CALL FOR PAPERS – CHICAGO AAG

Territory Beyond Terra

At the root of the practice of territory is the concept of terra – land – a surface of fixed points with stable features that can be calculated, categorized, and controlled.  But what of the many spaces on Earth that defy this simplistic characterization: Oceans in which ‘places’ are continuously re-formed? Air that can never be fully contained? Watercourses that obtain their value by transcending boundaries? Wetlands, estuaries, and archipelagos that (in very different ways) challenge received fundamental divisions between land and water? Frozen environments that undergo dramatic seasonal transformations of physical state? And how can a consideration of modern politics in these spaces inform our understanding of the challenges that are emerging in an increasingly dynamic world that renders contestable all of these spatial categories, as well as the ideal of solid, stable, surficial land against which they are all counterposed?

To approach these questions, the session organizers invite papers that examine how modern notions of territory are and are not applied beyond the paradigmatic space of solid land. By engaging studies across a range of cases and theoretical perspectives this session will advance critical inquiry into both the geophysical foundations and the geohumanities of modern formulations of state, place, power, and terrain.

This session is being organised by Kimberley Peters (University of Aberystwyth -- [log in to unmask], Phil Steinberg (Durham University – [log in to unmask]), and Elaine Stratford (University of Tasmania – [log in to unmask]). Please contact one of us if you would like to present in this session.