Abstract

SPINDOLA ZAGO, Octavio. Space, Territory, and Territoriality: A Theoretical Approach of the Border. Rev. mex. cienc. polít. soc [online]. 2016, vol.61, n.228, pp.27-56. ISSN 0185-1918.

When decoding from a postcolonial perspective the space/subject relationship within an interdisciplinary horizon to understand the main conceptual and methodological problems involved in the study of space, we arrive at a particularly rich locus: the border. This trendy field of study opens the way to elucidate both the relationship between State and territory, between nation and territoriality, as well as how the border -as a material construct, a symbolic device, a legal reality, and a literary element- impacts the notions of identity. This research aims at understanding space based on the chronotopes we have interweaved with existing relationships in the political and cultural networks simultaneously intersecting the local and the global, and we conclude with a humanization of the border through the character of the cross-border migrant. Considering his mobility capacity, we argue the cross-border migrant is a new historical subject who appropriates spaces by walking, who engraves experiences upon those spaces and inhabits them.

Keywords : border; space; territory; territoriality; migrant; identity.