matter, there seems to be an inherent
temporal dimension insofar as territory implicates mo
bility or immobilization. It is often concerned with
(controlling) access, entry, exclusion, expulsion, or con
finement. Disjunctures in space (in/out; here/there) often
cause disruptions in the smooth flow of experiential time.
Vectors of motion often slow down or come to a halt at
the edges of territories. We stop and knock, we show our
passports, our passes, and tickets. We are moved into or
out of spaces. While many territories are relatively en
during and are marked by borders, fences, or doors that
are fixed to the landscape, others are more fleeting and
fluid. They emerge and dissipate. Their contours shift.
Others may be described as rhythmic or characterized by
periodic openings and closings over the course of a day
or year. A special case may be that of spatially defined
curfews by reference to which a territory may exist only
206 Territory and Territoriality
during darkness or the duration of an emergency. One
particularly dramatic example of such temporal terri
tories can be seen in the Israeli policy of ‘closures’ in the
Occupied Palestinian Territory (Figures 6 and 7).
Figure 6 Boundary of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
Source: www.fmep.org/y/checkpoint kalandia.html. Foundation
for Middle East Peace.
Figure 7 Checkpoint Kalandia the most notorious checkpoint between Israel and the occupied territories. Most traffic between
Jerusalem and Ramallah has to go through here. Source: www.youthbuild.org/site/c.htIRI3PIKoG/b.14090.
Just as attention to scale allows one to examine the
spatial ‘nestedness’ or embeddedness of territories, at
tention to the range of durations allows one to examine
the different temporalities that condition territories and
territorial projects. Territorial configurations change over
different spans of time. These changes may register pri
marily in the domain of meaning, rules, and interpret
ation. Here, the spaces remain relatively constant but the
meanings and associated power relations change. Con
sider, for example, the decades long projects of segre
gation and desegregation, or the vicissitudes of
immigration laws of different states, or long term chan
ges in landlord–tenant relations. Other large scale
transformations may entail the spatial reconfigurations of
governance. Examples of this include the spatial expan
sion of the United States during the nineteenth century,
the consolidation of the European Union in the late
twentieth and early twenty first centuries, and the dis
integration of the Soviet Union. Or consider the local
dynamics of subdivision, ‘development’, and suburban
municipal incorporation and metropolitan fragmentation.
Taking into account even larger spans of time, terri
toriality as such is commonly said to have a history. If one
subscribes to a naturalistic theory of human territoriality,
then the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ of it might be understood as
temporally contiguous with primate forms and the spe
cifics of human territoriality could be linked to theories
of evolution. Without this naturalistic assumption it is
possible to link transformations of human territorial
practices to those large scale ‘stage’ transformations
associated with history as such. Archeological and
ethnographic evidence may be drawn on in support of
explanatory claims about transformations in human

territorializing practices. The differences among, say,
hunter–gatherer, nomadic, and sedentary social orders
(or cultures), and the transformation of a given social
order from one type to another may be suggestive of such
an historical understanding. This kind of evidence also
supports the broader claim that territoriality is an inte
gral aspect of every and any social order. Depending
upon how a given social order is organized (e.g., in terms
of dominant mode of production, practices and insti
tutions of governance, gender and social reproduction,
technology and material culture, or conceptions of self
hood), certain territorial expressions will be possible and
more or less serviceable and others will be less likely.
These differences are commonly conceptualized as
‘stages’, and these stages are conceptually organized
around ideas of progress, development, or advancement.
This understanding of time or history suggests that
sedentary cultures engaged in agricultural production are
more ‘advanced’ than either nomadic or hunting–gath
ering peoples and that the modes of territorializing are
also more advanced. Drawing on our earlier discussion of
the importance of the geographical imagination, such
thinking facilitates the belief that ‘modern’ forms and
expressions of territory are the most advanced or, as it is
sometimes put, ‘mature’.
