Gaia and the repositioning of the state territoriality: A dialogue with critical geopolitical ecology

Where is the state territoriality?

Recent scholarships concerning the reconceptualization of territory, such as Elden's (2010) political technology, Haesbaert's (2013) multiple territorialities, Usher's (2020) more-than-human territories, Schwarz and Steule's (2024) territorial subjectivities, to name but a few, have urged us either to reconsider or to look beyond the state-centered perspective of territory and territoriality. Gonin et al.'s (2025) terrestrial territory follows up and pushes further to put the idea of Gaia into account. They argue, ‘the territorial actors considered up to now, ranging from States to non-human actors, do play a central role in politics, but the recognition of the Earth system as an additional territorial actor profoundly alters territorial dynamics’ (Gonin et al., 2025). In other words, the power of the state, instead of playing the very pivotal role in the process of territorialization, is redefined as ‘a terrestrial agent among others’, including human and nonhuman actors.

Echoing with Latour's later works regarding the planetary crisis of ecology, such as climate change and the loss of biodiversity, Gonin et al. (2025) suggest, ‘one can only weave one's existence by inscribing oneself in the biogeochemical cycles of the Earth that makes the notion of territory a necessary descriptive tool for living beings’. While agreeing with that the state has been woven into the human and nonhuman entanglement of terrestrial territory, I also proceed with this argument with caution. Indeed, as the authors say, the concept of terrestrial territory does not intend to shy away from the power of the state, but should be a ‘supplementary analytical tool’ to address the relationship between state territories with Gaia politics. Yes, but how? In other words, another question raised here is how to reposition the state territoriality into the woven entanglement of terrestrial territory of Gaia. This question, in fact, also raises both theoretical and methodological challenges in terms of how to address the role of the state in the concept of terrestrial territory.

Critical geopolitical ecology as an approach

I therefore argue that recent discussions of critical geopolitical ecology provide both a theoretical framework and a methodological approach to the dialogue between state territoriality and the Gaia politics. As Graddy-Lovelace and Ranganathan (2024: 1) say, ‘Geopolitical ecology reveals the ecological formations driving state-led territorial and economic expansion via militarized security, corporate-led resource extraction, and the conquest of land’. Following this definition, I argue that critical geopolitical ecology reminds us that the ongoing geopolitical crises, such as the military conflicts between Israel and Palestine, the tension between Taiwan and China, the war between Ukraine and Russia, are not only territorial conflicts between different states, but also simultaneously environmental crises. Simply put, numerous elements of these geopolitical conflicts are fundamentally related to the environment (Bigger and Niemark, 2017; Hoffman, 2018; Rodenbiker, 2023; Surprise, 2020). This includes the seizure of land and water, the use of starvation and dehydration as weapons, and the violence associated with the construction of surveillance and restrictive infrastructure to control both people's lives and ecological functions.

Critical geopolitical ecology, combining critical geopolitics and political ecology, becomes the entry point for rethinking the power of the state within the framework of terrestrial territory. That being said, the state, as ‘a terrestrial agent among others’, has forged the emerging geopolitical alliances, resulting in the formation of mega-states collaborating with corporate behemoths (Graddy-Lovelace and Ranganathan, 2024). Collectively, these partnerships encompass the impacts at the intersections between land, water, air, the diversity of ecosystems, farming methods, agricultural transformation, energy systems, food traditions, and many other aspects of the Earth system, or Gaia. As such, critical geopolitical ecology intersects with the thoughts of terrestrial territories, emphasizing that ‘Gaia prompts us to rethink the partitioning as well ultimately the sharing of the Earth: although its parts are interconnected, conflicts exist amongst them’ (Gonin et al., 2025). Nevertheless, I argue that critical geopolitical ecology has a clearer picture regarding the role of the state, both with the concerns of the overall ecology of the Earth and without falling into the trap of the state-centered perspective of territory.

Next, I will proceed with a succinct discussion concerning critical geopolitical ecology of the state territoriality and its possible dialogue with the terrestrial territory. Specifically, I highlight the intersection of terrestrial territories and critical geopolitical ecology with three key terms, partition, share, and multiple materialities, to reposition the state territoriality in the Gaia politics.

Partition, share, and multiple materialities of the Earth

The idea of terrestrial territories, as mentioned, regards the state as ‘a terrestrial agent among others’. With that, it further proposes the new territorial question as ‘the identification of our share of the Earth in the face of other competing uses’ (Gonin et al., 2025). Competing uses here result in partitioning, or territorializing, the Earth with conflicts. As a result, the concept of territorial territories highlights two seemingly oppositional but intertwined dimensions: partition and share. Critical geopolitical ecology provides an approach to the reconsideration and rearticulation of both partition and share. First of all, for partition, the goal of critical geopolitical ecology has functioned as a contrasting narrative to outdated conceptualizations of geographies that categorize the world into partitions of ‘developed’ and ‘developing’, ‘First’ and ‘Third’, and the lately resurfaced ‘West vs Rest’ (Graddy-Lovelace and Ranganathan, 2024). Moreover, critical geopolitical ecology has also emphasized the sharing of environmental effects that come with the geopolitical violence of territorialization for the state space. In other words, critical geopolitical ecology stresses the state territoriality of the problematic Westphalian ideology of sovereignty with the emphasis on the shared result of exploitation of the Earth.

