Regions between imposed structure and internally developed response. Experiences with twin track regionalisation in post-socialist eastern Germany

This paper investigates the dual nature of regionalisation between imposed institutionalised territoriality and self-made ‘ad hoc’ collaborative regional arrangements between localities. This involves, as the paper sets out to show, different, but concurrent imagineerings of ‘regions’ to two audiences - within and without a defined region. They are applied to the same territory, albeit with different images and sets of actors for internal (local) and external (national/international) consumption. These developments are examined within the context of the ‘new regionalism’ debate, in particular the notion of a replacement of ‘old’ through ‘new’ regionalism as a sequence. This duality of region making challenges the frequently somewhat simplistic presumption of regions forming as one complete entity, ‘out there’ to compete on a global market. They also have to fight for their recognition internally, but with different arguments, rationales and policies. This means that the possibility of overlapping single purpose ad hoc formed regions, as postulated under the new regionalism, needs to take into account the likelihood of several meanings of one and the same territory. The examples demonstrate that the two possibilities overlap - multi-territoriality and multi-meanings of (new) regionalism. The paper uses the example of post-unification eastern Germany, where in 1990 a completely new set of traditional regions was established, implementing a 1960s-derived western German model. Since this common starting point, strong economic, cultural and geographic differences have emerged, leading not only to policy adjustments, but also changes to the understanding of regionalisation and regional policy, and the actors involved.     

The rise of territorial eco-certifications: New politics of transnational sustainability governance in the fishery sector

Eco-certifications have become an important site of power struggles in commodity sectors such as forestry, fisheries, aquaculture, palm oil, and soy. In each, multiple eco-certification initiatives have been developed and resisted through interactions among non-governmental organizations, governments, and commercial actors. This paper contributes to understanding how power is embodied in certifications by exploring how territoriality manifests in the international struggle over defining what products are ‘sustainable’ and which producers will have access to markets that require ‘sustainable’ products. Focusing on the wild capture fisheries sector in which the non-governmental Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) administers the preeminent eco-certification initiative, we explore the emergence of new fisheries eco-certification initiatives in Japan, Iceland, Alaska, Canada, and the US that insist there is no transnational monopoly on judgments over fisheries sustainability. We argue that these new eco-certifications attempt to defend and embed territorial social and regulatory relations of production within the contested domain of transnational sustainability governance. The initiatives accommodate both the territorially embedded material interests, institutions, and discursive strategies of producers (and their state supporting agencies) and transnationally embedded governance norms for assessing and communicating sustainability. They also counter the globally applicable institutions of the MSC in favor of making space for state and non-state actors to contend with demands for sustainability in the global seafood market by combining place-specific attributes with transnational governance norms.     

The emerging Islamic State: Terror,territoriality, and the agenda of social transformation

The world has recently been witness to the emergence of a new contemporary geopolitical phenomenon: the declaration of Islamic States by specific Islamic organizations. This phenomenon has the potential to dramatically transform the geopolitical setting of the Middle East and to have farreaching effects on a global level. Of these most prominent, however, has undoubtedly been the June 2014 declaration by the “Islamic State” organization of a “caliphate” covering large areas of the two war-torn states of Syria and Iraq. The aim of this article is to interrogate the territorial aspects of the Islamic State and to discern what makes it unique and exceptional in comparison to the many other Islamic political organizations that have emerged in recent years. In order to facilitate a better understanding of territoriality, I distinguish here between two major dimensions: conceptions of territoriality and tactics of territoriality. My working assumption is that by distinguishing between conceptions and tactics of territoriality, we can compare the exercise of territoriality by states and, in the present case, organizations. In this article, I argue that the Islamic State poses a challenge to both the conceptual and tactical dimensions of the contemporary territory and territoriality of modern states. Yet, while its conception of territoriality may be widely shared by other political Islamic organizations, its uniqueness lies in its tactics and strategies. Indeed, it is the brutal tactics of the Islamic State that are less acceptable to many Muslims around the world, not its political conception, which enjoys considerable support in the Muslim arena. Yet, when comparing it with modern states, the Islamic State poses a challenge to the territory and territoriality in both conception and tactics.     

Defining the forest,defending the forest: Political ecology,territoriality, and resistance to a protected area in the Dominican Republic

Political ecologists have considered the social and economic impacts that nature reserves, national parks and other forms of protected area can have on neighbouring communities, and how this can generate conflicts between them. This paper analyses such conflicts through the lens of territoriality, considering how the way protected area territories are created, delineated, and defined is linked to the social impacts experienced by local people. Conflicts between locals and conservation authorities over protected areas are about rival attempts to define the boundaries of protected areas, who the land should belong to, what it should be used for, and what its purpose is. Yet the ability of local people or conservation authorities to impose their meaning is unequal. It illustrates these processes with the example of a scientific reserve in the Dominican Republic, and a decades-long conflict to define what the reserve should mean, what it should look like, and who it should belong to.     

Woodcutting and territorial claims in Mali

In Mali, amidst moves toward political decentralization and the transfer of authority to manage natural resources, woodcutting has become an important tool for the assertion of territorial claims by villagers. The decentralization process has itself led to a profound political shake-up between the central state seeking to maintain land ownership and the de facto management of land by customary village authorities. But it is, however, primarily the devolution of forest resource management to village-led organizations that has prompted the cross-scale legitimization and assertion of various territorial claims from 1995 onwards. Based on two in-depth case studies on the outskirts of Bamako, Mali, the authors illustrate how new practices revolving around woodcutting and charcoal-making have been instrumental in intra- and inter-village disputes. At the village level, this transfer tends to exacerbate tenure claims over land and trees with the reactivation of autochthony-related arguments and thus the risk of excluding the most vulnerable social groups which are typically involved in woodcutting. At the inter-village level, this gives villages the opportunity to claim and demarcate boundaries by cutting, painting signs on some trees, or more radically tree felling being carried out solely to demonstrate appropriation. At the municipal level, this transfer leads to political and social adjustments between customary and decentralized authorities, each struggling to build their legitimacy in natural resource management.     

