The search for a counterspace: Towards alternative territorialities or cooptation by dominant power?

Abstract

In the 1970s, the urban sociologist Henri Lefebvre elaborated his vision of a politics of space. For him, space was both the source and the objective of political conflict. In this sense, the multiple resistances against the global neoliberal order today can be considered as struggles over space, or, in Lefebvre’s words, as a “search for a counterspace”.

In this article I will explore some of the territorial implications of such a search, in particular with regard to political mobilizations in Latin America. I will briefly examine the case of the Colombian guerrilla FARC, to then focus on the experience of black population groups in Colombia. The latter have achieved collective land titles in the Colombian Pacific coast region and have become consolidated as legal authorities over those lands within the national territory of the State. However, as I am also going to show, both territorial logics (the black one and the one of the State) articulate themselves at times in a complementary, and at other times in a conflictive way. Up to what point can we talk of a counterspace then, if it gets mediated by the State and dominant power? Is it possible for counterspaces to become part of the national territory? Can we even say that those counterspaces augment the legitimacy of the contemporary State? These questions are analyzed from the viewpoint of political geography and critical geopolitics.