The Materiality of Territorial Production

This article brings together research on territoriality and actor-network theory to develop new ways of investigating the role of materiality and material design in the territorial power relations of urban public places. Using the public square as a main example, the author suggests new ways of conceptualizing the production and stabilization of territories in the everyday urban environment. Setting out from a brief outline of the history of territoriality research, the traditional approaches are reappropriated from the viewpoint of actants rather than persons or institutions, suggesting a distinction between four different forms of territorial production. Some material ways of stabilizing the effects of these territorial productions are then conceptualized. The author argues that public space can be seen as constituted by a territorial complexity, thus pointing to the relationship between materiality and public space, via territorial stabilization and production.