Title: Symbolic name strategies : Iran and the Persian Gulf.
Abstract: National and regional identities have always been and still are connected to territory. The
sovereignty is largely perceived biased to a territory, although there are some authors who
regard territoriality and state autonomy as irrelevant for the sovereignty. Of course,
overwhelming number of countries in the world have territory. However, a country does not
stem from nature. Rather, it is imaginative formation, and sovereignty cannot be based
exclusively on territory, but primarily on imaginative community. The state sovereignty is by
far the end result of particular discourse and imaginary. Institutional political science might
have problems with this notion of sovereignty, but other social sciences, such as anthropology,
considers sovereignty as monopoly where one is included or excluded from a political
community, but also what constitutes order, security and normal life, as well as which means
(including force) have to be taken not to endanger these principles. The complexity of
sovereignty, however, goes beyond this debate. Even the anthropology stresses order and
security, without which there is no normal life, no sovereignty, as the states collapse and
become rogue. The role of space and spatial presence is especially accentuated in fragmented
societies with deep religious, linguistic and ethnic divides. The politics of territoriality, thus,
is act of political production, dynamic and changing construction, which based on its inherent
exclusivity leads to bordering and conflicts (Blacksell, 2006: 20). This space, a territory, is
further used for activity of territoriality as explained by Kevin E. Cox: the activity of
defending, controlling, excluding, including (Cox, 2002: 1).
Publication Year: 2015
Publication Date: 2015-03-01
Language: en
Type: article
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