Notes on territorial restructuring in South Africa and France

Abstract

International audience ; Territoriality has variously been seen in the contexts of space and law (Lefebvre, 1991; Taylor, 1993), behaviourism (Urry, 1985) and power (Sack, 1986; Taylor, 1993) and the like. These conceptions have often dominated the national scale, not least because sovereignty over territory has always been at the forefront of nationalist and separatist movements. As Taylor (1993) has shown, the establishment and disestablishment of states represent victories for some social groups and defeats for others. Beyond this, we need to understand territoriality at scales of analyses including sub-national and personal levels. As Urry (1985) has commented, one's conception of oneself and one's place in society is subtly merged with one's conception of the spacially limited territory of social interaction. In practice, territorial organisation can be used as an instrument for socialising people into space, as with apartheid social engineering in South Africa and districting in the United States, or in the general organisation of the state. All these become highly questionable when political changes occur as experiences in countries undergoing dramatic socio-political changes, show.