Application of GIS to investigate the use of space in coral reef fish: a comparison of territorial behaviour in two Red Sea butterflyfishes

The space use of two coral‐feeding Red Sea butterflyfish species (Chaetodon austriacus and C. trifascialis) was studied at three sites in the Gulf of Aqaba to determine the extent of intraspecific territoriality. Individuals or pairs were observed in shallow water (<5 m). Their locations were recorded on maps of each study reef. The Animal Movement Analysis Extension (AMAE) in ArcView was used to plot territory borders and compute territory size for each species. Chaetodon austriacus, a generalist corallivore that exploited evenly distributed food resources, maintained small exclusive pair territories with clearly defined territory boundaries. In contrast, C. trifascialis, a specialist corallivore that exploited patchily distributed food resources, demonstrated considerable variation in territorial behaviour that ranged from the defence of small exclusive solitary territories to the shared use of a large home range. Comparisons of territory area estimates showed that 95% kernel probability density function territory boundaries matched intuitive territory boundaries and, unlike the minimum convex polygon area, did not contain obvious areas that were not used by individuals or pairs. We show that comparing different territory size measures can be very useful in describing subtle differences in territorial behaviour between species and studies. For this purpose, GIS is an ideal technology with which to carry out such analyses quickly and easily.     

Between social and spatial convergence and divergence: an exploration into the political geography of European contact areas

The European continent, the motherland of nationalism, and the part of the world where political borders and different territorial and cultural identities are mostly interrelated, is now facing new challenges regarding how best to represent its numerous interests within one system. With the increase of international integration European countries began to devote greater attention to the development problems of their border areas that had to be helped to undertake certain functions in the international integration process. The fostering of a more balanced regional development also resulted in a strengthening of regional characteristics, which the new model could no longer ignore. Regional characteristics in turn have always been preserved in Europe by persistent historical and cultural elements of ethnic and linguistic variety. Therefore, it is not surprising that the process of European integration based on the new regional development model was accompanied by a parallel process of ethnic or regional awakening of minorities and other local communities. The key question for contemporary European (though of course this is not limited to Europe) political geography is, then, how the process summarised under the twin labels of social convergence and deterritorialisation will effect the persistent maintenance of regional identities and the corresponding divergence of regional spaces. Or, in other words: is the ‘unity in diversity’ European programme ever practicable and exportable on a world-wide scale or are we to be absorbed by a new global ‘melting pot’?     

State visions, landscape, and disease: Discovering malaria in Argentina, 1890-1920

Recently, geographers and other scholars have reappraised the state’s spatial properties, roles, and strategies. According to these interpretations, modern states seek to control their subjects and coordinate economic development through various “rational” and “scientific” strategies that involve the standardization, transformation, and bureaucratization of space, territory, and landscape. Through this process social relations are increasingly configured through state discourses and institutions. The role of public health institutions in the development of state spatialities has been relatively underappreciated. This paper explores the establishment and early action of a malaria control campaign in Northwest Argentina, in the early twentieth century. I make three arguments: first, in creating a malaria control program, the Argentine state did not merely respond to a given “social fact” but rather was the key participant in constructing the “malaria problem”. Second, in response to this problem the Argentine state created a new technical-administrative territory, “the malarious zone”, which encompassed several provinces and defined the federal government’s jurisdiction for public health action. Finally, state actors came to understand the malaria problem, and potential solutions to it, through specific “rational” practices of the modern state: surveying, mapping, measurement, and statistical compilation. In its early years, the malaria campaign did not so much control the disease itself, as much as establish control over the “malaria question”, making it indisputably a state project.     

Territoriality of negation: Co-production of “creative destruction” in Israel

Based on an examination of Israel’s territorial conceptions, strategies, and achievements since the establishment of the state, this article shows how state territoriality subsumes ideology and political agendas and may, under certain circumstances, lead the state to negate its very self-conceptions and harm its own perceived interests. Its analysis pays special attention to the state’s inadvertently produced territories of negation, which run counter to its own conception of territoriality, and considers the kind of social–spatial entities produced by the state. It also considers Israeli territoriality’s more recently asserted goal of shaping Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, in addition to the goals of controlling Jerusalem and Judaizing the Galilee and the Negev. To illustrate the theoretical assertion that discriminatory and marginalizing state territoriality has the distinct potential to bring about its own negation, the article concludes with two prominent expressions of this phenomenon. The first is manifested in green-line Israel, where the state’s territorial policies and the resulting marginalization of the Palestinian minority has resulted in collective resistance against the state and its policies, basic Jewish-Israeli symbols such as the anthem and the flag, and Israel’s very definition as a Jewish State. The second is manifested in Israel’s inadvertent creation of bi-national spaces both within Israel proper and in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, indirectly promoting the solution of a single bi-national state and posing a serious challenge to the very goals that Israeli territoriality has consistently strived to achieve.     

Governance and territoriality in Norwegian fisheries

This paper focuses on the informal and institutional governance structures that are embedded within local production systems in Norwegian fisheries. Important issues concern the regional distribution of fish landings resulting from the tendency in some regional production systems to use large fishing vessels, and the negative consequences of this for peripheral regions and inshore fisheries. The influence of powerful central production systems is considered in terms of territorial dominance over fishing grounds.