The following paper was read in the First International Seminar of Social Spatial Studies:

Geopolitics, Power Spaces and Spaces Power (Primer seminario internacional de

estudios socioespaciales: geopolticas, espacios de poder y poder de los espacios)
which took place by instance of the Regional Studies nstitute of the !ni"ersity of
#ntio$uia (nsituto de %studios Regionales de la !ni"ersidad de #ntio$uia) in
&edelln, 'olombia on September ()
th
and (*
th
+ This collo$uium, besides #gnew,s,
also counted with the participation of -eriberto 'airo 'arou, .uillermo .uti/rre0,
-ugo #chugar (although he couldn,t assist due to health complications), 'armen
.uerra, 1/li2 de 3a glesia, 'arlos Tapia, 'armen &aganda, Santiago 'astro, %milio
Pia00ini, 'laudia Puerta and Robert 4o"er+
Spatiality and Territoriality in Contemporary Social Science
5ohn #gnew (!'3#)
n many languages the word territory typically refers to a unit of contiguous space that is
used, organi0ed and managed by a social group, indi"idual person or institution to restrict
and control access to people and places+ Though sometimes the word is used as
synonymous with place or space, territory has ne"er been a term as primordial or as generic
as they are in the canons of geographical terminology (#gnew 6778a)+ The dominant usage
has always been either political, in the sense of necessarily in"ol"ing the power to limit
access to certain places or regions, or ethological, in the sense of the dominance e2ercised
o"er a space by a gi"en species or an indi"idual organism+ ncreasingly, territory is coupled
with the concept of network to help understand the comple2 processes through which space
is managed and controlled by powerful organi0ations+ n this light, territory is only one type
of spatiality, or way in which space is used, rather than the one monopoli0ing its
employment+ 1rom this perspecti"e, territoriality is the strategic use of territory to attain
organi0ational goals+ t is only one way of organi0ing space+
n this paper begin by e2ploring how territory and territoriality operate as modes
of spatiality, or conceptions of the uses of space in the social sciences+ then argue that
territory has become fatefully tied to the modern state, particularly in %nglish9language
understandings+ 1inally, suggest that two further modes of spatiality, spatial interaction
and place9making, pro"ide analytically important ways of thinking about space and society
beyond the limitations imposed by a geographical imagination limited by a singularly
territorial conception of spatiality+
Spatiality
Territory is particularly associated with the spatiality of the modern state with its
claim to absolute control o"er a population within carefully defined e2ternal borders
(:uchanan and &oore, 677), p+ ;< #gnew 6778b)+ ndeed, until Sack ((=>;) e2tended the
understanding of human territoriality as a strategy to indi"iduals and organi0ations in
general, usage of the term territory was largely confined to the spatial organi0ation of
states+ n the social sciences such as economics, sociology and political science this is still
mainly the case, such that the challenge posed to territory by network forms of organi0ation
(associated with globali0ation) is in"ariably characteri0ed in totalistic terms as ?the end of
geography+, This signifies the e2tent to which territory has become the dominant
geographical term (and imagination) in the social sciences (:adie, (==8)+ t is then closely
allied to state so"ereignty and, sometimes, to an entirely nested, scale9based territorial
conception of space (from the local and the urban through the national to the global)+ Thus,
as so"ereignty is seen to ?erode, or ?unbundle,, so it seems goes territory (#gnew (==*)+
1rom this "iewpoint territory takes on an epistemological monopoly that is understood as
absolutely fundamental to modernity+ #s such, it can then be gi"en an e2tended meaning to
refer to any socially constructed geographical space, not @ust that resulting from statehood,
and can be used as e$ui"alent to the term place in many languages including 1rench,
Spanish and talian (Sci"oletto, (=>)< :onnemaison, (==;< Storper (==A)+ %specially
popular with some 1rench9language geographers, this usage often reflects the need to adopt
a term to distinguish the particular and the local from the more general global or national
6
?space+, t then signifies the ?bottom9tier, spatial conte2t for identity and cultural difference
more than a simple ?top9down, connection between state and territory but still within an
encompassing territoriali0ed conception of spatiality+ n absolute counterpoint, some
proponents of a postmodern conception of space see that space as completely BflatC without
any sort of territorial di"ision or hierarchies whatsoe"er (e+g+ &arston et al+ 6778) and thus
pro"ide a totally opposite but e$ually singular "iew of spatiality, albeit this time of
