L a e a r r e t ,a. S o e i a 1

Cado Emilio Piazzini. Magíster en Historiade la Universidad acional de Colombia,sede Medellín. Actualmente se desempeñacomo Subdirector Científico del InstitutoColombiano de Antropología e Historia. Enlos últimos años ha hecho parte del Grupode Investigación Estudios del Territorioadscrito al Instituto de Estudios Regionales,desde donde lideró la formulación y puestaen marcha de la Maestría en EstudiosSocioespaciales. Ha realizadoinvestigaciones arqueológicas e históricas ysus intereses académicos se relacionan conlos estudios sociales del espacio-tiempo(memoria, patrimonio y territorio) y elanálisis de la historicidad y la geopolítica delpensamiento histórico y arqueológico. Entresus publicaciones recientes están: Arqueologíaentre historia y prehistoria (2007); De las artes dela memoria a la geopolítica de la memoria (2006);El tiempo situado: las tempomlidades después delgiro espacial (2006); Arqueología, Espacio yTiempo: una mirada desde Latinoamérica (2006)y, Los estudios socioespaciales: hacia una agendade investigación transdisciplinaria (2004).

Vladimir Montoya. Candidato a Doctor enAntropología Social y Cultural de laUniversidad de Barcelona. Actualmente sedesempeña como coordinador y docente dela Maestría en estudios Socioespaciales delInstituto de Estudios Regionales de laUniversidad de Antioquia y Coordinador delGrupo Cultura, Violencia y Territorio de lamisma entidad. Ha realizado investigacionessobre movimientos sociales, etnicidad,migración y memoria. En el último tiempoviene desarrollando estudios sobregeopolítica y memoria, con recurso ametodologías audiovisuales y con unaperspectiva epistemológica apoyada en lacartografía social. Sus publicacionesrecientes son: "Espacio e identidad, sobre elsentido de lugar y la idea de territorialidad"[en prensa]; "El mapa de lo invisible.Silencios y gramática del poder en lacartografía (2007) y, "Being a minority in theview of other 's people hegemony discourse.Indigenous People confronting ethnicpolitics in Guainia". (2004).

Geopolíticas: espacios de poder y poder de los espacios

1

Carlo Emilio Piazzini Suárez

Vladimir Montoya Arango

Geopolíticas: espacios de podery poder de los espacios

Antloqula para todos.ilJ)4tlOS 4 la obral

JVERSIDADDE ANTlOQUIA

J IH

La Carretat:AHlon~ ..u.

2008

ISBN: 978-958-8427-00-3©2008 Carlo Emilio Piazzini Suárez

Vladimir Montoya Arango© 2008 Departamento Administrativo de Planeación, Gobernación de Antioquia

©2008 La Carreta Editores E.U.

La Carreta Editores E.U.Editor: César A. Hurtado OrozcoE-mail: lacarreta@une.net.coTeléfono: 250 06 84Medellín, Colombia

Primera edición: abril de 2008

Carátula: diseño de Álvaro VélezIlustración: Norman Bejarano Restrepo, Vigilia, acrílico sobre lienzo, 2002

Impreso y hecho en Colombia / Printed and made in Colombia

por Impresos Marticolor

Queda rigurosamente prohibida, sin la autorización escrita de los titulares del copyright, bajo las sancionesestablecidas en las leyes, la reproducción total o parcial de esta obra por cualquier medio o procedimiento,comprendidas las lecturas universitarias, la reprografía y el tratamiento informático, y la distribución de ejempla-

res de ella mediante alquiler público.

4

G36o~f-r. 1'\

Contenido

Introducción: la potencia del espacio 7Carlo Emilio Piazzini y Vladimir Montoya

Spatiality and Territoriality in Contemporary Social Science 15}ohn Agnew

¿Tierras baldías, territorios de nadie? Geopolítica de un proyecto minero en laguajira colombiana 31

Claudia Puerta y Roben VH Dover

Los confines del proyecto cultural paisa 51Carlos Augusto Giraldo

Transformaciones de la geopolítica y la biopolítica de la soberanía: soberaníarestringida y neoprotectorados formales 71

Heriberto Cairo Carou

Del «hacer morir o dejar vivir» al «hacer vivir y dejar morir».Cambios en el ejercicio de la soberanía en el espacio de la guerra:del territorio a la población 89

Elsa Blair y Ayder Berrío

Cartografias moviles y alteridades subordinadas. Hacia un análisis (geo)/(bio)/político de la exclusión en la migración iberoamericana 109

Vla:dimir Montoya

El advenimiento del homo urbano. Biopolítíca y planificación urbanaen bogotá (1910-1929) 129

Santiago Castro

Mil «cuasi» territorios. Soportes para lo común y lo identitario. La arquitecturacomo juego de transacciones entre signos, contextos y tiempos 153

Carmen Guerra, Félix de la Iglesia y Carlos Tapia

Cronotopos, memorias y lugares: una mirada desde los patrimonios 171Carlo Emilio Piazzini Suárez

Datos de los autores 185

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Introducción: la potencia del espacio

Carlo Emilio PiazziniInstituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia

Vladimir MontoyaInstituto de Estudios Regionales. Universidad de Antioquia

Esta publicación se debe a la dinámica académica de la Maestría en EstudiosSocioespaciales, iniciativa impulsada por el Instituto de Estudios Regionales, INERde la Universidad de Antioquia, en cuya formulación y puesta en marcha han partici-pado activamente investigadores del Instituto y otras unidades académicas de Colom-bia y otros países. La Maestría, hay que decido, es única en su género, dada su ads-cripción temática no disciplinar a problemáticas relacionadas con el espacio desdeuna perspectiva social. Confluyen aquí las elaboraciones discursivas de la geografía, lahistoria, la antropología, la arqueología, la sociología, la psicología, la política, la lite-ratura, la arquitectura, la filosofía y las artes, para conformar un horizonte de produc-ción de pensamiento social, calificado por el ejercicio de la crítica, la pluralidad teó-rica y la transdisciplinareidad. Por ello, desde su gestación, el Programa ha convocadoa la reflexión sobre los enfoques y metodologías con que ha sido abordado el estudiode las relaciones entre el espacio y la cultura, la economía, la política y la historia,promoviendo entonces el diálogo y debate entre posturas que no sólo son teóricamen-te diversas, sino que provienen de lugares de enunciación situados diferencialmenteen las cartografías y geopolíticas del conocimiento.

La fecundidad de estas formas de indagación ha permitido que desde 2004, cuan-do el diseño de la Maestría estaba aún en proceso, se comenzaran a producir textosdirigidos, bien a desplegar la potencia interpretativa de una tal aproximaciónsocioespacial (Piazzini, 2004), o a desarrollar problemas específicos en torno a temastan diversos como las espacialidades de la guerra (Blair, 2004 y 2005), las cartografíassociales (Montoya, 2007) o las relaciones entre las materialidades, el espacio y lamemoria (Piazzini, 2006a y 2006b). En estas primeras aproximaciones, se hizo visiblecómo elaboraciones discursivas con un largo desarrollo disciplinar en el ámbito de lasociología, la geografía, la historia y la arqueología, se complicaban, adquiriendoimplicaciones completamente nuevas cuando se las ponía en relación con la cuestiónespacial, siempre y cuando ésta última fuera tratada en un plano diferente al de lasmeras adsripciones geográficas de fenómenos y casos sociales, o de los soportes y esce-narios geofísicos donde las acciones humanas tenían lugar. En suma, el tomar en serioel enunciado acerca del advenimiento de una «edad del espacio» que entrevieraMichel Foucault (1967) hace ya cuatro décadas, así como las tesis pioneras de HenriLefevbre (1991) sobre el espacio como producción social y los planteamientos ulterio-res sobre la necesidad de avanzar hacia el establecimiento de una ontología del espa-cio, efectuadas desde perspectivas y lugares de enunciación tan diversos por EduardSoja (1989), David Harvey (1998), José Luis Pardo (1992) o Milton Santos (2000),

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entre otros, ha permitido avanzar por caminos novedosos y fecundos, gracias a aquelloque, siguiendo a Frederic Jameson (1991), podríamos nombrar como el efecto del giroespacial.

