The PhD project Territoriality and Choreography in Site-Situated Performance is conducted through artistic practice and theoretical inquiry. The project performatively activates a series of... Show moreThe PhD project Territoriality and Choreography in Site-Situated Performance is conducted through artistic practice and theoretical inquiry. The project performatively activates a series of residential sites in Canada and the Netherlands. Site-situated performance refers to an artistic process that begins and ends on-site, working within the specific conditions of a location. The key terms territoriality and choreography here represent concepts and practices that express and navigate space-time(s). The project animates qualities of territoriality through a choreographed encounter between host-dancer, guest-audience and site-performance. Written and explored from the perspective of a Canadian settler scholar and artist, the project attunes to the material and discursive agency of the guest, host and site within colonial and settler colonial conditions. The project develops a critical and creative mode of engagement with the social, material and political characteristics of a site and with the world-building potential of performance. Show less
This thesis investigates the extent to which international law provides a normative framework for the management of the Spratly Islands area in the absence of agreed maritime delimitation, with the... Show moreThis thesis investigates the extent to which international law provides a normative framework for the management of the Spratly Islands area in the absence of agreed maritime delimitation, with the aim of maintaining peaceful coexistence of the disputant States and promoting international cooperation. In addition to the introductory and concluding chapters, this thesis consists of two parts: Part I (Coexistence) and Part II (Cooperation). Part I, comprising chapters 2-4, seeks to set out a predictable territorial order and a permissible scope for unilateral behaviours to ensure peaceful coexistence of the disputant States. Part II, including chapters 5-7, outlines international legal frameworks for inter-State cooperation in resource and pollution management concerning the Spratly Islands area. This thesis concludes that the functions of international law in managing this region can be achieved through the interaction between its substantive and procedural elements, despite its limitations resulting from the classic ‘territoriality’ model of jurisdiction. This thesis will hopefully provide a balanced perspective on the roles of international law and advocate a blueprint of cooperation that can be undertaken at a relatively low level of efforts or changes by making use of the existing international instruments or available cooperative mechanisms as much as possible. Show less
New states seldom have new borders. The outcome of international negotiations is typically to maintain existing international borders and to follow administrative borders in demarcating the new... Show moreNew states seldom have new borders. The outcome of international negotiations is typically to maintain existing international borders and to follow administrative borders in demarcating the new international borders in line with the uti possidetis principle. These existing boundaries however prove rather volatile international borders. This begs the question: How are borders drawn? More specifically, how do diplomatic actors manage the implications of changes in state sovereignty for international borders? This study builds an analysis on a genealogy and sociological analysis of international negotiations concerning the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1995. It shows that practices are socially constructed on the basis of shared opinions and largely unquestioned beliefs that are instilled in (groups of ) negotiators who gain influence in the practice of boundary politics. While professionals in diplomacy tend to act on the basis of a fear of disturbance of international order by nationalism and state dissolution, public and military influences in diplomacy regularly introduce practices to prevent outbreaks of crises between entitled or antagonistic communities. Boundary maintenance is the response to the fear of professionals in diplomacy. This fear has prevailed in boundary politics since conflict broke out after the territorial division of India in the 1950s. Show less
Discussions about colonial chieftaincy in Africa have tended to focus upon the ways in which indirect rule structured and framed traditional authority; for the majority of contemporary historians... Show moreDiscussions about colonial chieftaincy in Africa have tended to focus upon the ways in which indirect rule structured and framed traditional authority; for the majority of contemporary historians of British colonialism the question has been to what extent Lord Lugard’s blueprint for effective native administration, The Dual Mandate, invented, shaped, and restructured political and social identity. Whilst acknowledging the importance of these neo-traditional perspectives which focus much on the ways in which colonial frameworks ethnicised and tribalised African society, this thesis argues that indirect rule was as much a spatialising process as it was a tribalising one. Colonial tools of territoriality mapped politics in geographically bounded ways and as a result associating power with place began to assume new importance in the ways African leadership was defined, and given authority. By further exploring the spatial context of traditional power in colonial Malawi through the example of a Tumbuka chief named Timothy Chawinga, this thesis reveals new conclusions about the nature of chieftainship in Northern Malawi. It also provokes new questions about how we understand the role of African traditional authorities more generally, in both the past and the present. Show less
This dissertation is focused on the analysis of article 12(2)(a) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. It explores the possibility of application by the Court of subjective and... Show moreThis dissertation is focused on the analysis of article 12(2)(a) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. It explores the possibility of application by the Court of subjective and objective territoriality, as well as the effects doctrine and ubiquity. It also examines the jurisdiction of the Court under article 12(2)(a) in situations of military occupation. The thesis sets out to explore to what lengths may teleological interpretation expand the territorial jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. In this context, questions such as the proper interpretation of non-intervention and the non-application of the principle of legality in questions of jurisdiction are also tackled. Show less
Is territory still used in the European Union and the Netherlands to organize security, solidarity and democracy? Is the EU evolving towards a state, an empire or another type of political... Show moreIs territory still used in the European Union and the Netherlands to organize security, solidarity and democracy? Is the EU evolving towards a state, an empire or another type of political organization? And how can the changing significance of territory be indicated and explained? – Those are the leading questions of this dissertation. It avoids taking the territorial state and the principle of territoriality for granted in examining the significance of territory. Following Robert Sack, territoriality is defined as the strategy to control people and phenomena by demarcating a geographical area. The more territory impacts on people’s behaviour and ideas, the more certain (unintended) consequences mark the policies, polities, and politics involved. These consequences (geographical fixity, impersonality, geographical inclusion and exclusivity, and centrality) are called the logic of political territoriality. The state is the political organization marked most by the logic of territoriality in contrast to networks or empires. The work by Stein Rokkan and Stefano Bartolini on the evolution of national states and the European Union respectively offers the explanatory framework for explaining changing political territoriality. The organisation of security and healthcare in the Netherlands show how gradually territory obtained greater significance particularly in the 19th and 20th century. European integration has challenged the significance of national territories among other things by the free movement of persons, goods, capital and services, and has weakened the logic of territoriality at state level. Partial exits from national territories by dissatisfied mobile citizens-consumers and border regions have been indicated. Meanwhile, the continuous uncertainty of the EU’s boundaries largely due to enlargement keeps the logic of territoriality at bay at European level. The expansive, value-based and multi-level organisation of the EU reflects its imperial nature. Show less
The great Lakes of East Africa are inhabited by a great number of haplochromine cichlid species, which form a diverse group in both ecology and nuptial coloration. The large number of sympatrically... Show moreThe great Lakes of East Africa are inhabited by a great number of haplochromine cichlid species, which form a diverse group in both ecology and nuptial coloration. The large number of sympatrically occuriring closely related species has raised questions about the underlying mechanism for reproductive isolation. In this thesis I describe experiments that test for the effects of early experience on their species assortative behaviour in the contexts of mate choice and male territorial interactions. The maternal care in haplochromine cichlids provides the opportunity for early learning, but do the young cichlids take this opportunity to learn:? And, if so, can this promote reproductive isolation under sympatric conditions? With cross-fostering experiments, I found that young female cichlid fish are affected by experiences with their mothers__ phenotype in their later mate preferences. Maternal imprinting proved to be a mechanism favourable for sympatric speciation in a mathematical comparison of female preference development. This indicates that the propensity that the Lake Victoria cichlid fish appear to have for assortative mating may be fuelled by learning. The behaviour of the males, in contrast, was not affected by learning about their mothers__ phenotype, but male-male interactions were influenced by experiences with siblings. Show less