locali0ed sites in a networked spatial topology rather than of an absolute territoriali0ed
space+
Territoriality in its broadest sense, then, is either the organi0ation and e2ercise of
power, legitimate or otherwise, o"er blocs of space or the organi0ation of people and things
into discrete areas through the use of boundaries+ n studies of animal beha"ior spatial
di"ision into territories is seen as an e"olutionary principle, a way of fostering competition
so that those best matched to their territory will ha"e more sur"i"ing offspring+ Dith
human territoriality, howe"er, spatial di"ision is more typically thought of as a strategy
used by organi0ations and groups to manage social, economic and political acti"ities+ 1rom
this "iewpoint, space is partitioned into territorial cells or units that can be relati"ely
autonomous (as with the di"ision of global space into territorial nation9states) or arranged
hierarchically from basic units in which work, administration, or sur"eillance is carried out
through intermediate le"els at which managerial or super"isory functions are located to the
top9most le"el at which central control is concentrated+ #lternati"e spatialities of political
and economic organi0ation, particularly hierarchical networks (as in the world9city
network) or reticular networks (as with the nternet), can challenge or supplement the use
of territoriality+
#t least four models of the spatiality of power can be identified+ draw here on the
work of the 1rench geographers &arie91ranEoise 4urand, 4enis Retaill/ and 5ac$ues 3/"y
(e+g+ 4urand et al+ (==6) who ha"e used ideali0ed models of economic and cultural patterns
and interaction to understand long9term shifts in world politics+ %ach of their models is
closely associated with sets of political9economicFtechnological conditions and associated
cultural understandings+ The logic of the approach is that the dominant spatiality of power
)
will change as material conditions and associated modes of understanding of them change+
Such processes of change are not construed as entirely spontaneous+ Rather, this approach
to the historicity of spatiality implies that both material forces and intellectual perspecti"es
or representations interact in a dominant set of practices or hegemony to produce the
spatiality of power predominant within a gi"en historical era+ :ut each spatial model also
has a synchronic "alidity in the sense that political power in any epoch can ne"er be totally
reduced to any one of them+ n a sense e$ui"alent to Garl Polanyi,s discussion of market
society in terms of the emergence of market e2change at the e2pense of reciprocity and
redistribution as principles of economic integration, as one model comes to predominate
others are not so much eclipsed as placed into subordinate or emerging roles+ The models
offer, then, not only a way of historici0ing political power but also of accounting for the
comple2ity of the spatiality of power during any particular historical epoch (1igure ()+
*
(1igure ()
n the model of an Bensemble of worlds,C human groups li"e in separate cultural
areas or ci"ili0ations with limited communication and interaction between them+ %ach area
in this model has a sense of a profound difference beyond its own boundaries without any
conception of the particular character of the others+ 'ommunal forms of social construction
take place within a territorial setting of permanent settlement with flows of migrants and
seasonal mo"ements but with fu00y e2terior boundaries+ Time is cyclical or seasonal with
8
dynasties and seasons replacing one another in natural se$uence+ Political power is largely9
internally oriented and directed towards dynastic maintenance and internal order+ ts
spatiality rests on a strongly physical conception of space as distance to be o"ercome or
circulation to be managed+
n contrast, is the geopolitical model of states in a Bfield of forces+C t re"ol"es
around rigidly defined territorial units in which each state can gain power only at the
e2pense of others and each has total control o"er its own territory+ t is akin to a field of
forces in mechanics in which the states e2ert force on one another and the outcome of the
mechanical contest depends on the populations and resources each can bring to bear+
Success also depends on creating blocs of allies or clients and identifying spatial points of
weakness and "ulnerability in the situation of one,s ad"ersaries+ #ll of the attributes of
politics, such as rights, representation, legitimacy and citi0enship, are restricted to the
territories of indi"idual states+ The presumption is that the realm of geopolitics is beyond
such concerns+ 1orce and the potential use of force rule supreme beyond state boundaries+
Time is ordered on a rational global basis so the trains can run on time, workers can get to