Pero al decidir ese tránsito no andábamos solos. Cuando en 2003 comenzamos aindagar por la temática a la que debía remitirse un programa de maestría con énfasisinvestigativo, adscrito a una unidad académica que como el INER no era de carácterdisciplinar, encontramos en el diálogo crítico con pares nacionales como MarthaHerrera, Ovidio Delgado, Santiago Castro y Beatriz Nates, la certeza necesaria parapasar, gradualmente y en medio de numerosos debates, de una maestría en estudiosregionales, a una en estudios del territorio, y de allí, a una maestría menos convencio-nal en estudios socioespaciales. Como se ve, a diferencia de otras experiencias másfrecuentes, en las que el diseño de programas de posgrado se realiza desde unidadesacadémicas con una clara adscripción disciplinar (programas de antropología conposgrados en antropología, programas de historia con posgrados en historia ... ), la elec-ción del ámbito temático de la maestría del INER implicaba un esfuerzo adicional. Atodo ello se sumaba el hecho de que existían en el ámbito nacional e internacional,campos de desempeño reconocidos que, en primera instancia ya habían demarcadotemáticas semejantes: planeación urbano-regional, planeación del desarrollo, estu-dios regionales o territoriales, geografía social... Entonces, Zporqué no remitirse aalguno de estos campos, en lugar de esforzarse en la definición de uno nuevo? Larespuesta, en breve, estaba en que nuestra iniciativa reconocía en lo espacial unreferente con tal grado de prescedencia epistemológica e importancia política, que nopodía ser circunscrito a perspectivas centradas en lo instrumental o disciplinar, sinque perdiera su potencia para producir pensamiento crítico e integral sobre las rela-ciones entre el espacio y la sociedad.

Esta apuesta por un programa de maestría cuya temática resultaba tan novedosa yambiciosa como arriesgada, fue presentada en 2004 ante pares nacionales e interna-cionales en el marco del Seminario «(Deslterritoríalidades y (No) lugares», cuya rea-lización dio pie a la publicación del libro del mismo nombre (Herrera y Piazzini, 2006).La temática elegida, señalaba un tópico sumamente problemático para los estudiossocioespaciales, como es el del debate entre planteamientos que, de una parte, decre-taban la muerte o cuando menos el debilitamiento de categorías espaciales como elterritorio, las fronteras y los lugares, de la mano de enunciados sobre la globalizacióno mundialización de los procesos económicos, políticos y culturales (i.e. Augé, 1993;Virilio, 1997) y, de otra parte, reconocían el fortalecimiento e incluso la emergenciade fenómenos de exaltación de lo local y de diferenciación socioterritorial, en el mar-co de lo que ha dado en llamarse glocalización (cf. Swyngedouw, 2004).

La participación del auditorio y los invitados al foro final de dicho seminario, nosindicó que tampoco estabamos solos en el ámbito internacional: a los valiosos aportesde estudiosos colombianos como Ingrid Bolívar, Pilar Riaño, Cristóbal Gnecco y Ale-jandro Castillejo, se sumaron las colaboraciones efectuadas por Johanne Rapapport,Luis Castro Nogueira, Ulrich Oslender, Jesús Martín Barbero y Daniel Mato. Desdeentonces, y aún sin iniciar el ciclo académico de la Maestría, se veía la convenienciade crear una dinámica sostenida de interlocución alimentada por las voces de aque-llos que, retornando la jocosa expresión de Luis Castro Nogueira, constituían el grupode los «colegas socioespaciales».

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Justamente en la perspectiva de jalonar una iniciativa de trabajo conjunto entrepersonas e instituciones de la más variada procedencia, bajo el común denominadorde reconocimiento de lo socioespacial como un campo promisorio de producción depensamiento social, se realizó en 2007 el Primer Seminario Internacional de EstudiosSocioespaciales, evento del cual se deriva el presente libro. Pero el evento respondía,además, a una cuestión de la mayor importancia en todo este proceso: doce jóvenes,formados en disciplinas tan diversas como la historia, la antropología, la arquitectura,la psicología, el trabajo social, la ingeniería administrativa y la gestión de recursosculturales, decidieron apostarle a su formación en la Maestría en EstudiosSocioespaciales, con lo cual se iniciaba la primera cohorte.

Con el subtítulo: Geopolíticas, espacios de poder y poder de los espacios, se ha queri-do suscitar una reflexión sobre la geopolítica, partiendo de una concepción renovadade la misma, que no se limita al análisis de las alianzas y disputas de corte político,diplomático o militar entre Estados o bloques de Estados a escala mundial, sino quetrasciende hacia otras esferas de las relaciones entre espacio y poder (Cf. Agnew,2005; Ó Tuathail, 1998). De allí que hayamos preferido hablar de geopolíticas,enfatizando en el plural, para hacer visible cómo el poder deviene diverso, heterárquico,pluritópico, una vez se han identificado los límites geohistóricos del proyecto moder-no, que cruza, en un orden disciplinado y descendente, desde los poderes inter otransnacionales a los poderes locales, incluyendo oficiosamente las esferas de lo na-cional y lo regional. Entonces emergen las geopolíticas que ponen en contacto lo localcon lo transnacional, desafiando las soberanías estatales; pero más interesante aún:las espacialidades del poder se constituyen y a la vez ponen en funcionamiento, siste-mas políticos de diferenciación jerarquizada que involucran las vidas de los sujetos,los cuerpos, las naturalezas, las tecnologías, las arquitecturas y las materialidades.

La apertura hacia un pensamiento tal de las geopolíticas es posible en la medidaen que se apoya en un concepto del espacio que enfatiza su relación de mutua afecta-ción con lo social, y por supuesto, con lo político. De esta manera, la cuestión no selimita a establecer cómo los poderes se expresan o manifiestan a través del control delespacio, de la soberanía sobre un territorio o de poblaciones, redes y recursos inscritosen el mismo, sino que aspira a comprender la manera en que las espacialidades, en-tendidas como formas de producción social del espacio, pueden incidir de manerasevera en la dinámica de las relaciones de poder. Esta diferencia, que en primerainstancia podría parecer sutil, es, sin embargo, la misma que permite concebir el espa-cio como algo diferente de una entidad geofísica en-sí misma (baluarte de no pocosgeógrafos físicos y ordenadores del territorio), o de otra parte, como una absolutaconstrucción o re-presentación mental (idea cara a muchos antropólogos y otros cien-tíficos sociales). Pensar el espacio purificado de su materialidad resulta tan inadecua-do como concebirlo como entidad dada, fija y natural.

