Title: Conceptualizing the Territory as an entanglement of material and social reality
Abstract: The paper strives to theoretically grasp the territory and this way contributes to the foundation of territorial science. Territory is conceptualized as that what links people and their environment. It is a unique, socially and materially constructed or produced 'ecological niche' and at the same time 'social space' of a group of people, defined by their territorial identity. Territory is a structure that is embodied in reality and that 'lives' in people's minds as well as in their practices. It has an underlying infrastructure of common rules or codes and of network of material and informational flows. The specific communication code of the territory is the culture that comes with its defining identity. The extent of shared territorial practices and codes in various dimensions of environmental space delimits the boundaries of the territory. But rules, boundaries and gates to the territory are also enforced by a threat of 'terror' against those that do not belong there or disrupt the territory.