Territory, scale, and why capitalism matters

Abstract

A number of recent contributions have been critical of those theorizations of scale and territory that emerged in the last two decades. They have argued, variably, that a de-centered world of flows and networks, whether a recent phenomenon or something that is in the nature of space relations, trumps the assumptions of verticality, centricity and fixity that are, in their view, central to those theorizations. They define their view of space as relational in contrast to what they believe to be the non-relational view embedded in concepts of scale and territory. These critiques have been met, in turn, by a number of ripostes which argue, essentially, that there is no contradiction between relational views of space and the concepts of scale and territory. In both the critiques and the rebuttals, though, there is a curious refusal to seriously engage with concrete social relations; relations that make scale and territory and pace the rebuttals, necessary features of spatial organization rather than contingent ones.