TTT | : THE POLITICAL ORGANIZATION OF ACE Edward W, Soja Northwestern University Copyright 1971 by the ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN GEOGRAPHERS Commission on College Geography Washington, D. C. 20036 RESOURCE PAPER NO. 8 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 70-135471 Supported by a grant from the National Scienee Foundationa TABLE OF CONTENT: Introduction 7 Part I, Some Basic Concepts and Perspectives ‘A, Human Spatial Organization B. Society and Polity Perspectives onthe Political Orgenization of Space 1. The Western “Bias” of Rigidly Compartmentalized Political Space 2, Spatial Oxganization and the Evolution of Political Society 3. Some Tentative Conclusions Part II, Human and Antal Tessitorality A. The Concept of Terrtoriality B, Personal Space and Small Group Ecology C.Territorility in Animals. 1. Funetions of Animal Tersitoriaity 2. Types of Animal Tertitoriality D. Torvitorility and Homan Anatogies 1.0n Aggesion and Testor erates 2. Terstoralty and the Human Population Explosion « E, Human Territorility and the Political Organization of Space 1. Review and Overview 2. The Major Dimensions of Societal Tersitorality Conclusion. AppendioesDicection for Further Study Appendix A. Tersitoriality in Stateless Societies 1. Tenttoriality in Band-Egalitarian Societies 2. Torritorialty in Rank Secieties 3. Tertitoriality in Stratified Societies Appendix B. Fragmented Urban Empires: Territorial Organization of Metropolitan Government in the United States 1. The Patter of Metropolitan Fragmentation 2. Experiments in Metropolitan Unity. 3. Fragmentation at Larger and Smaller Seales 4. Some Reflections Bibliography Part [, Some Basic Concepts and Perspectives Part I Human and Animal Territorility Page 3 6 9 4s 46 48 50 31 53 53 stMo Wasvmtaten, DC: AAG Resource Fapee No. 3, 1941. THE POLITICAL ORGANIZATION OF SPACE INTRODUCTION ‘The surface of the earth is enmeshed in a labyrinth of boundaries created and maintained by man. Embedded within the pastel colors of @ satellite photograph of the carth are layers of intricate and overlapping moseies of spatial organization unseen by the distant eye but never. theless profoundly influencing human activity and behavior, About one hundred and forty sovereign states Partition the surface into distinctive territories, each further compartmentalized into smaller political “divisions. A myriad of local administrative units carve up space ina seriety of patterns (o fulfill a wide range of functions. At a still more local level over most of the world there is a complex web of property lines and patterns of land ownership. If you are fortunate enough 10 be atop the Empire State Building in New York City on a clear, smogless day, the usban panorama before you would ‘encompass three states, 500 autonomous governments, and about 1,000 additional governmental units with various legal and functional prerogativest ‘Woven into and over the formal politieat and administra. tive units which comparimentalize the earth's surface are less easily defined and more dynamic geographical units outlining the spheres ot “fields” of numan interaction in space, Without necessarily belng reflected in precisely delimited boundaries, all_human settlements capture variably defined hinterlands as foci of economic, social, and political activity. Ideologies, religions, languages, and cultures create additional frontiers which fucther struetare interaction, encouraging internally oriented activity within the units they define while simultanzously acting as barriers to external contacts. Each human being creates his own, “aotivity space” which becomes the context for his most detailed knowledge of his environment and within which ‘most of his daly activities are regularly cartied out, At the ‘most microscale, each individual surrounds himsel? with portable series of space, or personal distance zones, “bubbles” which guide and shape his interaction with other Individuals. Thus without formsl boundaries, space becomes organized and structured into focal points, core areas, networks of interaction, domains, spheres of in- fluence, hinterlands, buffer zones, riomman's lands, cultural hhomelands, regions, neighborhoods, gang “turfs.” and ghettos. ‘The main purpose of this Resource Paper is fo explore the political organization of space ~che ways in which space and human inferaction in space are siructured to fulfil political functions—as it celates to the central theme of ‘modern geography: the spatial organization of human society. This is a subject which, despite its obvious importance, has received relatively little ditect and systematic attention from geographers or other social scientists. Political geography, perhaps because of the obvious contemporary importance of formal international boundaries (and to some degree those of major internal subdivisions), has traditionally focused upon the sovereign State: on the evolution of its boundaries, its distnetive locational characteristics, and the variely of ways in which sates differ from one another in power, internal cohesion, and other selected features, More so than most other subfields within the discipline, political geography remains firmly locked into the “statist” tradition within geography, with its emphasis on areal differentiation and description of Uunique characteristics, on the “collection of data about countries and regions, and the attempt to derive the best set of categories by which they could be characterized." As result, many political geography textbooks appear to be litle more than catalogues of states and their characteristics (political or otherwise), with ineidental nates about evrrent events, This study is not aimed at substituting a new orthodoxy for an old one. Nor is it meant to encompass the full breadth of interest in political geography. Its fundamental ‘objective is 10 explore e few new paths and 10 suggest a framework of concepts and themes which may possibly link political geography more effectively with recent method- ological and philosophical developments in geography itself and in the other social sciences, lis approach will be eclectic rather than concentrating on a review of the geographical literature which, for the subject at hand, is relatively meagre (although not insignificant), 1s style will be expository and speculative, concerned more with a set of fairly broad "but interrelated idess than with specific reseatch findings on narrowly defined topics, in part because such detailed empirical research has rarely involved ‘an explicit spatial perspective, Perhaps most important, its Ultimate goal isto involve the reader, to make him aware of the political organization of space, of the way he himself perceives this organization, and how it affects his own ‘activity and behavior. Torin J. L. Berry and Duane F, Marble, “ateodtion,” in Benry and Marble (eds), Spi! Analysis. (Full references sven in (be Bibliography)