GeoSemantics / Repensando el cuerpo-territorio : (re)territorializing the self / Paula Serafini

The relational sensitivity of the Mekeo is one where “bodily experiences are not hidden away … which does not hypostatise ‘the body’. … Where indeed, every body is a composite of different identities; where bodies do not belong to persons but are composed of the relations of which a person is composed.” (Strathern 1989 quoted in Salleh 2017¹)

I feel home when I hear the birds.

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I live in the belly of the beast. Where the headquarters of drilling companies stand tall and proud, sponsoring museums and educational programmes. As if they bore no connection to the lands they extract from.

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I research artistic practices in territories in conflict, where struggles revolve around the valorisation of land and life, and the meaning of those. As a researcher, my approach to the work has been immersed in questions around positionality: originally local/ now foreign; half activist/half academic. The research itself mobilizes the idea of territory and territorialization as developed by Raúl Zibechi, but also that of place found in the work of Arturo Escobar: how are movements organized in relation to the territory?² In what ways do sentipensares of the territory shape the development of those movements? And how are they manifested through artistic expressions? Territoriality has been a useful framework for thinking about ecosystems, life, and the material and the symbolic aspects of the territory. It allows us to understand territory as that which is at stake, but also as the place from which communities and groups envision and organise in resistance.

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What happens when we organize in defence of the territory while away from the territory?

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My reflections emerge from my involvement in the development of a Latinx ecofeminist praxis situated in London (UK); in other words, the creation and sustainment of spaces to collectively explore the links between the oppression and violence against women and marginalized genders and the extractivist economic and social model that drives ecological destruction. I have done this mostly in collective form through a Latin American feminist assembly, but also through actions in other community and activist spaces, through teaching in higher education, and in research, writing and artmaking.

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Understanding our relationship to the places we inhabit and those we come from is necessary to better situate ourselves in relation to them: to be able to understand the challenges we face, collectively and individually, and how we can act in response. One way of doing this is through the mapping of the cuerpo-territorio³, an exercise that can allow us to think about and feel the effects of the place we inhabit on our bodies, and recognise how in our bodies we also carry memories and stories of past territories.

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Developing such a praxis as a migrant brings up questions around positionality and situatedness, primarily: what territories are we speaking to and from? And how do we relate to such territories?

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In the Latinx feminist assembly, what became evident is that we all have different ways of relating to the territory we inhabit (many of us in London, some in other parts of the UK, and some moving in between the UK and their respective homes, sometimes by choice and sometimes not). Some have built their lives here, some have just arrived. Some have found a place for flourishing, and some struggle every day. Struggles are linked to the material realities and forms of exclusion, to the sensorial characteristics of the territory, and to the nature of the social fabric, which often feels alien. Moreover, the particularities of a place like London (harsh weather, long and expensive commutes, intense labour practices and atomised human connections) make the long-term sustainment of meaningful relationships difficult, even within our communities.

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In this diasporic context, and given our positions and different experiences, it makes sense to make our social bonds and our space for collective practice, our territory. Often, our collective feminist practice is the place where we situate ourselves, and also one of the territories where we intervene. When a compañera is in need of support, we support them. When relationships are hard to sustain, we nurture them. When there is no time, we make time. When we feel not seen and not heard, we become loud and visible as one. When we feel homesick, we reach out: we build transnational links, we support our sisters and the movements back home.

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As Verónica Gago argues, the concept of cuerpo-territorio highlights the impossibility of separating the individual from the collective body as well as the body from its territory, and deliberalizes “the notion of body as individual property” to instead focus on our interdependence.⁴ This diasporic territory is not a physical space but a social one. It is movable but it supports us. It provides grounding for our actions.

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The body-territory is reborn in the collective body of the feminist assembly.

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This is part of the cluster GeoSemantics. Read the other posts here. 

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1. Marilyn Strathern, “Between a Melanesianist and a Deconstructive Feminist”, Australian Feminist Studies no. 10 (1989): 58; Ariel Salleh, Ecofeminism as Politics: Nature, Marx and the Postmodern (London: Zed Books, 2017), 84.
2. Raúl Zibechi, Territories in Resistance: A Cartography of Latin American Social Movements. Translated by Ramor Ryan (Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2012).; See for instance Arturo Escobar, Sentipensar con la tierra: Nuevas lecturas sobre desarrollo, territorio y Diferencia (Medellín: Ediciones UNAULA, 2014) and Arturo Escobar, Territories of Difference: Place, Movements, Life, Redes (Durham, NC:Duke University Press, 2008).
3. There are multiple approaches to the mapping of the cuerpo-territorio. See for instance Miradas Críticas del Territorio desde el Feminismo, Mapeando el cuerpo-territorio: Guía metodológica para mujeres que defienden sus territorios (Quito: Miradas Críticas del Territorio desde el Feminismo; Red Universitaria de Mujeres Defensoras de Derechos Sociales y Ambientales; Instituto de Estudios Ecologistas del Tercer Mundo; CLACSO, 2017).
4. Verónica Gago, La Potencia Feminista: O el deseo de cambiarlo todo (Madrid: Traficantes de Sueños, 2019), 97.

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  Paula Serafini

  Paula Serafini is Lecturer in Creative and Cultural Industries at Queen Mary University of London. Her research is situated in the field of cultural politics, and her interests include extractivism, social movements, art activism, performance, cultural labour and policy, and socioecological transitions. In addition to her research, over the last decade she has developed a collaborative practice of pedagogy and organising alongside autonomous collectives in London, where she is currently based. She is author of Performance Action: The Politics of Art Activism (Routledge, 2018) and Creating Worlds Otherwise: Art, Collective Action, and (Post)Extractivism (Vanderbilt University Press, 2022).