Spatial Imaginations of "Turkey" and "Europe": An Introduction.

• Author: Diez, Thomas

Spatial Imaginations

International relations are always also spatial relations. (1) Territory is an organisational feature of international society in the sense that it is one of the constitutive elements of states. John Ruggie, in his reflections on "territoriality and beyond", thus defined modern states as "territorially defined, fixed, and mutually exclusive enclaves of legitimate dominion". (2) Thus, space figures in international relations in the form of borders and border controls, geopolitical ambitions and strategy, territorial sovereignty and contestation, or disputes over continental shelves and Exclusive Economic Zones. Yet such territoriality is only one dimension of space that is relevant to international relations. Territorial space is replicated and simulated in different locations and through different practices: in ghettoised city quarters, in the extraterritoriality of embassies, through flagpoles in front of public and private buildings, through cordoning off military compounds, and in the demarcations of sandcastles and playgrounds. Nor is state territory where it is supposed to be. Borders have been extended through immigration control measures in faraway countries or behind state boundaries (3), the use of currencies such as the Euro in countries that are not in the Eurozone, (4) or transborder visa or trading schemes. (5)

In all of these contexts, it is not only the physical space, the place and location of an activity, that matters. It is the meaning that we give to these locations, it is how we turn such places into meaningful spaces for societies and politics. Space in this understanding is the socially constructed sphere that establishes identities and contains the everyday practices of conflict actors. (6) Space is often linked to geographical places, but those places only become meaningful through their construction as spaces in particular narratives and associated practices. (7) I suggest we treat these processes of space-making as instances of spatial imaginations. Such spatial imaginations construct images of ourselves and others. They involve stories of distance and proximity, of identity and difference, of hostility and friendship, of common heritage and hereditary rivalry. They are carried forward in newspaper reports and political speeches as much as in paintings, novels, movies, or advertisements. (8)

The relationship between Turkey and Europe is full of such spatial imaginations. Think of geographical placements of Turkey as part of Europe or Asia (minor), (9) the orientalist depictions of the harem (constructions of both a specific place and larger cultural spaces), (10) the contestations of historical places such as Hagia Sophia, (11) the settlement patterns, transnational identities and spatial practices of migrants and local administrations, (12) the different spatial experiences of tourists, (13) or the use of Turkish and EU flags staking out particular spatial claims of belonging. (14) The underpinning argument of this special issue is that the way we engage with each other, in which societal actors encounter each other, and in which politicians bargain and deliberate with each other, is heavily influenced by these spatial imaginations. At the same time, such practices reproduce yet also have the potential to alter our imaginations, if only incrementally.

The aim of this special issue thus is to investigate some of the spatial imaginations that inform and underpin the encounters between "Turkey" and "Europe", to show how these entities are imbued with meaning through such imaginations, and to demonstrate how the encounters reproduce and transform the imaginations of "Turkey" and "Europe". The contributions thus take part in a broader critical exercise of questioning the ontological standing of "Turkey" and "Europe" as given and showing how they come into being through discourses of space-making. They problematise the inherent representations of the respective Other as dangerous or desirable--or, in Orientalism, as a mixture of fear and longing, domination and freedom. (15) They critically analyse the effects of prevailing spatial imaginations in terms of societal marginalisation and exclusion, restriction of freedom, and practices of suppression and supremacy.

Spatial Turn(s)

This special issue builds on arguments associated with what is often labelled the "spatial turn" in International Relations (IR) and the social sciences more broadly. (16) Leaving aside the question of whether the many "turns" that we have seen in the past decades really relate to profound changes in the discipline, the authors that have contributed to the relevant literature have broadly made three arguments: that spaces matter; that territorial places must be turned into social spaces in order to be meaningful (space-making); and that space, while often related to territory, is not bound to particular territories but may be constructed in the interlinkages between actors (human or otherwise) across territorial confines (space formation). I will take these arguments in turn.

Spaces matter

It may seem odd, but a lot of the IR literature does not actually take space very seriously. While states are often recognised as core actors, their spatiality is reduced to questions of border infringement in the realist conceptualisation of the security dilemma and the ever-looming threat of war. Different generations of liberalism have been built on the normative aim to overcome the territoriality of the nation state through empowering civil society or functionalism but have disregarded new forms of spatiality that may arise in the process. Alternatively, under the impression of globalisation and interdependence, they have focused on the functional linkages and painted a picture of the world in which the categories of territory and space do not matter much anymore. Even social constructivists have often emphasised the importance and relevance of norms and institutions while being less concerned about the relevance and impact of space(s). For example, their treatment of identity has not always considered the spatiality of identity as an important aspect and instead focused on the malleability of identity (17) or treated it as an explanatory variable for foreign and security policies. (18)

In contrast, literature associated with the spatial turn stresses the importance of space as a social category. (19) This literature points to the centrality of space for the self-understanding of societies and their engagement with each other. They highlight processes of inclusion and exclusion associated with space and demonstrate how such spaces are demarcated through the construction of material and immaterial boundaries. They demonstrate how spaces empower some actors and weaken others. Such work is not confined to the study of international relations but has illuminated practices of identity and politics across different scales, including cities, regions, states, and transnational formations.

Space-making

To the extent that space has played a role in traditional accounts of international relations, it has largely been treated as the objective existence of bounded territory. (20) Such territory has been construed as the foundation of claims to power in geopolitics, or as a variable to explain rivalry, which has thus been essentialised and considered "natural". (21) Claims to some Eurasian "heartland", (22) references to natural boundaries of states (23) such as rivers or even of continents (the Urals (24), the Bosporus (25)), the supposed necessity of states to have access to open seas, (26) the right of great powers to maintain spheres of influence, (27) or, as discussed in the contribution of Suleymanoglu-Kurum and Genckal-Eroler to this issue, (28) depictions of Turkey as either a bridge or a "central country" - all of these do make spatial claims but treat space as an objective territorial category.

The literature associated with the spatial turn recognises the significance of space in its materiality, but at the same time sees this materiality as co-constructed through social and discursive practices that provide territory with meaning and thus turn "places" into social "spaces". (29) It is this transformation of places into spaces that makes them relevant to societies. A river is not meaningful in and of itself. While it does pose an obstacle to movement, it does not as such demarcate a society, a state, or a continent. What turns city quarters into ghettos (and how we understand ghettos) is not an imminent feature of their geography but a social and discursive construction. (30) As Hoffmann reminds us in his contribution, historical narratives are crucial in the construction of space, as history is told through references to concrete places that then acquire a specific place in collective memories...