When space becomes language: Territories, nation and identities in the social sciences

Abstract

With this issue, the editors proposed a double objective: on the one hand, we were very interested in showing the connections between the social sciences, communication and language studies; on the other, to analyze in some detail a constellation of common concepts related to the spatial issue and the formation of identities around the concept of nation.

The social sciences have been struggling in recent times to show how the territory and, more generally, the space itself is not something given once and for all, nor something that functions as a mere container or receptacle of social life, but rather which are an active and shaping part of this. To reach this point it has been necessary to go a long way in theoretical reflection. In the first place, it was necessary to denaturalize strongly entrenched categories in the socio-political imaginary, such as territory, border, place and, even, the idea of ​​the body (the border of the self). In the second place, it has been necessary to avoid very hasty conclusions such as the one that proclaims the death of space in favor of processes of economic and cultural globalization on the planet, which would erase all distinctions and particularities.