The Politics Of Territorial Identity

This book provides insight into the topic of place and territorial identity, which involves both the dimension of collective belonging and the politics of territorial planning and enhancement. It considers the social, economic and political effects of territorial identity representations among others in terms of mystification, spatial fetishism, and the creation of place and territorial stereotypes. A mixed methodology is employed to research case studies at diverse territorial scales which are relevant to the impact of a variety of factors on place/territorial identity processes such as migration, political and economic changes, natural disasters, land use changes, etc. Visual imagery, constructing visual discourses and living within visual cultures are placed in the foreground and refer to among others the changes and challenges introduced by the Internet and social networks in place/territory representations and self-representations; identity politics and its impact on place/territorial identity representations; discourses in shaping representations and self-representations of territorial/place-based identities related to collective memory, cultural heritage, invented tradition, imagined communities and other key notions.

Despite the recent proliferation of literature on nationalism and on social policy, relatively little has been written to analyse the possible interaction between the two. Scholars interested in social citizenship have indirectly dealt with the interaction between national identity and social programs such as the British NHS, but they have seldom examined this connection in reference to nationalism. Specialists of nationalism rarely mention social policy, focusing instead on language, culture, ethnicity, and religion. The main objective of this book is to explore the nature of the connection between nationalism and social policy from a comparative and historical perspective. At the theoretical level, this analysis will shed new light on a more general issue: the relationships between identity formation, territorial politics, and social policy. Although this book refers to the experience of many different countries, the main cases are three multinational states, that is, states featuring strong nationalist movements: Canada (Québec), the United Kingdom (Scotland), and Belgium (Flanders). The book looks at the interplay between nationalism and social policy at both the state and sub-state levels through a detailed comparison between these three cases. In its concluding chapter, the book brings in cases of mono-national states (i.e. France, Germany, Sweden, and the United States) to provide broader comparative insight on the meshing of nationalism and social policy. The original theoretical framework for this research is built using insight from selected scholarship on nationalism and on the welfare state.

Nowadays political territoriality is profoundly put to the test by globalization, the rise of the network-society, international migration and new types of risk that state governments find hard to control. Yet, new political configurations do not invalidate the relevance of territory and territorial identity right away. Moreover, people who want to escape or forget foreign dominace still reach for the traditionally sovereign state (Eastern Europe, Asia). In this book an international group of political geographers analyse the meaning of post-modern transfromation in territoriality at different geographical scales: global, (inter) national and local. They cover such varied topics as the probability of a clash between civilizations, the rise of World-cities, the disintegration of African States, ethnic conflicts and politics in Europe, the meaning of a supranational territorial order (European Union), the end of the welfare state, nation-building and its symbols, Israeli cultural politics, urban regimes and local conflict-defense mechanisms. The perspectives put forward, match more general theoretical geography and political science and involve case studies from different parts of the World. This important new study is of immediate interest to students of all levels of politcial science, sociology, social geography, administrative science, international relations, contermpoary history, and to policy makers and politicians.

This book provides a multi-disciplinary study of territory, identity and space in a devolved UK, through the lens of spatial planning. It draws together leading internationally renowned researchers from a variety of disciplines to address the implications of devolution upon spatial planning and the rescaling of UK politics. Each contributor offers a different perspective on the core issues in planning today in the context of New Labour’s regional project, particularly the government’s concern with business competitiveness, and key themes are illustrated with important case studies throughout.

Our world is currently divided into territorial states that resist all attempts to change their borders. But what entitles a state, or the people it represents, to assume monopoly control over a particular piece of the Earth's surface? Why are they allowed to prevent others from entering? What if two or more states, or two or more groups of people, claim the same piece of land? Political philosophy, which has had a great deal to say about the relationship between state and citizen, has largely ignored these questions about territory. This book provides answers. It justifies the idea of territory itself in terms of the moral value of political self-determination; it also justifies, within limits, those elements that we normally associate with territorial rights: rights of jurisdiction, rights over resources, right to control borders and so on. The book offers normative guidance over a number of important issues facing us today, all of which involve territory and territorial rights, but which are currently dealt with by ad hoc reasoning: disputes over resources; disputes over boundaries, oceans, unoccupied islands, and the frozen Arctic; disputes rooted in historical injustices with regard to land; secessionist conflicts; and irredentist conflicts. In a world in which there is continued pressure on borders and control over resources, from prospective migrants and from the desperate poor, and no coherent theory of territory to think through these problems, this book offers an original, systematic, and sophisticated theory of why territory matters, who has rights over territory, and the scope and limits of these rights.

In the last two decades, new political subjects have been created through the actions of the new social movements; often by asserting the unfixed and `overdetermined' character of identity. Further, in attempting to avoid essentialism, people have frequently looked to their territorial roots to establish their constituency. A cultural politics of resistance, as exemplified by Black politics, feminism, and gay liberation, has developed struggles to turn sites of oppression and discrimintion into spaces of resistance. This book collects together perspectives which challenge received notions of geography; which are in danger of becoming anachronisms, without a language to articulate the new space of resistance, the new politics of identity.

The study of territorial politics has enjoyed a renaissance in the last thirty years. Scholars have questioned the state-centric assumptions upon which mainstream social science has been built, pointing to the territorial (re)distribution of power across and within states. This Handbook brings together leading scholars to demonstrate how territory has shaped institutional structures, public policies, elections, political parties, and identity across the world. Offering theoretical, comparative and empirical insights, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the impact of territory on modern political, economic and social life.