1995-10-01a- CIA Conference Report: THE CHALLENGE OF ETHNIC CONFLICT TO NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER IN THE 1990S GEOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVES 01-Oct-95

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perceptual attributes of territory, the ways in which falls within more than one group's sense of territory,
territory acquires significance in human affairs, and the potential for conflict is heightened (see, for
the nature and impact of competing strategies to con- instance, White 1992).
trol territory (Knight 1982). Much of the social sci-
ence and public policy literature on ethnicity fails to It is important to note that not all senses of territory
consider these issues; instead, territories are treated are monoethnic in character. One of the fundamental
simply as fixed units within which political and social flaws of many analyses of pre-civil-war Bosnia is the
developments are situated. This does not mean that failure to recognize the strength of a multiethnic Bos-
territories are entirely ignored. Questions are asked nian sense of territory. The number of people in Bos-
about the role of Quebec in Canadian national politics, nia who were declaring themselves as "Bosnian" on
the political tactics of the Armenian minority living census and survey forms grew steadily in the post-
within Azerbaijan, the social consequences of ethnic World War II era, and many inhabitants came to think
heterogeneity within the states of India, and the prob- of the country as a territorial synthesis of cultures. The
lems that interstate resource inequalities pose for recent partition plans developed for Bosnia fail to
political stability in Nigeria. These questions tend to grasp this reality. Instead they propose dividing the
be addressed, however, without any consideration of country into ethnically discrete units. Since such pro-
the historical development, perceptual attributes, or posals neither can build upon preexisting senses of
spatial configuration of the territorial units involved. territory nor can possibly lead to the establishment of
The importance of such questions becomes immedi- truly monoethnic territories-the groups are too inter-
ately apparent if we pose a series of counterfactual mingled for that to happen-their implementation
questions. Would ethnolinguistic identity and inter- would at best create a highly unstable situation; each
group conflict in Canada be different if Quebec had of the new subdivisions would have an explicitly
developed as three separate provinces instead of one? monoethnic rationale, yet each would be ethnically
Would Armenian-Azerbaijani relations be any differ- heterogeneous and would fall within more than one
ent if Stalin had not created an Armenian enclave group's sense of territory (Jordan 1993).
within Azerbaijan? Would ethnic relations in Nigeria
be different if the state had been divided into 30 The Bosnian example suggests that, when policies are
instead of 19 constituent units? The obvious "yes" that implemented that ignore underlying territorial ideolo-
each of these questions commands indicates the gies, instability is likely to result. The issue of sense of
importance of going beyond approaches that take the territory is thus closely linked to the second core terri-
territorial status quo for granted. torial issue: the development and institutionalization
of particular political-territorial arrangements. Focus-
Two related territorial issues are at the heart of geo- ing on the process by which formal territories come
graphical work on ethnic conflict: (1) the nature and into being is important because it can provide insights
scope of ethnic senses of territory and (2) the develop- into how territorial arrangements shape ethnic identity
ment and institutionalization of particular political- and interaction, how conflicts develop and are sus-
territorial arrangements. Turning to the first issue, the tained, and how territory is used to advance particular
habit of taking territorial arrangements for granted political ends (see generally Sack 1986).
means that we often do not consider the disjunction
between territorial structures and group sense of terri- Many groups sharing basic cultural traits did not
tory. Yet a map showing group sense of territory can become self-conscious ethnic groups until fairly
tell us much more about the likelihood of conflict than recently. Some 200 years ago there was no widespread
can a static political map. It is, of course, difficult to sense of Palestinian, Kurdish, or Flemish identity.
delimit a group's sense of territory with any precision, Those identities were forged in the context of politi-
1 but insights can be gained through an examination of cal-territorial developments that served to differentiate
' historical political patterns, group rhetoric and ico- peoples based on cultural characteristics. In the case
.nography, population concentrations, and the distribu-
tion of sites with particular ethnocultural significance
(see Gottmann 1973). When the same area clearly
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