Introduction

Abstract

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book addresses the absolutely fundamental connection between property and territory. It explores the key issue of spatial ontology or the extent to which power relations are constituted out of relational networks or blocs of space with different degrees of spatial extension, in other words the question of geographic scale. The book provides a novel argument for the claim to “territorial rights” associated with a given territory that rather than resting in claims about national identity, private property rights or democratic self-determination, the usual suspects, relies on a claim to protecting a unique “socio-ecological system.” It considers the limits and uses of territory in relation to specific political issues of contemporary importance. Territory has a logic that is usually only realized in the context of more complex attempts at governing the governance of the socio-spatial relations of everyday life.