Los capítulos que componen este libro, son el resultado de un proceso dereelaboración conjunta entre autores y editores, a partir de las conferencias presenta-das en el Seminario, o de contribuciones que, sin haber hecho parte del evento, desa-rrollan temáticas afines. El orden que hemos dado a las contribuciones, responde a laidentificación de tres grupos de textos: los que se desarrollan fundamentalmente en elámbito de la geopolítica (capítulos 1 a 3), los que ponen en relación la geopolítica conla biopolítica (capítulos 4 a 7) y los que se interesan por el tema de las materialidades,concretamente las arquitecturas y los patrimonios culturales (capítulos 8 y 9).

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En el primer capítulo, [ohn Agnew hace énfasis en la manera en que la espaciali-dad de los poderes políticos se transforma históricamente, de tal forma que la asimila-ción entre un Estado y un territorio, que ha funcionado como unidad básica en laimaginación geopolítica de la modernidad, ha oscurecido la existencia de otras for-maciones espaciales del poder. Según se desprende de sus planteamientos, la interacciónespacial a través de redes y la emergencia de poderes basados en sentidos de lugar, sonotras tantas espacialidades políticas que pueden funcionar de manera complementa-ria a las territorialidades del Estado-nación, e incluso, como sucede hoy en día, pue-den retar y transformar el papel de éste último en la geopolítica mundial.

En los capítulos segundo y tercero, la imaginación geopolítica moderna resultacriticada a propósito de dos procesos en los cuales las tensiones por el territorio conec-tan modelos globales con realidades locales. El texto de Claudia Puerta y RobertDover aborda el caso de la explotación de recursos mineros en territorios indígenas enla Guajira, mostrando como allí se involucran instancias políticas, normativas y regu-laciones que no son exclusivamente estatales, sino que manifiestan la capacidad deacción de otros agentes y poderes, constituyendo la sesión, de facto, de parte de lasoberanía estatal a empresas transnacionales. Carlos Augusto Giraldo por su parte,indaga en el proceso histórico de conformación del nordeste antioqueño y analiza elpapel que cumplió allí la imaginación geopolítica moderna en su catalogación y en-cuadramiento dentro del arquetipo de subregión periférica y marginal. Con esto, elautor muestra como el sentido jerarquizado conferido al ordenamiento espacial, deri-vó en un aislamiento de las zonas catalogadas como 'baldíos' o 'zonas vacías', asocia-das con áreas boscosas, que se valoraron únicamente desde sus potenciales biofísicos,mientras se consolidaba una imagen denigrante de sus poblaciones, consideradas aje-nas al modelo hegemónico de lo 'paisa' y compelidas a su integración bajo una geome-tría de relaciones de poder que reafirma la visión centralista y metropolitana sobre lasrelaciones urbano-rurales.

Considerando que el pensamiento de la geopolítica contemporánea debe atendera procesos de (relconfiguracíón de las espacialidades del poder, que no siempre obe-decen al esquema moderno de jerarquización y precedencia desde escalas mayoreshasta escalas menores, es necesario tener en cuenta otras esferas de la vida social, enlas cuales la diferenciación y la clasificación espacial sirven al establecimiento derelaciones de poder. Por esta vía, los planteamientos de Heriberto Cairo en el cuartocapítulo, avanzan hacia una articulación de los conceptos de geopolítica y biopolítica,en torno a la idea del control de los cuerpos y de las poblaciones humanas, de su viday de su muerte, todo ello en el marco de lo que denomina soberanías hegemónicas ysoberanías débiles. De acuerdo con el autor, en el mundo contemporáneo existiría unajerarquía que va del «hacer vivir» de los ciudadanos políticamente calificados por lasoberanía de organizaciones supraestatales o estatales del «primer mundo», al «dejarmorir» de los ciudadanos pertenecientes a soberanías débiles o del «tercer mundo».

Otra conexión entre biopolítica y geopolítica es la realizada en el quinto capítulopor EIsa Blair y Ayder Berrío a propósito de la guerra. Los autores realizan una revisióndel concepto de soberanía, inicialmente sustentado en la geopolítica clásica del do-minio territorial por parte del Estado, para comprender su transformación cuandoentran en funcionamiento estrategias de control biopolítico que descentran el interéssobre el territorio y lo dirigen hacia los cuerpos y las vidas de las poblaciones. A partir

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de esta reflexión, Blair y Berrío vuelven al análisis sobre la guerra contemporánea,indicando cómo sus transformaciones expresan la articulación propuesta por MichelFoucualt entre el «hacer morir» y el «dejar morir» (Foucault, 2002).

En los capítulos sexto y séptimo, dos contribuciones se encargan de analizar larelación entre geopolítica y biopolítica a propósito de contextos geo-históricos especí-ficos. Vladimir Montoya explora cómo la diferenciación entre sujetos 'aptos/califica-dos' del «primer mundo» y seres 'inocuos' provenientes del «tercer mundo» operacomo un criterio de exclusión, en el que se articulan las intencionalidades geopolíticascon las estrategias de control biopolítico, a la hora de contener/repeler la migraciónSur-Norte, específicamente en el caso de la movilidad humana entre Latinoamérica yEspaña. Por su parte, Santiago Castro se acerca a una situación específica en la queoperó la biopolítica en consonancia con determinados esquemas geopolíticos, en elmomento en que se instaura el ordenamiento espacial durante el proceso de indus-trialización de la ciudad de Bogotá a principios del siglo xx. En particular, el autormuestra que ciertas tecnologías como la luz eléctrica y el transporte urbano, en con-junción con el ejercicio pionero de la planeación, incidieron en la segregación espa-cial, el disciplinamiento de los cuerpos y la construcción de nuevas subjetividadesentre la población.

El tema de la arquitectura como uno de los dispositivos de la planeación, es abor-dado por Carmen Guerra, Félix de la Iglesia y Carlos Tapia en el capítulo octavo. Laarquitectura es entendida por los autores como una disciplina/saber que producemediaciones y apropiaciones específicas del espacio al introducir en él ciertos instru-mentos y artefactos. Luego de efectuar una crítica de la administración centralizadadel territorio, presentan con ánimo propositivo, un proyecto arquitectónico de gestiónalternativa de la habitación en un espacio suburbano de Sevilla.

Una última perspectiva para pensar la relación espacio-poder, es presentada porCado Emilio Piazzini en el noveno capítulo. Se trata de examinar el rol de aquellasmaterialidades decretadas como patrimonio cultural en los procesos de producción deterritorialidades y memorias. De acuerdo con el autor, pese al tono neutral y positivoque suele rodear el discurso sobre el patrimonio cultural, éste debe ser entendidocomo un dispositivo político que, al materializar y situar en una relación inextricabledeterminadas experiencias y concepciones del espacio y el tiempo social, posee unapotencia particular para fundamentar o transformar esquemas geopolíticos ycronopolíticos.

Todos estos textos son, cada uno a su manera, una invitación para avanzar enindagaciones sobre los espacios de poder y el poder de los espacios. Invitación a laque, desafiando la geopolítica tradicional del conocimiento, se suma la iniciativa dedar paso a la conformación de una red académica que no emerge desde los consabidoscentros metropolitanos de producción de conocimiento, sino que se teje por relacio-nes multidireccionales entre nodos situados en todos aquellos lugares donde se consi-dere que pensar el espacio, es pensar también desde el espacio. En esta perspectiva,durante la realización del seminario que dio origen a este libro, tuvo lugar la instala-ción de la Red de Estudios Socioespaciales, una propuesta tendiente a propiciar con-diciones de largo plazo para la cooperación interinstitucional en materia de intercam-bio académico, realización de programas y proyectos de investigación comparados,desarrollo de proyectos editoriales y encuentros académicos.