work on time and military forces can coordinate their acti"ities+ The dominant spatiality,
therefore, is that of state9territoriality, in which political boundaries pro"ide the containers
for the ma@ority of social, economic and political acti"ities+ Political elites are state elites
and they mimic one another,s discourse and practices+
Third on the list of models is that of the Bhierarchical network+C This is the spatial
structure of a world9economy in which cores, peripheries and semi9peripheries are linked
together by flows of goods, people and in"estment+ Transactions based largely on market
e2change produce patterns of une"en de"elopment as flows mo"e wealth through networks
of trade and communication producing regional concentrations of relati"e wealth and
po"erty+ #t the local scale, particularly that of urban centers, hinterlands are drawn into
connection with a larger world which has become progressi"ely more planetary in
geographical scope o"er the past fi"e9hundred years+ Political power is a function of where
in the hierarchy of sites from global centers to rural peripheries a place is located+ Time is
organi0ed by the geographical scope and temporal rhythm of financial and economic
;
transactions+ The spatiality is of spatial networks @oining together a hierarchy of nodes and
areas which are connected by flows of people, goods, capital and information+ Today, such
networks are particularly important in linking together the city9regions which constitute the
nodes around which the global economy is increasingly organi0ed+ n some circumstances,
networks can de"elop a reticular form in which there is no clear center or hierarchical
structure+ This is the case, for e2ample, with the networks implicit in some business
models, such as strategic alliances, in which partnership o"er space rather than
predominance between one node and the others pre"ails and, more notoriously, in some
global terrorist and criminal networks+
The fourth, and final, model is that of the Bintegrated world society+C This conforms
to the humanistic ideal of a world in which cultural community, political identity and
economic integration are all structured at a global scale+ :ut it also reflects the increased
perception of common global problems (such as en"ironmental ones) that do not respect
state borders, the futility of armed inter9state conflict in the presence of nuclear weapons
and the ad"antages of defense o"er offense in modern warfare, and the growth of an
international Bpublic opinion+C This model pri"ileges global scale communication based on
networks among multiple actors that are relati"ely unhierarchical or reticular and more or
less dense depending upon the "olition of actors themsel"es+ The sprout9like character of
these connections leads some to see them as (in a term populari0ed by .illes 4eleu0e)
somewhat like the Brhi0omesC of certain plants that spread by casting out shoots in multiple
but unpredictable directions+ Time and space are both defined by the spontaneous and
reciprocal timing and spacing of human acti"ities+ Real and "irtual spaces become
indistinguishable+ This model ob"iously has a strong utopian element to it but does also
reflect some emergent properties of the more interconnected world that is presently in
construction+
n the contemporary world there is e"idence for the effecti"e co9presence of each of
these models with the former territorial models somewhat in eclipse and the latter network
models somewhat in resurgence after a one hundred9year period in which the field of forces
model was pre9eminent (if hardly e2clusi"e)+ f the trend towards regional separatism
A
within e2isting states portends a fragmentation that can reinforce the field of forces model
as new states emerge, then economic globali0ation and global cultural unification work to
reinforce the hierarchical network and integrated world society models+ #t the same time
mo"ement towards political9economic unification (as in the %uropean !nion) and the
de"elopment of cultural mo"ements with a strong territorial element (as with slamic
integralist mo"ements) tend to create pressures for the reassertion of an ensemble of
worlds+ -istorically, howe"er, there has been a mo"ement from one to another model as a
hegemonic or directing element+ n this spirit would propose a theoretical scheme
drawing from the work of 4urand et al+ in which, first of all, the Bensemble of worldsC
model slowly ga"e way to the Bfield of forcesC model around (877 #4 as the %uropean
state system came into e2istence (1igure 6)+

1igure 6
>
:ut since then the hegemonic influence of the different models has tended to "ary
geographically, so that by the nineteenth century a balance-of-power hegemony between
territorial states was dominant in %urope+ Imperial hegemonies, howe"er, were uppermost
in much of the rest of the world sa"e for the public goods hegemony e2ercised by :ritain
