District Space: A Nineteenth-Century Technique of Rule

Abstract

Introduction: Ruling Through Districts Nation states constitute and regulate a field of social vision, which is both unitary (minimizing differences within the nation) and Manichean…This is the field within which official politics proceeds, both grounding and bounding it…its symbols and rituals come to stand for, represent, that which demarcates us, sets us apart and makes us what we are… 1 In this project I trace the practices and forms of knowledge that structured the emergence of a "regulated field of social vision" in the 19 th-century British North America and England. My focus is on "the district" as a form of measure and control that was integral to colonial and, later, state projects of rule. Situating the historical place of the district and its relation to bourgeois civilization and the modern state form presents a unique challenge. The district has a polyvalent social character. The district was described in the late 17 th century as "territory under the jurisdiction of a lord or officer." 2 The division between lord and officer suggests the beginning of a contested, or at least unclear, division between feudal authority and authority vested by office. In the 18 th century, "district" was used to denote any vague or unmeasured "tract of land," and in the 19 th century, it became a form of action. To district "is a technique of dividing places for administrative purposes." 3 Thus, "the district" was pulled apart by a range of social forces. On one level, its meaning points to a conditioning relation between bureaucracy and spatial order as well as to a