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La iniciativa ha recibido ya el aval, mediante convenio, del Instituto de Desarro-llo Regional de Andalucía y el Instituto de Estudios Regionales de la Universidad deAntioquia, así como la declaración de propósito por parte investigadores de universi-dades de otros países, como la Universidad de California, la Universidad de Sevilla, laUniversidad Complutense y la Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia deMadrid. Pero la red requiere de otros nodos situados en Colombia y, en tal sentido hasido bien valorada por parte de investigadores y coordinadores de programas de posgradode la Universidad de Pamplona, la Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, la Universidádde Cartagena y la Universidad Nacional, sede Medellín. Esperamos que los «colegassocioespaciales» valoren esta apuesta, y hagan parte de la misma, de tantas formascomo sea provechoso para todos.

Los editores desean agradecer a los ponentes del seminario y autores de los textosaquí presentados, así como a las entidades que han hecho posible la publicación dellibro, como son el Departamento Administrativo de Planeación de la Gobernación deAntioquia y el Instituto de Estudios Regionales de la Universidad de Antioquia, cu-yos directores, el Doctor Pedro Juan González Carvajal y la Doctora Lucelly VillegasVillegas, respectivamente, han apoyado decididamente la puesta en marcha de unalínea renovada de análisis sobre las geopolíticas contemporáneas. También agradece-mos a la Universidad de California-Los Ángeles, la Universidad Complutense, la Uni-versidad de Luxemburgo, la Universidad de Sevilla, la Pontificia Universidad Javerianay al Instituto de Desarrollo Regional de Andalucía, por apoyar activamente la partici-pación de sus académicos en el Seminario. Igualmente, a la Rectoría y la Vicerrectoríade Investigaciones de la Universidad de Antioquia, Planea, Icetex, Colciencias, In-terconexión Eléctrica S.A. e Isagen; entidades todas que apoyaron financieramentela realización del Evento. -

Este libro está dirigido, muy especialmente, a los estudiantes de la primera cohortede la Maestría en Estudios Socioespaciales, a quienes debemos todos los esfuerzos pormantener la calidad académica del programa y por abrir sus posibilidades de partici-pación en la dinámica de otros programas afines. Como hemos dicho alguna vez: seríaconveniente que los créditos académicos se calcularan, no sólo por el número dehoras de formación, sino, además, por el número de kilómetros recorridos en la bús-queda de respuestas y nuevos interrogantes.

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sobremodemidad. Barcelona: Gedisa.Blair, EIsa 2004, «Conflicto armado, actores y territorios: Los visos de un caleidoscopio»,

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architecturals el 14 de marzo de 1967. Publicada originalmente en: Architecture,Mouvement, Continuité NQ 5 de octubre de 1984. Versión traducida al inglés porJay Miscowiec, disponible en: http://foucault.info/documents/heteroTopia/focucault.heteroTopia.en.html. Consulta del 13 de junio de 2004.

___ 2002, «Derecho de muerte y poder sobre la vida», en: Historia de la sexualidad1. La voluntad de saber, Madrid, Siglo XXI.

Harvey, David 1998, La condición de la posmodemidad. Investigaciones sobre los orígenesdel cambio cultural, Buenos Aires, Amorrortu Editores.

Herrera, Diego y Emilio Piazzini (editores) 2006, (Des) territorialidades y (No)lugares:procesos de configuración y transformación social del espacio, Medellín, La Carretaeditores / Instituto de Estudios Regionales.

Jameson, Frederic 1991, Postmodemism or the cultural logic of late capitalismo London,Verso.

Lefebvre, Henri 1991, The production of space, Cambridge, Blackwell.Montoya, Vladimir 2007, «El mapa de lo invisible. Silencios y gramática del poder en

la cartografía», Universitas Humanistica 63: 155-179.Ó Tuathail, Gearóid 1998, «Postmodern Geopolitics? The Modern Geopolitical

Imagination and Beyond», en: Rethinking Geopolitics. Gearóid Ó Tuathail y SimonDalby eds. London/New York, Routledge, pp. 16-38.

Pardo, José 1992, Las formas de la exterioridad, Valencia, Pretextos.Piazzini, Emilio 2006ª, «De las artes de la memoria a la geopolítica de la memoria», en:

Escenarios de reflexión. Las ciencias sociales y humanas a debate, Oscar Almario yMiguel A. Ruíz (compiladores), Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Medellín,pp. 115-135.

_---,--_ 2006b, «Arqueología, espacio y tiempo: una mirada desde Latinoamérica»,Arqueología Suramericana 2 (1): 3-25.

2004, «Los estudios socioespaciales: hacia una agenda de investigación---transdisciplinaria», Regiones 2: 151-172.

Soja, Edward 1989, Postmodern geographies. The reassettion of space in critical socialtheory, Londres, Verso.

Swvngedouw, Erik 2004, «Globalisation or 'Glocalisation'? Networks, Territories andRescaling», Cambridge Review of International Affairs 17 (1): 25-48.

Virilio, Paul 1997, «Fin de l'histoire, ou fin de la géographie? Un monde surexposé»,Le

Monde Diplomatique, agosto, p. 17. Disponible en http://www.monde-di-lomaticiue.frlJ997108NIRILlO/89484. Consulta de octubre 20 de 2004.

13

Spatialitv and territoriality in contemporary social science

John AgnewDepartment of Geography

University of Calífornia-Los Angeles

Abstract

In this paper I begin by exploring how territory and territoriality operate as modes ofspatiality, or conceptions of the uses of space in the social sciences. I then argue that territoryhas become fatefully tied to the modern state, particularly in English-language understandings.Finally, I suggest that two further modes of spatiality, spatial interaction and place-making,provide analytically important ways of thinking about space and society beyond the limitationsimposed by a geographical imagination limited to a singularly territorial conceptioti of spatiality.

Resumen

En este ensayo comienzo por explorar cómo territorio y territorialidad operan comoformas de espacialidad o como conceptos empleados para abordar el espacio en las cienciassociales. Entonces discuto que el territorio ha estado drdsticamente ligado al estado moder-no, particularmente en los discursos de habla inglesa. Finalmente sugiero que otras dos for-mas de concebir la espacialidad, como son la interacción espacial y la construcción de lugar,proveen formas importantes de andlisis para pensar el espacio y la sociedad, superando laslimitaciones impuestas por la imaginación geogrdfica de la modernidad, que ha estado res-tringida a una concepción territorial de la espacialidad.

In many languages the word territory tvpically refers to a unit of contiguous spacethat is used, organized and managed by a social group, individual person or institutionto restrict and control access to people and places. Though sometimes the word isused as synonymous with place or space, territory has never been a term as primordialor as generic as they are in the canons of geographical terminology (Agnew, 2005a).The dominant usage has always been either political, in the sense of necessarilyinvolving the power to limit access to certain places or regions, or ethological, in these~~of the dominance exercised over a space by a given species or Jn individualorganismo Increasingly, territory is coupled with the concept of ne"twork to helpunderstand the complex processes through which space is managed and controlled bypowerful organizations. In thís light, territory is only one type of spatiality, or way inwhich space is used, rather than the one monopolizing its employment. From thisperspective, territoriality is the strategic use of territory to attain organizational goals.It is only one way of organizing space.