It is with respect to the problematic of modernity that
territoriality is most commonly historicized. Modernity,
as a frame of reference, historicizes and temporalizes
territory and territoriality in at least two important
senses. First, it posits a radical disjuncture within the
whole of human history. As a frame of reference it pos
itions most social orders not only as other than modern
but as premodern. To invoke the premodern – or what is
still often referred to as the primitive or the ancient – is
to gather some thousands of ways of organizing human
collective life under one rubric that emphasizes their
imagined commonality, ignores the profound differences
among them, and positions them ‘before’ the advent (or
local arrival of ) modernity. Thus, as different as they may
be in other respects, the modes of territorializing asso
ciated with inhabitants of the Kalahari Desert, Lapp
landers (Suomi) and eleventh century Pueblo peoples
such as the Zuni or Hopi are all taken as instances of
premodern territoriality. It follows that reconfiguration of
these spatial arrangements to conform to the require
ments of capitalism and modern statist forms of sover
eignty constitutes ‘modernization’, and maturation or
development.
There is a common temporal narrative that describes
and explains the local emergence and global diffusion of
distinctively modern forms, expressions, and practices of
territory and territoriality. It is necessarily the case that
‘premodern’ social formations (even those that continue
to exist) change and that these changes are evinced in
territorial reconfigurations: territorial systems of land
Territory and Territoriality 207
tenure, settlement patterns, and household organization
change over periods of time; more or less formally ter
ritorialized state structures emerge, coalesce, and dis
integrate; empires rise and fall. But the distinctiveness of
modernity implicates temporality in a different sense.
Modernity as such is defined in part by its allegedly novel
modalities of change as these are understood in relation
to ‘progress’ and ‘development’. As a frame of reference
modernity is associated with continuous transformation
and continuously intensifying and accelerating transfor
mations in virtually all aspects of social life. These
transformations are reflected in and effected by territory
and territoriality. One can see them registered in the
emergence and diffusion of the (modern) territorial state,
including the colonial and postcolonial state; in ‘land
policy’ and ‘indigenous policy’; in patterns of trans con
tinental and trans national migrations; in urban form; and
in the territorial aspects of rights.
Until late in the twentieth century, ‘modernity’ and
‘modernization’ were most commonly taken as self
evident (and self evidently positive) facts and processes
in Western (that is to say, modern) thought. While there
were debates about the most appropriate path to mod
ernity, modernization as such was rarely questioned. In
the late twentieth century there arose an increased
skepticism about modernity and about any of the ‘paths’
that might lead to it. In intellectual circles some of this
criticism took the form of postmodernism understood as
a suspension of generally dominant understandings about
the West in itself and in ‘its’ relation to the rest of the
world. But in whatever form, this skepticism put into
problematic perspective ‘modern’ and ‘modernist’
understandings of territory and territoriality. There are
three dimensions of this that warrant closer attention.
First, under the impetus of the various processes asso
ciated with globalization many have come to see the
withering away of the modern territorial state. The as
serted ‘erosion’ of sovereignty as a spatialized form of
power and the attendant diminution of regulatory cap
acity within and beyond territorial boundaries entails
(seemingly by definition) the arrival of a de territor
ialized world. Some observers celebrate this while others
decry it. In either case distinctively modern forms of
territoriality are seen as passing into oblivion. However,
other observers criticize this de territorial thesis as sim
ple minded. The argument here is that ‘the state’ – or at
least some states and their associated capacities – may
exist in new relationships with other forms of economic,
cultural, and political power, but they (or some subset of
developed states) are fully capable of maintaining
meaningful sovereign and regulatory power within and
beyond territorial boundaries. Moreover, even if the as
serted de territorializing processes are in play, they only
pertain to this specific expression of territoriality. While
borders may no longer be understood as absolute
208 Territory and Territoriality
barriers, the processes associated with globalization also
entail re territorializations at other scales and in other
contexts.
