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.