15

Spatialitv

( Territory is particularly associated with the spatiality of the modern state with itsrcl;;rrñ to absolute control over a population within carefully defined external borders

(Agnew, 2005b; Buchanan and Moore, 2003: 6). Indeed, until Sack (1986) extendedthe understanding of human territoriality as a strategy to individuals and organizationsin general, usage of the term territory was largely confined to the spatial organizationof states. In the social sciences such as ec nomics, sociology and political science thisis still maínly the case, such that the challe'ngt posed to territory by network forms aforganization (associated with globalization) is invariably characterized in totalisticterms as 'the end of geography.' This signifies the ~x-ten"tto which territory has becomethe dominant geographical.,J~~ (and imagination) in the social sciences (~~f!~~.'.j1995). It is then closely allied to state sovereignty and, sometimes, to an entirefy

or- , riésted, scale-based territorial conc~{?tion of space (from the local and the urbanthrough the national to the global). Tnus, as sovereignty is seen to 'erocferor 'unbundle,'so it seems goes territory (Agnew, 1994). From this viewpoint territory takes on anepistemological monopoly that is understood as absolutely fundamental to modernity.As such, it can then be given an extended meaning to refer to any socially constructedgeographical space, not just that resulting from statehood, and can be used as equivalentto the term place in many languages including French, Spanish and Italian(Bonnemaison, 1996; Scivoletto, 1983; Storper 1997). Especially popular with someFrench-language geographers, this usage often reflects the need to adopt a term todistinguish the particular and the local from the more general global or national 'space.'It then signifies the 'bottom-tier' spatial context for identity and cultural differencemore than a simple 'top-down' connection between state and territory but still withinan encompassing territorialized conception of spatialitv, In absolute counterpoint, someproponents of a postmodern conception of space see that space as completely «flanwithout any sort of territorial division or hierarchies whatsoever (e.g. Marston et al.,2005) and thus provide a totally opposite but equally singular view of spatiality, albeitthis time of localized sites in a networked spatial topology rather than of an absoluteterritorialized space.

Territoriality in its b';(; dest sense, then, is either the organization and exercise ofpower, legitimate or othb1wise;over blocs of space or he organization of people andthings into discrete areas through the use of bo~~a;i:¡es. In studies of animal behaviorspatial division into territories is seen as an evolutionary principle, a way of fosteringcompetition so that those best matched to their territory will have more survivingoffspring. With human territorialitv, however, spatial division is more typically thoughtof as a strategy used by organizations and groups to manage social, economic andpolitical activities. From this viewpoint, space is partitioned into territorial cel s órunits that can be relatively autonomous (as with the division of global space intoterritorial nation-states) or ahang~hierar'thiéálfY [rom basic units in which work,administration, or surveillance is carried out through intermediate levels at whichmanagerial or supervisory functions are located to the top-most level at which centralcontrol is concentrated. Alternative spatialities of political and economic organizatian,particularly hierarchical networks (as in the world-city network) or reticular networks(as with the Internet), can challenge or supplement the use of territoriality.

16

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At least four models of the spatiality of power can be ídentífíed. I draw here on thework of the French geographers Marie-Francoise Durand, Denis Retaillé and JacquesLévy (e.g. Durand et al., 1992) who have used idealized models of economic andcultural patterns and interaction to understand long-term shífts in world politics.Each of their models is closely associated with sets of political-economíc/technologícalconditíons and associated cultural understandings. The logic of the approach is thatthe dominant spatiality of power will change as material conditions and associatedmodes of understanding of them change. Such processes of change are not construedas entirely spontaneous. Rather, this approach to the historicity of spatialitv impliesthat both material forces and intellectual perspectives or representations interact in adominant set of practices or hegemony to produce the spatiality of power predominantwithin a given historical era. But each spatial model also has a synchronic validity inthe sense that political power in any epoch can never be totally reduced to any one ofthem. In a sense equivalent to Karl Polanyi's discussion of market society in terms ofthe emergence of market exchange at the expense of reciprocity and redistribution asprincipies of economic integration, as one model comes to predominate others are notso much eclipsed as placed into subordinate or emerging roles. The models offer, then,not only a way of historicizing political power but also of accounting for the complexityof the spatiality of power during any particular hístorícal epoch (Figure 1).

1. Ensemble of worlds

• •

•2. Field of forees

3. Hlerarchlcal network

4. World soclety

Figura 1

17

In the model of an «ensemble of worlds,. human groups live in separate culturalareas or civilizations with limited communication and interaction between them. Eacharea in this model has a sense of a profound difference beyond its own boundarieswithout any conception of the particular character of the others. Communal forms ofsocial construction take place within a territorial setting of permanent settlementwith flows of migrants and seasonal movements but with fuzzy exterior boundaries.Time is cyclical or seasonal with dynasties and seasons replacing one another in natu-ral sequence. Political power is Iargelv-internallv oriented and directed towards dynasticmaintenance and internal order. Its spatiality rests on a strongly physícal conceptionof space as distance to be overcome or circulation to be managed.

In contrast, is the geopolitical model of states in a «field of forces». It revolvesaround rigidly defined territorial units in whích each state can gain power only at theexpense of others and each has total control over its own territory. It is akin to a fieldof forces in mechanics in which the states exert force on one another and the outcomeof the mechanical con test depends on the populations and resources each can bringto bear. Success also depends on creating blocs of allies or clients and identifyings atial points of weakness and vulnerability in the situation of one's adversaries. All ofthe attributes of politics, such as rights, representation, legitimacy and citizenship, arerestricted to the territories of individual states. The presumption is that the realm ofgeopolitics is beyond such concerns. Force and the potential use of force rule supremebeyond state boundaries. Time is ordered on a rational global basis so the trains canrun on time, workers can get to work on time and military forces can coordina te theiractivities. The dominant spatiality, therefore, is that of state-territorialitv, in whichpolitical boundaries provide the containers for the majority of social, economic andpolitical activities. Political elites are state elites and they mimic one another's discourseand practices.

Third on the list of models is that of the «hierarchical network». This is the spatialstructure of a world-economy in which cores, peripheries and serni-peripheries arelinked together by flows of goods, people and investment. Transactions based largelyon market exchange produce patterns of uneven development as flows move wealththrough networks of trade and communication producing regional concentrations ofrelative wealth and poverty. At the local scale, particularly that of urban centers,hinterlands are drawn into connection with a larger world which has be comeprogressively more planetary in geographical scope over the past five-hundred years.Political power is a function of where in the hierarchy of sites fram global centers torural peripheries a place is located. Time is organized by the geographical scope andtemporal rhythm of financial and economic transactions. The spatiality is of spatialnetworks joining together a hierarchy of nodes and areas which are connected byflows of people, goods, capital and information. Today, such networks are particularlyimportant in linking together the city-regions which constitute the nodes aroundwhich the global economy is increasingly organized. In some circumstances, networkscan develop a reticular form in which there is no clear center or hierarchical structure.This is the case, for example, with the networks implicit in some business models,such as strategic alliances, in which partnership over space rather than predominancebetween one node and the others prevails and, more notoriously, in some global terroristand criminal networks.

