《Elden 2016 land terrian and territory》.pdfVIP

Article Progress in Human Geography 34(6) 799–817 Land, terrain, territory ª The Author(s) 2010 Reprints and permission: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav 10.1177/0309132510362603 Stuart Elden Durham University, UK Abstract This paper outlines a way toward conceptual and historical clarity around the question of territory. The aim is not to define territory, in the sense of a single meaning; but rather to indicate the issues at stake in grasping how it has been understood in different historical and geographical contexts. It does so first by critically interrogating work on territoriality, suggesting that neither the biological nor the social uses of this term are particularly profitable ways to approach the historically more specific category of ‘territory’. Instead, ideas of ‘land’ and ‘terrain’ are examined, suggesting that these political-economic and political-strategic rela- tions are essential to understanding ‘territory’, yet ultimately insufficient. Territory needs to be understood in terms of its relation to space, itself a calculative category that is dependent on the existence of a range of techniques. Ultimately this requires rethinking unproblematic definitions of territory as a ‘bounded space’ or the state as a ‘bordered powe