Let’s start this MOOC on <i>EspaceMondial</i>

by considering territory

What does it mean?

Territory has many functions to achieve.

The first one is to support a political order.

The second one will be to support a population.

And the third one

is supporting material resources,

and particularly for fooding people

around the world.

Let’s start by the first function,

that’s to say shaping,

structuring a political order.

We have then to take into account

the extreme diversity of territories,

and to have in mind,

that is I think the main argument,

that our territorial vision

which was shaped by

the European and Western history

doesn’t fit all the histories around the world.

And this is probably one of the main origins

of the tensions that we can take

into account around the world,

and of course the conflicts

and the “new international conflicts”

which unfortunately take place now around the world.

For this reason, that’s to say because of this diversity,

territory has to be considered

as a source of inequalities, of tensions, of conflicts.

I like to start with the famous

well known definition given by Robert Sack ,

when he considers territory

not as a synonym of space of course

but as a political instrument.

In fact, territory is a political instrument,

which is used by governments

for controlling a population and particularly

by using delimitation and borderlines.

As you know,

territory is a special way of building politics.

I want to tell you

that this territorial construction of politics

does not cover all the kinds of polity

around the world and especially in the history.

Empire does not correspond

to this vision of space,

an Empire has not really a territory,

because an Empire is not delimited by

a strict borderline like nation-states.

And that’s why, this is the first conflict

we have to take here into account,

so many old Empires meet so many difficulties

for getting integrated

into the present world order.

If you take into account Russia, China,

these two states, appearing states,

are really old Empires

and meet so many difficulties

for being integrated

into this inter-state world order.

This is the problem of Caucasus,

the problem of Ukraine,

which is well known by now.

But it’s also the problem of Balkans,

and for China, the problem of Tibet,

the problem of Xingkiang

and the problem also of the relationship

between China and Vietnam,

China and Mongolia, China and Korea.

If you take into account for instance tribal systems

and especially nomadic systems.

Nomadic systems don’t feet to

the Sack’s definition of territory

and that’s why some people in Africa

like Touaregs in the Sahel meet so many difficulties

for being integrated into the territorial nation-state

of this region of the world

and this is probably

one of the main roots of the conflict,

and the bloody conflicts,

which are observed in Sahel.

That’s why nation-state is the only real product

of this territorialization of politics,

that’s why the European history is an exception

which can be clearly distinguished

even from the American experience

in which borderlines and frontiers

have not the same meaning.

And that’s why also Europe is characterized

by a very fragmented history

and by this plurality and this competition

among small or rather small nation-states.

But the problem in that,

if territorialization of politics

is something exceptional,

is something I would say historic

we can consider that,

first : there is a real problem

of how to build this territorialization of politics.

And the second problem: what about after?

And we can consider that

this territorialization of politics

which played such a role

in the European history is not eternal

and can be re questioned, reconsidered.

The first question is: what about the construction

of this territorialization of politics?

And it is at this level than we have

to discriminate between

two types of nation building: either territory

is at the upstream or it is downstream.

If it is upstream,

that’s to say that territory is shaping nation.

If it is downstream,

it means that nations will shape territory.

The first type

is the French history of nation building,

in which, precisely, first dynastic centers

built progressively, and step by step,

a state with a territory

and those people who are living on this territory

are belonging, are reputed to belong,

to be committed to the same nation.

The nation is coming from the territory.

And this is from this vision

that comes the famous

and well-known <i>jus soli</i> in which territory

is attributing the citizenship to the individuals

who are precisely born on this territory.

In the second vision,

which is called the romantic vision of the nation

or sometimes assimilated to

the German history of the nation,

nation is first an idea,

nation is created from a culture

which is defined as bringing

a collectivity, a nation.

German nation, as an idea

has existed before the German nation-state.

And all the dynamic of the German history

was to territorialized this nation,

and that’s why Germany met

so many difficulties for getting united

and for creating a German nation state.

You understand the risk

of this second option which is ethnic cleansing

which is maybe even genocide

as it did take place in the German history.

That’s why the first model

has probably been considered

as the most functional

and this is this territorial vision of nation,

which prevails now, and which was considered

as a model for building nation-states

everywhere around the world.

But the question is: is it possible to export

this vision of territorialization of politics?

And this leads me to the second question,

that’s to say: is the territorialization of politics

something eternal?

My answer is clearly no.

This vision of territory is now

clearly challenged and questioned,

both from tradition and from modernity.

From tradition, as I mentioned, many histories,

many kinds of societies and cultures

don’t accept this vision

of territorialization of politics

and that’s why nation-states are

collapsing in many African countries.

And the renewal of tribal,

ethnic and religious commitment

takes a very great place

as a factor of challenging

this western European vision of politics.

But modernity is also

challenging this construction.

Is territory an instrument so efficient by now?

Is borderline working

as it was some centuries

or even some decades ago?

Now borderline can be transgressed,

borderline can be ignored.

And with modernity, with globalization

we observe so many ways

of ignoring borderlines

and for building up transnational relations,

as we will see a little bit further.

These new transnational relations

create what is commonly called transversality

and in which the famous

Indian American sociologist Appadurai describes

and also the French novelist Edouard Glissant

in which the idea is that now by now

people have more and more several identities.

With a traditional vision

of territorialization of politics,

identity is given, priority identity is given

by nation and by the territory as we defined,

but now, an individual is more and more involved

into different kinds of identities,

is shaping and developing a plural identity,

volatile identity.

This is probably the first step on the way

of the end of territory,

this is probably the first factor

of instability in our new global order.

The Diversity of Territories

Espace mondial：法国视角下的国际研究

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