Citation

Brighenti AM. Theory Cult. Soc. 2010; 27(1): 52-72.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0263276409350357

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The development of territorology requires the overcoming of the dichotomy between determinist and constructivist approaches, in order to advance towards a general science of territory and territorial phenomena. Insights for this task can come from at least four main threads of research: biology, zooethology and human ethology; human ecology, social psychology and interactionism; human, political and legal geography; and philosophy. In light of the insights derived from these traditions, the article aims to conceptualize territorial components, technologies, movements, effects, and their interplay, in order to establish the main lines of inquiry for territorology. A general territorology, it is argued, amounts to a sociology of territorial acts and relations, whose aim is to analyze the expressive and functional components of territories, as fixed through their organizational and technological devices.