The Materiality of Territorial Production – a conceptual discussion of territoriality, materiality and the everyday life of public space

This article brings together research on territoriality and actornetwork theory in order 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, I suggest some 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, I re-appropriate the traditional approaches from the viewpoint of actants rather than persons or institutions, suggesting a distinction between four different forms of territorial production. I then go on to conceptualize some material ways of stabilizing the effects of these territorial productions. Finally, I argue 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.