18

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The fourth, and final, model is that of the «integrated world society.» This conformsto the humanistic ideal of a world in which cultural community, political identity andeconomic integration are all structured at a global scale. But it also reflects the increasedperception of common global problems (such as environmental ones) that do not respectstate borders, the futility of armed inter-state conflict in the presence of nuclear weaponsand the advantages of defense over offense in modern warfare, and the growth of aninternational «public opinion.» This model privileges global scale communicationbased on networks among multiple actors that are relatively unhierarchical or reticularand more or less dense depending upon the volition of actors themselves. The sprout-like character of these connections leads some to see them as (in a term popularizedby Gilles Deleuze) somewhat like the «rhizomes» of certain plants that spread bycasting out shoots in multiple but unpredictable directions. Time and space are bothdefined by the spontaneous and reciprocal timing and spacing of human activities.Real and virtual spaces become indistinguishable. This model obviously has a strongutopian element to it but does also reflect some emergent properties of the moreinterconnected world that is presently in construction.

In the contemporary world there is evidence for the effective co-presence of eachof these models with the former territorial models somewhat in eclipse and the latternetwork models somewhat in resurgence after a one hundred-year period in whichthe field of forces model was pre-erninent (if hardly exclusive). If the trend towardsregional separatism within existing states portends a fragmentation that can reinforcethe field of forces model as new states emerge, then economic globalization and globalcultural unification work to reinforce the hierarchical network and integrated worldsociety models. At the same time movement towards political-economic unification(as in the European Un ion) and the development of cultural movements with a strongterritorial element (as with Islamic integralist movements) tend to create pressuresfor the reassertion of an ensemble of worlds. Historically, however, there has been amovement from one to another model as a hegemonic or directing elemento In thisspirit 1 would propose a theoretical scheme drawing from the work of Durand et al. inwhich, first of all, the «ensemble of worlds- model slowly gave way to the «field offorces- model around 1500 AD as the European state system came into existence(Figure 2).

Figura 2

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Based upon: Durand et al., Le monde. 18.

19

But since then the hegemonic influence of the dífferent models has tended tovary geographically, so that by the nineteenth century a balance-of-power hegemonybetween territorial states was dominant in Europe. Imperial hegemonies, however, wereuppermost in much of the rest of the world save for the public goods hegemony exercisedby Britain through its roles as upholder of the gold standard and entrepót in amultilateral trading system that unified an emerging world economy. As this modelwas establishing its dominance, the modern «hierarchical network» also began its risein and around the framework provided by the state system. Under European colonialismthe part of the world in which states recognized one another as legitima te actors(what is now often called the Global North) was divorced from the regions in whichsuch status was denied. With Independence after the Second World War numerousnew states, irrespective of their relative political efficacy, spread to cover most of theworld's land area. But many of these new states were either clients of the UnitedStates or the Soviet Union - within two sphere-of-influence hegemonies - or located inviolent zones of conflict between them. In the field-of-forces, therefore, these werehardly equal forces. Since 1945 the hierarchical-network model has become more andmore central to the distríbution of political power as a result of the increased penetrationof state territories by global trade, population and investment flows under an increasinglyunilateral US hegemony. This is now a truly planetary hegemony - the first in history- both with respect to its potential geographical scope and to the range of íts functionalinfluence, based on the tenets of marketplace society, even as its primary agent, theUnited States, may itself become less central to it. With the end of the Cold War,which had produced an important reinstatement of the field of forces model amongthe most powerful states, the hierarchical network model is in the ascendancy withsigns of the beginning of a trend towards an «integrated world- society model. But thisis as yet very much in its infancy. This framework is, of course, only suggestive of long-term tendencies. What it does provide is a sense of the historical spatiality of politicalpower, associated in dífferent epochs with different dominant modes of spatiality andthe co-presence of others. Ideal-types are a way of thinking about the world, not to beused as a substitute for its actual complexities at any moment in any place.

Territoriality as a feature within these models can be judged theoretically as havinga number of different origins or sources. These would include the following: (1) as aresult of explicit territorial strategizing to devolve administrative functions but maintaincentral control (Sack, 1986); (2) as a secondary result ofresolving the dilemmas facingsocial groups in delivering public goods (as in Michael Mann's (1984) sociology ofterritory); (3) as an expedient facilitating coordination between capitalists who areotherwise in competition with one another (as in Marxist theories of the state): (4) asthe focus of one strategy among several of govemmentality (as in Michel Foucault'swrítíngs): and (5) as a result of defining boundaries between social groups to identifyand maintain group cohesion (as in the writings of Georg Simmel (Lechner, 1991) andFredrik Barth (1969), and in more recent sociological theories of political identity(Agnew, 2003)). Whatever its social origins, territoriality is put into practice in anumber of dífferent if often complementary ways: (1) by popular acceptance ofclassifications of space (e.g. 'ours' versus 'yours'); (2) through communication of a senseof place (where territorial markers and borders evoke meanings); and (3) byenforcingcontrol over space (by barrier construction, surveillance, policing, and judicial review).

20

Territory and StatehoodUnfortunatelv, the tendency to restrict spatiality to territoriality and to associa te

territoriality only with statehood is not only profoundly mistaken but also widespread.It is worth reflecting a little on how this has happened. The territorial state is a highlyspecific historical entity. It initially arose in Western Europe in the sixteenth andseventeenth centuries. Since that time, polítical power has come to be seen as inherentlyterritorial because statehood is seen as inherently territorial. From this viewpoint,politics thus take place only within 'the institutions and the spatial envelope of thestate as the exclusive governor of a definite territory. We also identify political territorywith social space, perceiving countries as «state-societies- (Hirst, 2005: 27). Theprocess of state formation has always had two crucial attributes. One is exclusivity. Allof the political entities (the Roman Catholic Church, cirv-states, etc.) that could notachieve a reasonable semblance of sovereignty over a contiguous territory have beendelegitimized as major polítical actors. The second is mutual recognition. The power ofstates has rested to a considerable extent on the recognition each state receives fromthe others by means of non-ínterference in their so-called internal affairs. Togetherthese attributes have created a world in which there can be no territory without astate and vice versa. In this way, territory has come to underpin both nationalísm andrepresentative democracy, both of which depend critically on restricting políticalmembership by homeland and address, respectively.

More abstractlv, in modern political theory control over a relatively modest territoryhas long been seen as the primary solution to the 'security dilemma:' to offer protectionto populations from the threats of anarchy (disorder), on the one hand, and hierarchy(distant rule and subordínatíon), on the other. A major problem has been to definewhat is meant by 'modest' size. To Montesquieu (1949: 122), the Enlightenmentphilosopher, different size territories inevitably have different political forms: 'It is,therefore, the natural property of small states to be governed as a republíc, of middlingones to be subject to a monarch, and of large empires to be swayed by a despoticprince'. Earlv modern Europe offered propitious circumstances for the emergence of afragmented political system primarily because of its topographical divisions.Montesquieu (1949: 151-162) further notes, however, that popular representation allowsfor the territorial extension of republícan government. The founders of the UnitedStates added to this by trying to balance between centralizing certain security functions,on one side, and retaining local controls over many other functions, on the other(Deudney, 2004). The recent history of the European Union can be thought of insimilar terms (Milward, 2005).

