The production of territories seen from a materialist perspective: milieus in the politics of territorialization

ABSTRACT

How are territories produced? We conduct an analysis at the micro level of the reciprocal adjustments among actors in a ‘new valley’ that emerged in north-west France after the removal of two dams. By distancing ourselves from approaches that focus exclusively on the socio-political actors of territorialisation, we show that territories are generated through a site-specific process prompted by the affordances of milieus. From the field data collected through interviews, we demonstrate that the materiality of the milieus plays an important role in the politics by which territories are demarcated and collective entities defined, some of whom are included and others, excluded. Discussion shows that territorialization is politics rooted in the materiality of milieus.

KEYWORDS:

• territory
• milieu
• territorialization
• politics
• affordance

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was supported by the Agence de l’Eau (French Agency for water management) under Grant “Scientific Sélune Program”.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

ETHICS STATEMENT

The authors state that all participants were informed of our research process. They gave their informed consent to the use of the interviews in a scientific article. The name of the participants are anonymized, but such alterations have not distorted the scholarly meaning.

Notes

1 All information can be found on the webpage of the research programme and team: selune.hypotheses.org/.

2 The interviews were in French and the quotes are our own translation.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Agence de l'Eau Seine Normandie (French Agency for water management) under Grant “Scientific Sélune Program”.