through its roles as upholder of the gold standard and entrepHt in a multilateral trading
system that unified an emerging world economy+ #s this model was establishing its
dominance, the modern Bhierarchical networkC also began its rise in and around the
framework pro"ided by the state system+ !nder %uropean colonialism the part of the world
in which states recogni0ed one another as legitimate actors (what is now often called the
.lobal Iorth) was di"orced from the regions in which such status was denied+ Dith
ndependence after the Second Dorld Dar numerous new states, irrespecti"e of their
relati"e political efficacy, spread to co"er most of the world,s land area+ :ut many of these
new states were either clients of the !nited States or the So"iet !nion J within two sphere-
of -influence hegemonies J or located in "iolent 0ones of conflict between them+ n the
field9of9forces, therefore, these were hardly e$ual forces+ Since (=*8 the hierarchical9
network model has become more and more central to the distribution of political power as a
result of the increased penetration of state territories by global trade, population and
in"estment flows under an increasingly unilateral !S hegemony+ This is now a truly
planetary hegemony J the first in history J both with respect to its potential geographical
scope and to the range of its functional influence, based on the tenets of marketplace
society, e"en as its primary agent, the !nited States, may itself become less central to it+
Dith the end of the 'old Dar, which had produced an important reinstatement of the field
of forces model among the most powerful states, the hierarchical network model is in the
ascendancy with signs of the beginning of a trend towards an Bintegrated worldC society
model+ :ut this is as yet "ery much in its infancy+ This framework is, of course, only
suggesti"e of long9term tendencies+ Dhat it does pro"ide is a sense of the historical
spatiality of political power, associated in different epochs with different dominant modes
of spatiality and the co9presence of others+ deal9types are a way of thinking about the
world, not to be used as a substitute for its actual comple2ities at any moment in any place+
=
Territoriality as a feature within these models can be @udged theoretically as ha"ing
a number of different origins or sources+ These would include the following: (() as a result
of e2plicit territorial strategi0ing to de"ol"e administrati"e functions but maintain central
control (Sack, (=>;) < (6) as a secondary result of resol"ing the dilemmas facing social
groups in deli"ering public goods (as in &ichael &ann,s ((=>*) sociology of territory)< ())
as an e2pedient facilitating coordination between capitalists who are otherwise in
competition with one another (as in &ar2ist theories of the state)< (*) as the focus of one
strategy among se"eral of go"ernmentality (as in &ichel 1oucault,s writings)< and (8) as a
result of defining boundaries between social groups to identify and maintain group
cohesion (as in the writings of .eorg Simmel (3echner, (==() and 1redrik :arth ((=;=),
and in more recent sociological theories of political identity (#gnew 677)))+ Dhate"er its
social origins, territoriality is put into practice in a number of different if often
complementary ways: (() by popular acceptance of classifications of space (e+g+ ?ours,
"ersus ?yours,)< (6) through communication of a sense of place (where territorial markers
and borders e"oke meanings)< and ()) by enforcing control o"er space (by barrier
construction, sur"eillance, policing, and @udicial re"iew)+
Territory and Statehood
!nfortunately, the tendency to restrict spatiality to territoriality and to associate
territoriality only with statehood is not only profoundly mistaken but also widespread+ t is
worth reflecting a little on how this has happened+ The territorial state is a highly specific
historical entity+ t initially arose in Destern %urope in the si2teenth and se"enteenth
centuries+ Since that time, political power has come to be seen as inherently territorial
because statehood is seen as inherently territorial+ 1rom this "iewpoint, politics thus take
place only within ?the institutions and the spatial en"elope of the state as the e2clusi"e
go"ernor of a definite territory+ De also identify political territory with social space,
percei"ing countries as Bstate9societiesC, (-irst, 6778, p+ 6A)+ The process of state formation
has always had two crucial attributes+ Kne is exclusivity+ #ll of the political entities (the
Roman 'atholic 'hurch, city9states, etc+) that could not achie"e a reasonable semblance of
(7
so"ereignty o"er a contiguous territory ha"e been delegitimi0ed as ma@or political actors+
The second is mutual recognition+ The power of states has rested to a considerable e2tent
on the recognition each state recei"es from the others by means of non9interference in their
