Category Archives: territories

9781032051666

Territories, Environments, Politics: Explorations in Territoriology

Our new Edited Collection now announced :

Territories, Environments, Politics
Explorations in Territoriology

Edited by Andrea Mubi Brighenti Mattias Kärrholm
forthcoming in April 2022
9781032051666

Table of Contents

 

Introduction: The stake of territories

Andrea Mubi Brighenti and Mattias Kärrholm

1. The state of territory under globalization: Empire and the politics of reterritorialization

Stuart Elden

2. How the non-human turn challenges the social sciences: The case of environmental struggles at Notre-Dame-des-Landes, France

Sylvaine Bulle

3. Commercial drones and the territorialisation of the air: Towards an aero-volumetric understanding of power and territory

Francisco Klauser

4. Inhabiting together: Manure contracts and other territorial compositions between pastoralism and agriculture in Western Burkina Faso

Alexis Gonin

5. Territory glimpsed through Lache Eyes: A tale of non-Euclidean and symbolically authentic excursions in liminal space

Les Roberts

6. Affirmatively reading deterritorialisation in urban space: An Aotearoa/New Zealand perspective 

Manfredo Manfredini

7. Rendering territory (in)visible: Approaching urban struggles through a socio-territorial lens

Anke Schwarz and Monika Streule

8. The territorialisation of the grocery shopper: Eco-ethical asceticism and environmental nostalgia

Mattias Kärrholm and Anna Petersson

9. The territories of music in public space: Scenes from Warsaw and Lisbon

Cláudia Casquilho, Pedro Gonçalves, Caio Mourão, Paula Nunes and Daniel Paiva

10. Passage territories: Reconstructing the domestic spatiality of an Indonesian urban kampung

Kristanti Dewi Paramita

11. Dodging rocks and baseball bats: Stories of territory, tourism and trespassing in Detroit neighborhoods

Paul Draus and Juliette Roddy

New Territoriology Seminar – Fall 2021

Co-organised with Carlo Brentari @unitn.

21/10/2021 h.15-18
Andreas Oberprantacher (U of Innsbruck) Political Territories and Borders

26/10/2021 h.15-18
Carlo Brentari (U of Trento) Konrad Lorenz e i fondamenti dell’etologia animale

04/11/2021 h.17-20
Shelley M. Alexander (U of Calgary, CA) Coyote Territories

11/11/2021 h.15-18
Anna Marson (U IUAV di Venezia) Il territorio nella pianificazione

 

Flyer with details here

 

RESEARCHING TERRITORIES IN PANDEMIC TIMES

An online seminar

24TH OF JUNE, 3PM LISBON TIME

2021-06-24-seminar

2021-06-24-seminar_flyer

Researching Territories in Pandemic Times

June 24, 2021

h.15:00 (Lisbon time)

 

The Urban Transitions Hub of ICS-ULisboa and DINÂMIA’CET – ISCTE organise an online seminar on the changing shape of Territories and Territoriality within and beyond the current condition, with the authors of recently published book Animated Lands. Studies in Territoriology (University of Nebraska Press)

 

Coordination: Andrea Pavoni (DINÂMIA’CET – ISCTE; Urban Transitions Hub)

 

ZOOMDETAILS

MEETING ID: 85795819829

PASSWORD: 987773

 

Animated Lands. Studies in Territoriology introduces us to a science and topology of territory which seeks to rethink the concept of territory away from its historical fetishisation as mere space, tracing a trajectory which is also different from contemporary directions in geographical thinking wherein territory is assumed as an inert, static and merely extensive domain. Instead, with speculative craft and ingenious examples, Andrea Mubi Brighenti and Mattias Kärrholm foreground an understanding of territory that is able to account for its intensive, animated and becoming nature. This seminar aims to discuss the premises of the book within and beyond the current pandemic condition.

 

Speakers:

  • Andrea Mubi Brighenti (University of Trento)
  • Mattias Kärrholm (Lund University)

 

Discussants:

  • Andrea Pavoni (DINÂMIA’CET – ISCTE; Urban Transitions Hub)
  • Francisco Klauser (University of Neuchâtel)

 

Le aree alpine interne come interstizi urbani: appunti da una ricerca in corso

Sagron Mis – Source: https://travel.sygic.com/it/poi/sagron-mis-region:21656
Sagron Mis – Source: https://travel.sygic.com/it/poi/sagron-mis-region:21656

con Cristina Mattiucci

Now Published in Tracce Urbanehttps://ojs.uniroma1.it/index.php/TU/article/view/14556

Abstract

ITA: A partire da un focus sulle aree interne dell’Euregio (regione transfrontaliera Tirolo, Alto Adige e Trentino), in questo articolo proponiamo un’interpretazione dell’abitare i territori montani marginali come “interstizi”. Descriviamo anzitutto alcuni processi socio-spaziali osservati in situ, presentando alcune realtà sociali complesse, i cui modelli abitativi, scelte insediative e forme dell’abitare si confrontano dinamicamente con fenomeni multi-scalari. La “condizione interstiziale” dell’abitare emerge in particolare attraverso un processo di decostruzione dell’immagine ufficiale del territorio, analizzando le frizioni che animano tale condizione nella tensione tra l’assetto istituzionale regionale e locale da un lato, e le pratiche di vita dall’altro.