Beyond Spatiality as Territorialirva) Spatial Interaction

Human activities in the world, however, have never conformed entirely to spacesdefined by proximity as provided by state territory. In this context, I wish to make tworelated points. First of all, and increasíngly, as physical distance proves less of a barrierto movement because of technological change and the removal of territorially-basedregulative barriers to trade and investment, spatial interaction between separated

21

nodes across networks is an increasingly important mechanism of geographical sortingand differentiation (Durand et al., 1992). Sometimes posed today in terms of a worldof flows versus a world of territories, thís is perhaps better thought of in terrns ofterritories and/or networks of flows rather than one versus the other, against the claimsof both territorialism and «flat ontology.» Territories and networks exist relationallyrather then mutually exclusively. If territorial regulation is all about tying flows toplaces, territories have never been zero-sum entities in which the sharing of power orthe existence of external linkages totally undermines their capacity to regulateterritorially. If at one time territorial states did severely limit the local powers of trans-territorial agencies, that this is no longer the case does not signify that the states havelost all of their powers: -Territory still matters. States remain the most effectivegovernors of populations. (... ) The powers to exclude, to tax, and to define politicalrights are those over which states acquired a monopoly in the seventeenth century.They remain the essentials of state power and explain why state sovereignty survivestoday and why it is indispensable to the international order- (Hirst, 2005: 45).Nevertheless, notwithstanding a certain ambiguity inherent in the terms, in a worldin which evidence for both reinforced territorialization (e.g. the Israel-PalestineSeparation Barrier) and de-zre-territorialízation (e.g. the European Union Schengenpassport zone) is not hard to come by, their usage suggests a dynamism to the forms ofterritories and territorialities and a challenge from other spatialities of power thatsome have been all too willing to deny.

In a 2005 article on sovereignty and territory I have developed this argument atsome length (Agnew, 2005b). I start from the proposition that modern political theorytends to understand geography entirely as territorial: the world is divided up intocontiguous spatial units with the territorial state as the basic building block fromwhich other territorial units (such as alliances, spheres of influence, empires, etc.)derive or develop. This is the reason why much of the speculation about «the declineof the state- or «sovereígnty at bay» is posed as the «end of geography». Yet, thehistorical record suggests that there is no necessity for polities to be organizedterritorially. As Hendrik Spruyt (1994: 34) claims, «If politics is about rule, the modernstate is verily unique, for it claims sovereignty and territoriality. It is sovereign in thatit claims final authority and recognizes no hígher source of jurisdiction. It is territorialin that rule is defined as exclusive authority over a fixed territorial space. The criterionfor determining where claims to sovereign jurisdiction begin or end is thus a purelygeographic one. Mutually recognized borders delimit spheres of jurisdiction».

Territorialiry, the use of territory for political, social, and economic ends, is in fact,as I mentioned previously, a strategy that has developed more in some historical contextsthan in othets. Thus, the territorial state as it is known to contemporary politicaltheory developed initiallv in early modern Europe with the retreat of non-territorialdynastic systems of rule and the transfer of sovereignty from the personhood of monarchsto discrete national populations. That modern state sovereignty as usually construeddid not occur overnight following the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 is now wellestablished. Territorialization of political authority was further enhanced by thedevelopment of mercantilist economies and, later, by an industrial capitalism thatemphasized capturing powerful contiguous positive externalities from exponentialdístance-decay declines in transportation costs and from the clustering of external

22

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economies (material mixes, social relations, labor pools, etc.) within national-stateboundaries.

Absent such conditions, sovereignty -in the sense of the socially constructedpractices of political authority- may be exercised non-territoriallv or in scattered pocketsconnected by flows across space-spanning networks. From this viewpoint, sovereigntycan be practiced in networks across space with distributed nodes in places that areeither hierarchically arranged or reticular (without a central or directing node). Inthe former case, authoritv is centralized, whereas in the latter, it is essentially sharedacross the network. All forms of polity-from hunter-gatherer tribes through nomadickinship structures to citv-states, territorial states, spheres of influence, alliances, tradepacts, seaborne empires-therefore, occupy some sort of space. What is clear, however,if not widely recognized within contemporary debates about state sovereignty, is thatpolitical authority is not necessarily predicated on and defined by strict and fixedterritorial boundaries.

Two issues are crucial here: that political authority is not restricted to states, andthat such authority is thereby not necessarily exclusively territorial. Authority is thelegitimate exercise of power. The foundation and attribution of legitimacy to differententities has changed historically. By way of exarnple, the legitimacy of rule by monarchsin the medieval Eurapean order had a different meaning from that of later absolutistrulers and that operating under more recent democratic justifications for state power.In no case, however, has the authority of the state ever be en complete. There havealways be en competing sources of authoritv, from the church in the medieval contextto international organizations, social movements, businesses, and NGOs today. Morespecifically, transparency, effícíencv, expertise, accountability, and popularity are asmuch foundations of legitimacy as are nationality and democratic process. Thus, evenostensibly private entities and supranational governments are often accorded as greator even greater authority than are states. Think, for exarnple, of credit rating agen-cies, charitable organizations such as Human Rights Watch and the Eurapean Union.Using two countries as exarnples, within the United States there is widespread popu-lar suspicion of the efficiency and accountability of the federal government, not justsince the rnilitary debacle in Iraq and the pathetic response to Hurricane Katrina.This often leads to perhaps excessive faith in the virtue of privatization throughcorporate networks of what are elsewhere seen as «public» services such as healthcareo In Italy, much of the popular enthusiasm for the European Union is driven by thehope that Brussels will íncreasingly supplant Rome as the seat of power most effectivein relation to people's everyday lives not so much territorially as in relation to thefunctional effects in particular place s of European-wide initiatives. .

b) Place-Making

My second point about needing to diminish the overall emphasis on territorialityas if it referred to spatiality tout court in vol ves a rather different focus. This is thesignificance of the human experience of space reflected at least in English languageusage of the word 'place'. In this perspective, space is bracketed, or put to one side,because its «abstractness discourages experiential explorations» (Casey 2001: 683). Inhis philosophical rehabilitatíon of place, Edward Casey (1997: x) notes how «place hasbeen assimilated to space. ( ... ) As a result, place came to be considered a mere

23

'modífícatíon' of space (in Locke's revealing term) - a modification that aptlv can becalled 'site,' that is, leveled-down, monotonous space for building and other humanenterprises- (author's emphasis). Casey's goal is to argue for the crucial importance ofplace in much thinking about community and the public sphere, even though theconnections are often not made explicit by the thinkers in question. He wants tomake place different from site and space, even though he acknowledges MichelFoucault's point that the modern world is largely one of Leibnizian sites and relationsrather than Newtonian absolute spaces (Casey 1997: 298-300). In rethinking space asplace, his primary interest lies in phenomenologically or experientially linking placesto human selves (also see Entrikiu, 1991; 2001). The central issue is that of «being inplace differently- (Casey 1997: 337) conditioning the various dimensions of selfhood,from the bodily to the psychological, institutional, and architectural. So, though the«shape- of place has changed historically, it is now no mere container but, rather, ataking place, its rediscovery and naming as such is long overdue. Thus: «Despite theseduction of endless space (and the allure of serial time), place is beginning to escapefrom its entombment in the cultural and philosophical underworld of the modernWest» (Casey 1997: 339).