so9called internal affairs+ Together these attributes ha"e created a world in which there can
be no territory without a state and "ice "ersa+ n this way, territory has come to underpin
both nationalism and representati"e democracy, both of which depend critically on
restricting political membership by homeland and address, respecti"ely+
&ore abstractly, in modern political theory control o"er a relati"ely modest territory
has long been seen as the primary solution to the ?security dilemma:, to offer protection to
populations from the threats of anarchy (disorder), on the one hand, and hierarchy (distant
rule and subordination), on the other+ # ma@or problem has been to define what is meant by
?modest, si0e+ To &ontes$uieu ((=*=, p+ (66), the %nlightenment philosopher, different
si0e territories ine"itably ha"e different political forms: ?t is, therefore, the natural property
of small states to be go"erned as a republic, of middling ones to be sub@ect to a monarch,
and of large empires to be swayed by a despotic prince+, %arly modern %urope offered
propitious circumstances for the emergence of a fragmented political system primarily
because of its topographical di"isions+ &ontes$uieu ((=*=, pp+ (8(9;6) further notes,
howe"er, that popular representation allows for the territorial e2tension of republican
go"ernment+ The founders of the !nited States added to this by trying to balance between
centrali0ing certain security functions, on one side, and retaining local controls o"er many
other functions, on the other (4eudney, 677*)+ The recent history of the %uropean !nion
can be thought of in similar terms (&ilward, 6778)+
Beyond Spatiality as Territoriality
a) Spatial Interaction
-uman acti"ities in the world, howe"er, ha"e ne"er conformed entirely to spaces
defined by pro2imity as pro"ided by state territory+ n this conte2t, wish to make two
related points+ 1irst of all, and increasingly, as physical distance pro"es less of a barrier to
mo"ement because of technological change and the remo"al of territorially9based
((
regulati"e barriers to trade and in"estment, spatial interaction between separated nodes
across networks is an increasingly important mechanism of geographical sorting and
differentiation (4urand et al+, (==6)+ Sometimes posed today in terms of a world of flows
"ersus a world of territories, this is perhaps better thought of in terms of territories andFor
networks of flows rather than one "ersus the other, against the claims of both territorialism
and Bflat ontology+C Territories and networks e2ist relationally rather then mutually
e2clusi"ely+ f territorial regulation is all about tying flows to places, territories ha"e ne"er
been 0ero9sum entities in which the sharing of power or the e2istence of e2ternal linkages
totally undermines their capacity to regulate territorially+ f at one time territorial states did
se"erely limit the local powers of trans9territorial agencies, that this is no longer the case
does not signify that the states ha"e lost all of their powers: ?Territory still matters+ States
remain the most effecti"e go"ernors of populations+ L The powers to e2clude, to ta2, and
to define political rights are those o"er which states ac$uired a monopoly in the se"enteenth
century+ They remain the essentials of state power and e2plain why state so"ereignty
sur"i"es today and why it is indispensable to the international order, (-irst, 6778, p+ *8)+
Ie"ertheless, notwithstanding a certain ambiguity inherent in the terms, in a world in
which e"idence for both reinforced territoriali0ation (e+g+ the srael9Palestine Separation
:arrier) and de9Fre9territoriali0ation (e+g+ the %uropean !nion Schengen passport 0one) is
not hard to come by, their usage suggests a dynamism to the forms of territories and
territorialities and a challenge from other spatialities of power that some ha"e been all too
willing to deny+
n a 6778 article on so"ereignty and territory ha"e de"eloped this argument at
some length (#gnew 6778b)+ start from the proposition that modern political theory tends
to understand geography entirely as territorial: the world is di"ided up into contiguous
spatial units with the territorial state as the basic building block from which other territorial
units (such as alliances, spheres of influence, empires, etc+) deri"e or de"elop+ This is the
reason why much of the speculation about Bthe decline of the stateC or Bso"ereignty at bayC
is posed as the Bend of geography+C Met, the historical record suggests that there is no
necessity for polities to be organi0ed territorially+ #s -endrik Spruyt ((==*, )*) claims, Bf
(6
politics is about rule, the modern state is "erily uni$ue, for it claims so"ereignty and
territoriality+ t is so"ereign in that it claims final authority and recogni0es no higher source
of @urisdiction+ t is territorial in that rule is defined as e2clusi"e authority o"er a fi2ed