ENG: Starting from a focus on the inner areas of the Euregio (cross-border region encompassing Tyrol, Alto Adige and Trentino), in this paper we propose an interpretation of dwelling in marginal mountain territories as ‘interstitial’ dwelling. First, we describe some socio-spatial processes observed in situ. These are complex social worlds, where housing models, settlement choices and forms of living dynamically interact with multi-scalar phenomena. The ‘interstitial condition’ of dwelling emerges, in particular, by deconstructing the official image of the territory. Analysing the frictions that animate the interstitial condition sheds some light upon the tension between regional and local institutions and life practices.

pdf here : brighenti-mattiucci-2019-aree-interne

Urban Animals – Domestic, Stray and Wild

Urban Animals—Domestic, Stray, and Wild

Notes from a Bear Repopulation Project in the Alps

Daniza in the year 2000 – Photo by Gilberto Volcan – Courtesy of Parco Naturale Adamello Brenta
Daniza in the year 2000 – Photo by Gilberto Volcan – Courtesy of Parco Naturale Adamello Brenta

by Andrea Mubi Brighenti & Andrea Pavoni

Finally OUT in Society & Animals

https://doi.org/10.1163/15685306-12341580

Abstract. This piece explores ‘domesticity’ as a social territory defined by the relationship it entertains with the conceptual and material space of ‘the wild’. The leading research question can be framed as follows: do these two spaces stand in opposition to each other, or are more subtle relations of co-implication at play? As we enquiry into the domestic and the wild, a richer conceptual map of notions is drawn, which also includes the public, the common, the civilised and the barbarian. The case study that illustrates this dense intermingling of categories is offered by the case of Daniza, a wild brown bear introduced in the Brenta Natural Park on the Italian Alps in the 2000s, who repeatedly came into unexpected, accidental contacts with humans. Declared a ‘dangerous animal’, Daniza was controversially killed by public authorities in 2014, officially in an attempt to capture her with anaesthetising bullets, but in a way that still leaves doubts about the degree of voluntariness of the killing. The piece argues that the domestic and the wild constitute two semiotic-material domains constantly stretching into each other without any stable or even clear boundary line, and elaborates a series of corollaries for studying animals in urban contexts.

Keywords: Domesticity; Domestication; Wildness; Bears; Urban Animals; Territorial Governance

 

TOC

Introduction – Domesticity as Urban Prolongation

  1. Animal Governance, Domestication, and Classification
  2. Locating the Wild in the Urban
  3. Domesticity, Domestication and Civilisation
  4. The Unlucky Case of Bear Daniza
  5. Which Sort of Wild?
  6. The Barbarian

Conclusions

pdf version here

Domestic Territories and the Little Humans (with Mattias Kärrholm)

Understanding the Animation of Domesticity

Now Published in Space & Culture

Fig.01.Ongon
A Mongolian Ongon

 

Abstract. Domesticity is a complex, multifaceted phenomenon. In this piece, we approach it from the point of view of a general theory of territories. To do so, we attempt to tackle simultaneously the ecological and spiritual dimensions of home by attending the expressive dimension of domesticity. We emphasise that the expressiveness of home inherently includes the register of the familiar as well as that of the unfamiliar (Freud’s unheimlich). The constant negotiations between these two registers can be appreciated as carried out ‘at the limits of control’. To highlight this fact, we focus on the case of the ‘little humans’, miniature humanoid creatures well attested in traditional mythologies and folk tales across different civilisations. Drawing from anthropological and ethnographic literature, yet with a leading interest in social-spatial theorising, we seek to untangle the relations between humans and the ‘little humans’ – these ‘elusive others’ living with us – in order to clarify the deep meanings ingrained in domestic territories.

Keywords: domestic territories; territoriology; little humans; limits of control; parasites; crowds; animism.

