Territorial Bodies: World Culture in Crisis 2023 - Report
We would like to thank the Humanities Research Centre at University of Warwick for generously funding Territorial Bodies: World Culture in crisis 2023, a one-day interdisciplinary conference which took place at university of Warwick on 25th February 2023.
Territorial Bodies
Territorial Bodies: World Culture in Crisis 2023 was based around the notion of ‘territorial bodies’, a concept which drew inspiration from the Latin American feminist transnational concept of ‘body-territory’, which has been used as a ‘strategic’ tool to engender new forms of global solidarity, linking multi-form violence at various scales (Gago, 2020: 95). By bringing together interdisciplinary research, we hoped to critically evaluate the terms “body-territory” as a lens through which to critique overlapping forms of violence in an era of socio-ecological crisis. In particular, we invited critical discussion surrounding the extent to which the ‘territorial body’ offers an analytical tool for addressing urgent social, ecological, and political challenges, from ecological breakdown to the rise of statelessness, to violence against women and racial exploitation.
The conference brought together 55 delegates from across the world, synthesising diverse research from various disciplines such as geography, sociology, history, visual arts, comparative literature, politics and international relations. The conference programme encompassed wide-ranging perspectives on the concept of ‘territorial bodies’, from the extractive plunder and dispossession of land, to the violation of gendered bodies, to the exploitation of racialised bodies and uneven flows of migration.
The conference included two keynote addresses from field-defining interdisciplinary scholars, Dr. Lauren Wilcox and Prof. Kathryn Yusoff. Dr. Lauren Wilcox’s keynote entitled “On the map, the territory, and the body” unpacked the “entanglements of ‘the map,’ ‘the territory’ and ‘the body’ in modern international and political thought in order to provide an understanding of their co-constitution”. Prof. Kathryn Yusoff’s address entitled “Geologic Bodies, Planetary States”, argued that Geologic Life substantiates a key “analytic for geography that positions inhuman forces in political terms as preceding biopolitical concepts of life and understanding changes of state as a political domain”.
The day also included eight panel discussions on themes including Embodied Extractivism; Aquatic Bodies; Gender; Body, Space; Mining Bodies; Travelling Bodies; Bodies and Accumulation; Reimagining Territories and Travelling Bodies. The papers presented in these panels concerned varied research interests and geographies, from, “The Science of Mining in the Himalayan Rivers” (Saumya Pandey), to “The Case of Sperm Smuggling in the Occupied West Bank” (Gala Rexer), to “Aquatic territorial bodies as submerged sites of ecological (re)existence and peace” (Beatriz Arnal Calvo), and so many more. Each of the papers presented brought new perspectives to bear on the notion of “territorial bodies” as a framework for deciphering crisis in the twenty-first century.
Outcomes
Our hope is that the conference will lead to an edited collection via the Warwick Series in the Humanities, Routledge. We have already released a call for papers for this collection. The edited collection is tentatively entitled Territorial Bodies: World Culture in Crisis.
We were also fortunate enough to receive additional support from The Centre for Women and Gender; BCLA and GRP (connecting cultures). This funding allowed us not only to deliver the conference but also to provide travel bursaries and fee reimbursement for our speakers.