territorial space+ The criterion for determining where claims to so"ereign @urisdiction begin
or end is thus a purely geographic one+ &utually recogni0ed borders delimit spheres of
@urisdiction+C
Territoriality, the use of territory for political, social, and economic ends, is in fact,
as mentioned pre"iously, a strategy that has de"eloped more in some historical conte2ts
than in others+ Thus, the territorial state as it is known to contemporary political theory
de"eloped initially in early modern %urope with the retreat of non9territorial dynastic
systems of rule and the transfer of so"ereignty from the personhood of monarchs to discrete
national populations+ That modern state so"ereignty as usually construed did not occur
o"ernight following the Peace of Destphalia in (;*> is now well established+
Territoriali0ation of political authority was further enhanced by the de"elopment of
mercantilist economies and, later, by an industrial capitalism that emphasi0ed capturing
powerful contiguous positi"e e2ternalities from e2ponential distance9decay declines in
transportation costs and from the clustering of e2ternal economies (material mi2es, social
relations, labor pools, etc+) within national9state boundaries+
#bsent such conditions, so"ereigntyJin the sense of the socially constructed
practices of political authority99may be e2ercised non9territorially or in scattered pockets
connected by flows across space9spanning networks+ 1rom this "iewpoint, so"ereignty can
be practiced in networks across space with distributed nodes in places that are either
hierarchically arranged or reticular (without a central or directing node)+ n the former case,
authority is centrali0ed, whereas in the latter, it is essentially shared across the network+ #ll
forms of polityJfrom hunter9gatherer tribes through nomadic kinship structures to city9
states, territorial states, spheres of influence, alliances, trade pacts, seaborne empires99
therefore, occupy some sort of space+ Dhat is clear, howe"er, if not widely recogni0ed
within contemporary debates about state so"ereignty, is that political authority is not
necessarily predicated on and defined by strict and fi2ed territorial boundaries+
()
Two issues are crucial here: that political authority is not restricted to states, and
that such authority is thereby not necessarily e2clusi"ely territorial+ #uthority is the
legitimate e2ercise of power+ The foundation and attribution of legitimacy to different
entities has changed historically+ :y way of e2ample, the legitimacy of rule by monarchs in
the medie"al %uropean order had a different meaning from that of later absolutist rulers and
that operating under more recent democratic @ustifications for state power+ n no case,
howe"er, has the authority of the state e"er been complete+ There ha"e always been
competing sources of authority, from the church in the medie"al conte2t to international
organi0ations, social mo"ements, businesses, and I.Ks today+ &ore specifically,
transparency, efficiency, e2pertise, accountability, and popularity are as much foundations
of legitimacy as are nationality and democratic process+ Thus, e"en ostensibly pri"ate
entities and supranational go"ernments are often accorded as great or e"en greater authority
than are states+ Think, for e2ample, of credit rating agencies, charitable organi0ations such
as -uman Rights Datch and the %uropean !nion+ !sing two countries as e2amples, within
the !nited States there is widespread popular suspicion of the efficiency and accountability
of the federal go"ernment, not @ust since the military debacle in ra$ and the pathetic
response to -urricane Gatrina+ This often leads to perhaps e2cessi"e faith in the "irtue of
pri"ati0ation through corporate networks of what are elsewhere seen as BpublicC ser"ices
such as health care+ n taly, much of the popular enthusiasm for the %uropean !nion is
dri"en by the hope that :russels will increasingly supplant Rome as the seat of power most
effecti"e in relation to people,s e"eryday li"es not so much territorially as in relation to the
functional effects in particular places of %uropean9wide initiati"es+
b) Place-Making
&y second point about needing to diminish the o"erall emphasis on territoriality as
if it referred to spatiality tout court in"ol"es a rather different focus+ This is the
significance of the human e2perience of space reflected at least in %nglish language usage
of the word ?place+, n this perspecti"e, space is bracketed, or put to one side, because its
Babstractness discourages e2periential e2plorationsC ('asey 677(, ;>))+ n his
(*
philosophical rehabilitation of place, %dward 'asey ((==A, 2) notes how Bplace has been
assimilated to space+ L #s a result, place came to be considered a mere ?modification, of
space (in 3ocke,s re"ealing term) 9 a modification that aptly can be called ?site,, that is,