 

TOC
Introduction: Inquiring into domestic expressions
The elusive others living with us
Patterns of relations and the limits of control
Conclusions
Olaus Magnus Historia om de nordiska folken
The Swedish Tomte by Olaus Magnus (1555)

Climbing the City. Inhabiting Verticality Outside of Comfort Bubbles (with Andrea Pavoni)

NOW PUBLISHED in Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability

Courtesy & Copyright: Vitaliy Raskalov | Ontheroofs.com
Courtesy & Copyright: Vitaliy Raskalov | Ontheroofs.com

 

Abstract. Over the last couple of decades, urban sports have been studied – as well as, in many cases, celebrated – as critical forms of using urban space. Urban climbing, a practice also known as ‘street bouldering’, ‘buildering’, ‘structuring’, and ‘stegophilia’, has been much explored in this vein. While we acknowledge the importance of the theoretical move consisting in bringing to light the political and playful dimensions of the urban spatial experience, in this piece we would like to focus on a slightly different question. Rather than emphasising the political of playful import of urban climbing, we propose a theoretical apprehension of it as a powerful means to probe and understand the finest constitution of urban environments and, more amply, urban morphology. By doing so, we wish, on the one hand, to zoom in as closely as possible onto the actual bodily practice of climbing, and, on the other, to attend its methodological implications in terms of a reflection on bodily techniques in the context of a natural history of the city. We describe urban climbing as a peculiar corporeal operation carried out at and, more precisely, on the limits of environmental control. As a place-maker, the climber inhabits a limit, a plane of contingency whose coordinates lie at some point between the necessary and the arbitrary. In conclusion, the article suggests that, by highlighting the meaning of inhabiting a vertical open space of a peculiar kind, a close-up study of urban climbing might help to develop contemporary urban theory.

 

Keywords: urban theory; urban climbing; urban environment; inhabiting; bodily urban practice; object/environment relations; compositional techniques

  • TOC
  • Introduction
  • 1. The universe in a single hold
  • 2. Beyond the orthogonal plan: inhabiting verticality
  • 3. How to meet Time in time
  • 4. The whole wall, all over the city
  • Conclusions

PDF version

 

השליטה של מי הטריטוריה הזו? על בני אדם, חיות, והצורך לסמן את גבולות

An interview with Tali Hatuka originally published in Hebrew at http://urbanologia.tau.ac.il/human-animal-territories/

 

TH. So, Andre, can you tell me about your project, about territories and what are the key ideas? I mean how do you address the whole concept of territories? Let’s…you know what, what is “territory” for you?

Continue reading

Three Presents (with Mattias Kärrholm)

On the multi-temporality of territorial production and the gift from John Soane

Published in Time & Society

ThreePresents

Abstract

Territoriality has primarily been seen as a spatial rather than temporal phenomenon. In this paper, we want to investigate how time functions in territorialising processes. In particular, we are attracted by the multi-temporality that is co-present in each process of territorialisation (i.e. processes in which time and space are used as means of measure, control, and expression). The article is divided into two main parts. In the first part we draw inspiration from Gilles Deleuze’s book Logic of Sense, as well as from authors such as Simmel, Whitehead, Benjamin and Jesi, in order to articulate three different types of the present (Aion, Kronos and Chronos). In the second part we move to a short case study of the collector John Soane and the establishment of his house-museum. The case is used to exemplify how these three presents can be used to discuss and temporal aspects of territorialisation in general, and the production of a specific sort of territory – the house-museum as a new building type – in particular.
Keywords

Territorial Production; Temporality of the Present; Aion, Kronos, Chronos; Collectionism; House-museum

PDF version here

Sir John Soane's Museum, The Dome Area (photograph by courtesy of Jesper Magnusson)
Sir John Soane’s Museum, The Dome Area (photograph by courtesy of Jesper Magnusson)

Social Camouflage: Functions, Logic, Paradoxes (with Alessandro Castelli)

Now published in Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory

Fixing the Shadow / Beyond the Law (1992)
Fixing the Shadow / Beyond the Law (1992)

Abstract. Camouflage is usually understood as a type of deceitful communication
strategy in the animal and human domains. In this piece, we invite scholars to consider how the phenomenon of camouflage, while certainly grounded in antagonism and selection, might exceed its strategic meaning. Using the case of undercover agents movies, we attempt to flesh out the inner logic of camouflage and the type of social-existential situations it gives shape to. Exploring the mundane practical problem of ‘infiltration’ into a social group or social milieu, the article zooms in onto the experience of camouflage and highlights its relatedness to and distinction from imitation. Camouflage is here used not as an overarching interpretive category, rather, as an instance that reveals something about the problems inherent in the constitution of inter-subjective life. The article seeks to contribute to a theoretical development in the study of social logic and social teleology, stressing the curious entanglement of deliberate strategic action and irrational desire that contradistinguishes what could be called the ‘aberrant conjunction’ of the camoufleur and its target. Camouflage, we conclude, is not only about make-believe but also, crucially, about desiring and learning to desire.

Keywords: Mimicry, Camouflage, Undercover movies, Infiltration, Social logic, Social phenomenology, Inter-Subjectivity

TOC
Introduction
The Functions of Camouflage
The Logic of Camouflage
The Existential Phenomenology of Camouflage
The Paradoxes of Camouflage, or, Learning to Desire
Conclusions

Social Camouflage-FIN+pics

http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/PNcAa3KNVDYUT3yZ6jhR/full  (50 free downloads)