Being in Flesh: The Body Lived as Territory

Abstract

The main thesis of this paper is that the body becomes a territory through effort. Effort establishes the initial and fundamental measurement of the body. Understanding territoriality as a process of effortful appropriation of the body in its vitality, implies a reevaluation of living materiality and the role that impulsivity plays in relation to effort. I develop this argument in three key sections. First, I discuss the constitution of the body as a living entity, focusing on the concept of environment inherent in the body’s living materiality and its connection to impulse. In the second part, I explore how impulse is anchored to the basic realm of the body’s organic urgencies, such as thirst, hunger, urination, evacuation, tiredness, etc. This level is where effort asserts itself as a measurement and active appropriation, leading to the territorialization of the flesh, which can be understood as a moment of the environment. In the third and final section, I describe territoriality as an effortful action of appropriating the body through self-control as continence.