leveled-down, monotonous space for building and other human enterprisesC (author,s
emphasis)+ 'asey,s goal is to argue for the crucial importance of place in much thinking
about community and the public sphere, e"en though the connections are often not made
e2plicit by the thinkers in $uestion+ -e wants to make place different from site and space,
e"en though he acknowledges &ichel 1oucault,s point that the modern world is largely one
of 3eibni0ian sites and relations rather than Iewtonian absolute spaces ('asey (==A, 6=>9
)77)+ n rethinking space as place, his primary interest lies in phenomenologically or
e2perientially linking places to human sel"es (also see %ntrikin (==(< 677()+ The central
issue is that of Bbeing in place differentlyC ('asey (==A, ))A) conditioning the "arious
dimensions of selfhood, from the bodily to the psychological, institutional, and
architectural+ So, though the BshapeC of place has changed historically, it is now no mere
container but, rather, a taking place, its redisco"ery and naming as such is long o"erdue+
Thus: B4espite the seduction of endless space (and the allure of serial time), place is
beginning to escape from its entombment in the cultural and philosophical underworld of
the modern DestC ('asey (==A, ))=)+
Symptomatic of the conceptual separation of space and place are the three dominant
meanings that geographical place has ac$uired in writing that in"okes either space or place
(#gnew (=>A, (=>=< (==))+ %ach meaning tends to assimilate place to one or the other end
of a continuum running from nomothetic (generali0ed) space at one end to idiographic
(particularistic) place at the other+ The first is place as location or a site in space where an
acti"ity or ob@ect is located and which relates to other sites or locations because of
interaction and mo"ement between them+ # city or other settlement is often thought of this
way+ Somewhere in between, and second, is the "iew of place as locale or setting where
e"eryday9life acti"ities take place+ -ere the location is no mere address but the where of
social life and en"ironmental transformation+ %2amples would be such settings from
e"eryday life as workplaces, homes, shopping malls, churches, etc+ The third is place as
(8
sense of place or identification with a place as a uni$ue community, landscape, and moral
order+ n this construction, e"ery place is particular and, thus, singular+ # strong sense of
BbelongingC to a place, either consciously or as shown through e"eryday beha"ior such as
participating in place9related affairs, would be indicati"e of Bsense of place+C
#ttempts at putting space and place together must necessarily try to bring at least
two of these "arious meanings of geographical place together+ 'urrently, there are four
main ways in the #nglo9#merican and 1rench literature in which this task has been
approached: the humanist or agency9based (e+g+ Sack (==A), the neo9&ar2ist (e+g+ 3efeb"re
(==(), the feminist (e+g+ &assey (==*), and the conte2tualist9performati"e (e+g+ Thrift
(===)+ %ach of these re@ects the eitherFor logic in relation to space and place that has
characteri0ed most geographic and social thought from the se"enteenth century to the
present (#gnew 6778a)+ 1or the first, and one with which am most in sympathy, the focus
lies in relating location and locale to sense of place through the e2periences of human
beings as agents+ n one of the most sophisticated statements of this perspecti"e, Robert
Sack ((==A, 8>) pro"ides the essential thrust when he writes that his Bframework draws on
the geographical e2periences of place, space, home, and world which people use in their
li"es to integrate forces, perspecti"es, and sel"es+C 1rom this point of "iew:
Place implies space, and each home is a place in space Space is a property of the natural world,
but it can be experienced From the perspective of experience, place differs from space in terms of
familiarity and time ! place re"uires human agency, is something that may ta#e time to #now, and a
home especially so !s we move along the earth we pass from one place to another $ut if we move
"uic#ly the places blur% we lose trac# of their "ualities, and they may coalesce into the sense that we
are moving through space &his can happen even in my own home If I am hardly there and do not
attend to its contents, it may seem unfamiliar to me, more li#e a part of space than a place 'Sac#
())*, (+,
n this frame of reference, cultural differences, for e2ample, emerge because of place9based
e2periences and human agency but also because places are ne"er separate but always part
of larger sets of places across which differences are more or less pronounced depending on
(;
the permeability of boundaries between places as people e2perience them+ Places are
wo"en together through space by mo"ement and the network ties that produce places as
