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Geography of Conflict: Territory and Territoriality in the Study of Conflict

Geography of Conflict: Territory and Territoriality in the Study of Conflict. Arthur “Gill” Green Department of Geography, McGill University Presentation 11 October 2006 for Research Group in International Security, Université de Montréal. Overview. Territory Territoriality Conflict

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Geography of Conflict: Territory and Territoriality in the Study of Conflict

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  1. Geography of Conflict:Territory and Territoriality in the Study of Conflict Arthur “Gill” Green Department of Geography, McGill University Presentation 11 October 2006 for Research Group in International Security, Université de Montréal

  2. Overview • Territory • Territoriality • Conflict • Geography (T&T) and the Study of Conflict • Aceh and Sierra Leone

  3. What is Territory? • Bounded, meaningful space • Borders (communicative devices) • Scale • Territories are socially constructed and should be considered as process and not just physical characters. 1

  4. What is Territoriality? “The attempt by an individual or group (x) to influence, affect, or control objects, people, and relationships (v) by delimiting and asserting control over a geographic area. This area is the territory.” Sack (1983: 56) 2

  5. Essential Characteristics • Classification by area not by kind • Communication through boundary • Control of access, authority within space 2

  6. Effects of Territoriality • Create social entities (identity - state) • Create conceptually empty spaces • Reifies authority/ complex hierarchies 2

  7. What is Conflict? • When two or more parties, with perceived incompatible goals, seek to undermine each other's goal-seeking capability. • Scale? State? Militarized Interstate Disputes (MID)… 3

  8. Overview • Territory • Territoriality • Conflict • Geography (T&T) and the Study of Conflict • Aceh and Sierra Leone

  9. Conflict and Geography (testing) • State-level • Onset and Escalation • Causal or intervening variable • Opportunity and willingness • Trigger events? Authors: Hensel, Vasquez, Holsti, Walters… 4

  10. Conflict and Geography (critical) • Applies to state and non-state actors • Role of identity and territory • Weber (nation creates state through territory – monopoly of violence) • Foucault (state creates the national identity through governmentality) • Ethnicity… 4

  11. Ethnicity and Territory • Ethnicity? • Hypothesis-testing • Critical • Identity linked to territory: • Irredentism, secession, independence 4

  12. Reconstruction Processes Sierra Leone Electoral Redistricting Aceh, Indonesia Land Titling 5

  13. Aceh: Post-disaster, Post-conflict • Tsunami 2004 • GAM (Free Aceh Movement)

  14. GAM (Free Aceh Movement)

  15. Aceh: No land titles • Economic • Transaction costs still to high to manage (even when title is free) plus no local threat to land currently • No market • State authority reified • State Functions • Taxes enforced • Loss of resource autonomy • Worries of retribution • Still a desire for a free state in Aceh

  16. Sierra Leone *4.9 million *71,140 sq. km. *Temne 30%, Mende 30%, Krio 1%, 15 other *60% Muslim, 30% Christian, 10% Animist *Conflict: 1991-2003 *Bifurcated Land Regimes

  17. Sierra Leone’s Electoral Redistricting:

  18. Conclusion • Territory and Territoriality • Ways in which these are used in the study of conflict • Reconstruction and shifting use of territory between state and other scales (sub- and supranational)

  19. Thanks! arthur.green@mcgill.ca

  20. Land Tenure, LP, and Conflict (Unruh 2004) Emerging Conflict: identity and grievances, evidence (legal validity), status of land tenure apparatus= Access to resources, tenure, and legitimacy During Conflict: dislocation, loss of state power (formal tenure), loss of food security, increaseidentity (substate self determination)= Informal networks and systems strengthen Post Conflict: evidence and legitimacy, time, donor agencies, capacity, food security, binding rights and obligations, state power, land issues in peace accord, restitution= Possible conflict

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