Territorial Structure: An Early Marxist Theorisation of Geography

Abstract

Radical geography came only patchily to Nordic geography, and the development of theoretical Marxist geography was even sparser. But in the radical geography environment at Copenhagen University, a group of geographers in the 1970s developed a vocal and self-assured Marxist theory, which became known as the territorial-structure approach and drew its inspiration from the work of the GDR geographer Gerhard Schmidt-Renner. In this chapter we present a critical discussion of the territorial-structure approach as an example of an early theorisation of geography from a Marxist perspective. We discuss the central controversies that came to surround the approach, and we discuss the territorial-structure approach as a conscious effort to resist disciplinary specialisation and fragmentation of (human) geography. Our aim is not to resurrect the territorial-structure approach, but rather to investigate this theory as an important step towards socio-spatial theory in Nordic geography.

Must be Marxist: A Situated History of Danish Radical Geography

“…In just a few years of vigorous struggle, not least by the students, they achieved historic changes in the geography education, and they were instrumental in introducing radically different ways of thinking and doing human geography. Crucially, this involved turns to social theory and entering wider efforts to forge dialectical theories of "social relations and spatial structures" (Gregory and Urry 1985; also Jakobsen et al 2022). In this respect, however, the Danish centre of gravity largely shifted from Copenhagen to Roskilde, and in the further development of Danish socio-spatial theory, Marxism eventually vanished.…”

“…This marked an important step in developing a socio‐spatial approach, but as friendly critics pointed out, the approach did not quite succeed in advancing the theorisation of geography (e.g. Hansen 1979; see also Jakobsen and Larsen 2022).…”