changing constellations of human commitments, capacities, and strategies+ Places are
in"ariably parts of spaces and spaces pro"ide the resources and the frames of reference in
which places are made+
n a recent research pro@ect on talian electoral politics since the late (=>7s, and
my colleague &ichael Shin (677>) ha"e made the case for conte2ts of Bplace and timeC in
accounting for what has transpired nationally in terms of the rise and fall of the "arious
political groupings+ De argue that these are are not best thought of as in"ariably regional,
local, or national although they fre$uently ha"e elements of one, se"eral, or all+ Rather,
they are best considered as always located somewhere, with some conte2ts more stretched
o"er space (such as means of mass communication and the spatial di"ision of labor) and
others more locali0ed (school, workplace, and residential interactions)+ The balance of
influence on political choices between and among the stretched and more local conte2tual
processes can be e2pected to change o"er time, gi"ing rise to subse$uent shifts in political
outlooks and affiliations+ So, for e2ample, as foreign companies introduce branch plants,
trade unions must negotiate new work practices, which, in turn, erode long9accepted "iews
of the roles of managers and employees+ n due course, this configuration of conte2tual
changes can gi"e an opening to a new political party or a redefined old one that upsets
established political affiliations+ :ut changes must always fit into e2isting cultural
templates that often show ama0ing resilience as well as adaptation+ 4oreen &assey ((===,
66) puts the o"erall point the best when she writes: BThis is a notion of place where
specificity (local uni$ueness, a sense of place) deri"es not from some mythical internal
roots nor from a history of isolation J now to be disrupted by globali0ation J but precisely
from the absolute particularity of the mi2ture of influences found together there+C
De ha"e used the term place, therefore, to capture the mediating role of such
geographically located milieu2+ Dhat we mean by this word are the settings in which
people find themsel"es on a regular basis in their daily li"es where many conte2ts come
together and with which they may identify+ Kr, as ha"e made the point pre"iously
(A
(#gnew, 6776: 6(): Bplaces are the cultural settings where locali0ed and geographically
wide9ranging socioeconomic processes that condition actions of one sort or another are
@ointly mediated+ #lthough there must be places, therefore, there need not be this particular
place+C So, if, in this case, indi"idual persons are in the end the agents of politics, their
agency and the particular forms it takes flow from the social stimuli, political imaginations,
and yardsticks of @udgment they ac$uire in the e"er9e"ol"ing social webs in which they are
necessarily enmeshed and which intersect across space in particular places+ &air (677;,
**) suggests that as party affiliations ha"e weakened o"er the past thirty years in most
%uropean countries, "oting beha"ior is Bincreasingly contingent+C 1rom our perspecti"e,
this means that geographical patterns of turnout and affiliation will become more unstable
e"en as they often still respond to place9based if e"ol"ing norms of participation and
differing relati"e attraction to the offerings of different parties+ &aps of the results from the
proportional representation parts of the 677( and 677; elections to the talian 'hamber of
4eputies show something of this geographical dynamic (1igure ))+
(>
1igure )
Conclusion
'learly, there are important cultural and historical dimensions to both practices and
theories of spatiality and territoriality+ 'hurches and polities (states, empires, federations,
etc+) ha"e been the most important users of territoriality+ Some churches (such as the
Roman 'atholic 'hurch) and some states (such as the !nited States) ha"e more comple2
and formally hierarchical territorialities than do others+ Today, transnational and global
businesses erect territorial hierarchies that cut across e2isting political ones+ So, e"en as
some uses of territoriality attenuate or e"en fade away, others emerge+ Though "arying in
precise form and comple2ity, therefore, territoriality seems always to be with us as an
important strategy for organi0ing human acti"ities e"en as it must be considered alongside
other types of spatiality, such as interaction across space and place9making, that both direct
(=
and gi"e agency to human social e2istence+ :ut as the modes of analysis and empirical
e2amples from my recent publications ha"e introduced today suggest, we must re@ect the
confusion of territoriality with spatiality, or how space is defined and used socially, and be
much clearer in our use of spatial terminology such as territory, space and place+
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66