Deterritorialization and Reterritorialization

Deterritorialization and reterritorialization processes are spatial manifestations of contemporary changes under way in the relationship between social life and its territorial moorings. The two terms were originally employed in the 1970s in the work of French theorists Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, who are often associated with poststructuralism and postmodernism. Using insights from philosophy and psychoanalysis, Deleuze and Guattari developed a sophisticated understanding of capitalism, power, and identity, [Page 723]which are locked in a fluid process of territorialization, deterritorialization, and reterritorialization of social structures and processes. These terms have subsequently been adopted by the social sciences and humanities, that is, geography, anthropology, international relations, linguistics, and others.

Deterritorialization has often been associated with globalization. The bonds that tied economics, politics, and culture to fixed spatial configurations ...