Territorialités

Conceptualizing Territories
By Frédéric GIRAUT
The social use of the term “territory” has tended to proliferate in the context of globalization. French-language geography has also indulged an immoderate use of the concept. The apparent paradox has made the contemporary notion of territory the target of detractors who see it as something obsolete (a product of modernity now superseded by a de-territorializing postmodernism), too reductive (not allowing for a grasp of the mobile aspect of spatial relationships), and mystifying (masking the true social issues, further dismantling the welfare state). These criticisms suggest that the term should be re-conceptualized rather than dropped, given that territorial complexity is a given of postmodernism. Nor dropping the term is likely to happen anytime soon, sinceusage currently ranges from a portmanteau word synonymous with region or area to a specifcally geopolitical notion based on the delimited extension of state sovereignty. Between the extensive and restrictive uses of the concept, cultural and political geographies converge on the necessarily “constructed” nature of the territorial object. Contradictions nevertheless remain between these constructivist approaches; the most promising paths for overcoming them call for a clear grasp of territorial confgurations and ideologies. Proposals are thus offered here for rendering the concept functional on a political level, notably by making a clear distinction between theterm and the zone or area it applies to.