Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

A territory is the expanse of the earth's surface on which a human group lives. It is the material and real space providing vital resources (food, energy) on which a collectivity imposes its laws and asserts its authority. The cross-cultural study of territoriality forms the subject-matter of proxemics (Hall, 1966, 1968). That discipline identifies ‘the complex of behavioural activities and their extensions’, essentially dealing with the notion of ‘distance outside the field of consciousness’. For Hall, territorial structure varies between cultures as a result of a different interconnection of sensory channels. The organization of space by architecture is fundamental to this. Depending on the culture, space is structured in static forms, semi-mobile forms and dynamic forms. Thus furniture may be either fixed or semi-fixed (chairs, doors), its degree of mobility varying between peoples. A territory is apprehended and constructed by means of maps which are more or less isomorphic in their relation to it. As a result of its value for sustaining life and survival, it gives rise to biological and symbolic behaviours which tend to mark its boudnaries by signals and by the establishment of intersensory connections. If, then, the territory is identifiable by the unconscious maps which represent it, it remains an asymptotic entity, distinct from those maps. It is by means of maps that ... log in or subscribe to read full text