Partition, nowadays in reality, for the state has still been the pivotal action for territorializing the environment into its sovereign right. However, different from traditional geopolitical thinking, critical geopolitical ecology simultaneously focuses on the materiality of the ecology, in particular the nonstate and nonhuman elements. In accordance, the materiality of the ecology, or the Earth, has been another agent in altering the forms and practices of state territoriality. For that, the literature of critical geopolitical ecology has offered a valuable approach to challenging the static and often abstract understanding of territory that originates from the Westphalian notions of state sovereignty. This approach emphasizes the importance of ecological materiality in understanding the territorial dynamics of partitioning. Nevertheless, there has been limited focus on the ways in which state territorial boundaries are altered by various ecological forms of the Earth, as in the political dynamics of Gaia.

Considering the previous discussions, I would like to propose the inclusion of multiple materialities (Hung and Lien, 2022) to add complexity to the overall concept of ecological materiality in critical geopolitical ecology. By multiple materialities, I aim to reveal the nuances of different physical and ecological agents. That is, the materiality of land is different from the ocean, and plants are different from animals. Scholarships of critical geopolitical ecology have attempted to rethink how state power operates over the evolving Earth by examining the connection between various ecological elements and state territorialization. This involves avoiding rigid territorial perspectives and instead exploring unique practices of state power. An area of particular emphasis in this body of literature, for example, has been the Arctic region. Dodds and Benwell (2010) have utilized the concept of ‘resource-led nationalism’ to examine how various Arctic governments have demonstrated their sovereignties through actions such as planting flags and creating maps (see also Bridge, 2014; Drewniak et al., 2018). Despite asserting their sovereignty, the Arctic has become a place for states that is influenced by environmental uncertainties, particularly global warming. Consequently, the Arctic has not experienced strict state territorialization and well-defined and bounded regions. Instead, it has transformed into an ambiguous area of government control (Dittmer et al., 2011), which may undergo significant alterations as a result of the melting ice caused by climate change, acting as a manifestation of Gaia.

This approach of multiple materialities also acknowledges the significance of the physical existence of various nonhuman entities. The presence of many materialities necessitates the state to adopt several strategies for territorial control. The success of these strategies relies on the state's ability to adapt to the distinct material characteristics of different nonhuman entities or partitioned regions of the Earth. Consider marine animals as an example. Despite the prevailing practice of designating marine protection areas to establish territorial boundaries in the ocean, Campbell (2007) argues that migratory species and the conservation efforts aimed at them are also of great interest to political geographers. This is because these species defy spatial limitations and traverse various social and political contexts. Recent research on marine conservation and state territoriality emphasizes the need for scholars to consider how the physical characteristics of the sea and the relationship between ecological conservation and state security contribute to the emergence of a violent maritime environment (Muralidharan and Rai, 2020).

Meanwhile, engaging the multiple materialities to bridge the critical geopolitical ecology and the terrestrial territories also entails a rethinking of methodologies. Particularly, locating the multiple materialities of the Earth should be the method for contextualizing the different practices and scenarios of state territorialities. Critical geopolitical ecology approaches, influenced by Black radical, Indigenous, critical, and feminist international relations, as well as other traditions, necessitate thorough examination of non-English texts, legal and institutional ethnography at various levels, as well as research and fieldwork conducted inside communities (Graddy-Lovelace and Ranganathan, 2024). These methodologies would establish critical geopolitical ecology as an opposing narrative against the universalization of state territoriality under Westphalian ideology, and then contextualize the underlying relationality of multiple human and nonhuman networks behind influential geopolitical discourses. Simultaneously, this methodological approach intersects with terrestrial territories through actions of relocation that re-materializes and re-grounds territory (Gonin et al., 2024).

An alternative territorial subjectivity

Both terrestrial territories and critical geopolitical ecology demonstrate an increasing recognition of how state territories are frequently connected to ecological issues. Nonetheless, although both share the keyword territory, they have different but intersecting focuses. On one hand, the idea of terrestrial territories reminds us of ‘the role of planetary biogeochemical processes and entities such as climate or biodiversity in the making of territories’ (Gonin et al., 2025). On the other hand, critical geopolitical ecologists reveal that the worldwide surge of far-right ideologies indicates a strengthening of national borders to establish territorial control by states, leading to wider disparities in society and increased environmental susceptibilities (Menga, 2022; Ungureanu and Popartan, 2023). Still, I argue, that both terrestrial territories and critical geopolitical ecology do take future territories as ‘ways of sharing Gaia’ (Gonin et al., 2025).

In this final section, I would like to push further to conclude that, to realize ways of sharing Gaia, we do need to pay attention to the possibility of an alternative territorial subjectivity for the future Earth. As Schwarz and Steule (2024) argue, subjects undergo destabilization throughout the process of territorialization, while territories experience destabilization during the process of subject formation. In other words, the relationship between territory and subject is relational. It is a dynamic process of becoming, rather than a fixed identity of being. Accordingly, an alternative territorial subjectivity for sharing Gaia is a subject formation beyond the essentialist and normative values inscribed in many rigid, fixed, and exclusive territorial imaginaries of state sovereignty. Rather, the Earth is evolving with human and nonhuman interactions, and so is the formation of a new territorial subject. Meaning, the formation of a new territorial subject as a way of sharing Gaia should be an open and inclusive process, attending to the diverse co-existence of both humans and nonhumans. Emancipatory subjectivities (Schwarz and Steule, 2024) would derive from the exercise of choice, the fostering of solidarity, and active engagement with different people and ecologies, rather than being influenced by ideologies rooted in one's place of birth, bloodline, or other essentialist conceptions of state-centered as well as human-centered territoriality.