Second, the related emergence and increasing sig
nificance of the internet and cyberspace is also seen as a
harbinger of the demise of modern territoriality. The
disassociation of actions and events from ‘real’ spaces and
places is imagined as entailing the erosion of the terri
torial conditions of not only sovereignty but privacy as
well. While it is incontestable that the cyber revolution
has had profound consequences for territorial practices,
the extent to which this signals the passing of the dis
tinctively modern is by no means obvious.
Third, ‘postmodern’ modes of social analysis and
criticism more explicitly question the seemingly timeless
verities of modernism’s self understandings. They are
also productively applicable to assessments of global
ization and the cyber revolution. This kind of analysis has
been especially prevalent in the (Anglo American) spa
tial disciplines of human geography, international re
lations and architecture, as well as in anthropological and
sociological examinations of territory and territoriality.
Some of the fruits of these endeavors have been men
tioned throughout this article, for example, in the shift in
assumptions from territory understood as clear and
simple to increasingly ambiguous and complex; the
understanding of territory as ‘process’ and not fixed
container; the novel emphasis on the construction or
production of scale; and the invigorated attention to in
terpretation. These are all, in part, the results of a turn
away from modernist assumptions about space. Not only
would these newer assumptions have been disputed by
earlier scholars, they would have been quite unintelli
gible. But note: some of these claims seem to be about the
world of territory and territoriality while others seem to
be more about the concepts or interpretive conventions
through which scholars describe and explain that world.
These are not identical. But neither are they unrelated.
The novel practices and processes associated with
‘globalization’, the cyber revolution and postmodernist
modes of analysis are all instances of and ingredients in
novel ways of ‘doing’ territory and territoriality. They all
implicate the intricate mutual involvement of time in the
workings of territoriality and the interplay of space,
power, and ‘meaning’ that this entails.
Finally, just as many territorial projects are informed
by (sometimes competing) elements of a spatial or geo
graphical imaginary, these may be inseparable from
elements of (sometimes competing) historical narratives
that project the significance and meaning of time or
history onto spaces of power in order to justify the de
ployment or resistance of power in concrete situations.
These may be ‘backward looking’ as is frequently the case
with nationalist discourses and ideologies. But they may
also be forward looking, asserting the inevitability of a
sociospatial outcome. Examples of this are the American
ideology of Manifest Destiny and, some suggest, the
contemporary discourse of globalization.
See also: Critical Geopolitics; Geopolitics and Religion;
Ideology; Place, Politics of; Political Boundaries; Political
Geography; Sovereignty; State; State Theory.
Further Reading
Agnew, J. and Corbridge, S. (1995). Mastering Space: Hegemony,
Territory and International Political Economy. London:
Routledge.
Allen, J. (2003). Lost Geographies of Power. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Brenner, N. (1999). Beyond state centrism? Space, territoriality, and
geographical scale in globalization studies. Theory and Society
28, 39 78.
Cox, K. (2002). Political Geography: Territory, State and Society.
Oxford: Blackwell.
Delaney, D. (2005). Territory: A Short Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.
Gregory, D. (1994). Geographical Imaginations. Waldon, MA: Blackwell.
Newman, D. (2003). Boundaries. In Agnew, J., Mitchell, K. & Ó Tuathail,
G. (eds.) A Companion to Political Geography, pp 123 137. Malden,
MA: Blackwell.
Paasi, A. (2003). Territory. In Agnew, J., Mitchell, K. & Ó Tuathail, G.
(eds.) A Companion to Political Geography, pp 109 122. Malden,
MA: Blackwell.
Sack, R. (1985). Human Territoriality: Its Theory and History.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sassen, S. (2006). Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global
Assembladges. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Shapiro, M. and Alker, H. (eds.) (1996). Challenging Boundaries: Global
Flows, Territorial Identities. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Soja, E. (1985). The spatiality of social life: Towards a transformative
retheorization. In Gregory, D. & Urry, J. (eds.) Social Relations and
Spatial Structures, pp 91 127. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Storey, D. (2001). Territory: The Claiming of Space. Harlow: Pearson
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Taylor, P. (1995). Beyond containers: Internationality, interstateness,
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