Lines, barred lines. Movement, territory and the law

Abstract

In this paper an attempt is made to analyse the complex relationship between law, territory and movement. Beginning with a quick overview of the notion of property, the paper suggests that this legal notion represents a way of imagining the practice of inhabiting the planet. Dwelling and travelling are explored as two alternative and complementary ways of inhabiting, and a closer inspection is paid to the moments when they confront each other both ideologically and practically. A territorial question is identified at the core of law, namely the issue of the movement of bodies in space (or motility), together with the control of such movements. From this perspective, movement is not simply one among the many objects over which law exerts control, rather law itself is a territorial endeavour, a movement that acts upon other movements.

Transcarceral lawscapes enacted in moments of Aboriginalisation: a case-study of an Indigenous woman released on urban parole

“…A procedural space results from such abstractions that restructures material space according to the productive capacities of legal procedure – striating, commingling, flattening, expanding, reverting, punctuating, accelerating, arresting, elevating, displacing, etc. through the expressive medium of procedure – shaping lawful ways for bodies to move through space (Mussawir, 2011; 2017; also see Barr, 2016; Brighenti, 2010). Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos (2013; 2015; 2016b) takes this thesis further, stating that, whilst law's concrete abstractions are a thin, fleshy layer atop the affective forces of space, all of social life must be understood immanently through law (see e.g.…”

“…Second, as should become clear, this approach is sensitive to how carceral zones are grafted onto land, assembling territory through the everyday enactment of legal orders (see e.g. Sylvestre et al ., 2019), but it also allows me to avoid prioritising the zonal boundaries ‘themselves [as] objects’ (Brighenti, 2010, p. 223), recognising that boundaries are also important in terms of what they do – to sense the city as heterogenous, atmospheric fluxes and flows that exceed, and yet are produced from, the thickening of law between its borders, striations or folds in space (Brighenti, 2010). In other words, this will allow me to conceptualise the place of law in transcarceral spatiotemporalities not merely as overlapping zones delineating spaces of legality and illegality in which one can or cannot exist, but also as technicolour movement across and through the thresholds of such boundaries by which the relations of law, bodies and space compose, decompose and recompose.…”

State Title to Territory—The Historical Conjunction of Sovereignty and Property

“…In recent decades, territory has undergone significant interrogation at the hands of geographers, who argue that territory should be seen no longer as a "thing" but as a "relationship" or "performance." Whether their work is described as "critical geography," the "sociology of territory," the "genealogy of territory," or "law and movement," these scholars locate territory within a network of socio-technical practices, which include governmentality, jurisdiction, property rights, boundaries, the self-determination of identity, and more (see Brighenti, 2006;Brighenti, 2010;Blomley, 2016;Elden, 2013;Painter, 2010). Especially interesting is the work of Nicholas Blomley (2019), whose notion of "territorialization of property" demonstrates how property is treated as territory: bounded, surveyed, occupied and, with the sanction of law, owned.…”

Assembling Borders, Territory, and Human Rights in Migration Management Policies

“…To move beyond these constructions of jurisdiction, it is important to explore law 'as a territorial and territorializing device' (Brighenti, 2010). In this scenario, the law can assume both a territorializing and de-territorializing effect depending on the state´s political and economic objectives.…”