Inspiration of today’s message came from the excellent article by Stuart Elden on territorialities titled “Land, Terrain, Territory”. Elden examines the concept of territory beyond the traditional biological and social uses of the term. Territory is approached from the point of view of a sociotechnical construction for the demarcation of land and terrain. Ellen’s work is way too complex to be explained in a few sentences and a couple of paragraphs, so I leave this with his own words and recommend the reading of his very interesting paper…

“Territory can be understood as a political technology: it comprises techniques for measuring land and controlling terrain. Measure and control – the technical and the legal – need to be thought alongside land and terrain. Understanding territory as a political technology is not to define territory once and for all; rather it is to indicate the issues at stake in grasping how it was understood in different historical and geographical contexts.”

Day 70: Territory is a “political technology”!