Symptomatic of the conceptual separation of space and place are the three dominantmeanings that geographical place has acquired in writing that invokes either space orplace (Agnew, 1987; 1989; 1993). Each meaning tends to assimilate place to one orthe other end of a continuum running from nomothetic (generalized) space at oneend to idiographic (particularistic) place at the other, The first is place as location ora site in space where an activity or object is located and which relates to other sites orlocations beca use of interaction and movement between them. A city or othersettlernent is often thought of this way. Somewhere in between, and second, is theview of place as locale or setting where everyday-life activities take place. Here thelocation is no me re address but the where of social life and environmentaltransformation. Examples would be such settings from everyday life as workplaces,homes, shopping malls, churches, etc. The third is place as sense of place oridentification with a place as a unique communiry, landscape, and moral order. In thisconstruction, every place is particular and, thus, singular. A strong sense of «belongíng»to a place, either consciously or as shown through everyday behavior such as participatingin place-related affairs, would be indicative of «sense of place».

Attempts at putting space and place together must necessarily try to bring at leasttwo of these various meanings of geographical place together. Currently, there are fourmain ways in the Anglo-American and French literature in which this task has beenapproached: the humanist or agencv-based (e.g. Sack, 1997), the neo-Marxist (e.g.Lefebvre, 1991), the feminist (e.g. Massey ,1994), and the contextualist-performative(e.g. Thrift, 1999). Each of these rejects the either/or logic in relation to space andplace that has characterized most geographic and social thought from the seventeenthcentury 10 the present (Agnew, 2005a). For the fírst, and one with which 1 am most insympathy, the focus lies in relating location and locale to sense of place through theexperiences of human beings as agents. In one of the most sophisticated statements ofthis perspective, Robert Sack (1997: 58) provides the essential thrust when he writesthat his «framework draws on the geographical experiences of place, space, home,and world which people use in their lives to integrate forces, perspectives, and selves».From this point of view:

24

«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 termsof familiarity and time. A place requires human agency, is something that may take time to know,and a home especially so. As we move along the earth we pass from one place to another. But ifwe move quickly the places blur; we lose track of their qualities, and they may coalesce into thesense that we are moving through space. This can happen even in my own home. IfI am hardlythere and do not attend to its contents, it may seem unfamiliar to me, more like a part of spacethan a place» (Sack 1997: 16).

In this frame of reference, cultural differences, for example, emerge beca use ofplace-based experiences and human agency but also because places are never separa tebut always part of larger sets of places across which differences are more or lesspronounced depending on the perrneability of boundaries between places as peopleexperience thern. Places are woven together through space by movement and thenetwork ties that produce places as changing constellations of human commitments,capacities, and strategies. Place s are invariably parts of spaces and spaces provide theresources and the frames of reference in which place s are made.

In a recent research project on ltalian electoral politics since the late 1980s, 1 andmy colleague Michael Shin (2008) have made the case for contexts of «place andtime» in accounting for what has transpired nationally in terms of the rise and fall ofthe various political groupings. We argue that these are not best thought of as invariablyregional, local, or national although they frequently have elements of one, several, orall. Rather, they are best considered as always located somewhere, with some contextsmore stretched over space (such as means of mass communication and the spatialdivision of labor) and others more localized (school, workplace, and residentialinteractions). The balance of influence on political choices between and among thestretched and more local contextual processes can be expected to change over time,giving rise to subsequent shifts in political outlooks and affiliations. So, for example,as foreign companies introduce branch plants, trade unions must negotiate new workpractices, which, in turn, erode long-accepted views of the roles of managers andemployees. In due course, this configuration of contextual changes can give an openingto a new political party or a redefined old one that upsets established political affiliations.But changes must always fit into existing cultural templates that often show amazingresilience as well as adaptation. Doreen Massey (1999: 22) puts the overall point thebest when she writes: -This is a notion of place where specificity (local uniqueness, asense of place) derives not from some mythical internal roots nor from a history ofisolation - now to be disrupted by globalization - but precisely from the absoluteparticularity of the mixture of influences found together there».

We have uscd the term place, therefore, to capture the mediating role of suchgeographically located milieux. What we mean by this word are the settings in whichpeople find thernselves on a regular basis in their daily lives where many contextscome together and with which they may identify. Or, as 1 have made the point previously(Agnew, 2002: 21): «places are the cultural settings where localized and geographicallywide-ranging socioeconomic processes that condition actions of one sort or anotherare jointly mediated, Although there must be places, therefore, there need nor be thisparticular place». So, if in this case, individual persons are in the end the agents ofpolitics, their agency and the particular forms it takes flow from the social stimuli,political imaginations, and yardsticks of judgment they acquire in the ever-evolving

25

social webs in which they are necessarily enmeshed and which intersect acrass spacein particular places. Mair (2006: 44) suggests that as party affiliations have weakenedover the past thirty years in most European countries, voting behavior is «increasinglycontingent». Fram our perspective, this means that geographical patterns of turnoutand affiliation will become more unstable even as they often still respond to place-based if evolving norms of participation and differing relative attraction to the offeringsof different parties. Maps of the results fram the praportional representation parts ofthe 2001 and 2006 elections to the ltalian Chamber of Deputies show something ofthis geographical dynamic (Figure 3 y 3a).

~ LN arul 1:1

mIl LN

rlIJ Flg Fl und i.eu

D Znnu nl~".1

rzJ I.d .md I\~

ANU A ••.•and rt

LJ. ':-.1." I

2001

Figura 3

26

ff

~LN anel Fl

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rAll FlQ Fl and Left

oZona rossa

rz.;;!iJ Left and AN

DAN

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Figura3a

Conc1usionClearly, there are important cultural and historical dimensions to both practices

and theories of spatiality and territoriality. Churches and polities (states, empires,federations, etc.) have been the most important users of terrirorialiry. Some churches(such as the Roman Catholic Church) and some states (such as the United States)have more complex and formally hierarchical territorialities than do others. Today,transnational and global businesses erect territorial hierarchies that cut across existing

27

poli tic al ones. So, even as some uses of territoriality attenuate or even fade away,others emerge. Thougt~arying in precise form and complexity, thl~fore, territorialityseems always to be with us as an important strategy for organizing human activitieseven as it must be considered alongside other types of spatiality, such as interactionacross space and place-rnaking, that both direct and give agency to human socialexistence. But as the modes of analysis and empirical examples from my recentpublications 1 have introduced today suggest, we must ~'eJ~rthe confusion ofterritoriality with spatiality, or how space is defined and used socially, and be muchclearer in our use of spatial terminology such as territory, space and place.

References

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(eds.). The Power of Place: Bringing Together Geographical and SociologicalImaginations. London: Unwin Hyman. Pp. 9-29.

1993. «Representing space: space, scale and culture in social science». In: J.--=--Duncan and D. Ley (eds.). Place/CultureIRepresentation. London: Routledge. Pp.251-27l.

1994. «The territorial trap: the geographical assumptions of internationalrelations theory». Review of International Political Economy 1: 53-80.

___ 2002. Place and Politics in Modern haly. Chicago: University of Chicago Press._-:::--;- 2003. «Ierritorialiry and political identiry in Europe». In: M. Berezin and M.

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______ 2005a. «Space-place». In: P. Cloke and R. Johnston (eds.). Spaces ofGeographical Thought. London: Sage. Pp. 81-96.

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