Land, property, and territory: Mutual embeddedness as understood by the tongbian philosophy

Abstract

Abstract The dominant tone of the literature on land's territorial politics misses conceptual complexities by neglecting historical constructions of land practices. An alternative understanding intertwines social and political elements emphasised in the non‐dualistic, beyond dialectics, tongbian philosophy. This views everything as consisting of two mutually embedded, opposite poles—different yet without alienation; set in a ceaseless interaction as processes of becoming, continuity and change. The concept of focus–field relationship via a spatial story deciphers complexities between viewing land as territory (LaT) and land as property (LaP). Mobilising this formulation in sites of intensive real estate change (Hong Kong's Sham Shui Po and Mumbai's Malad) reveals subtleties of historical antecedents shaping contemporary forces. Here, complex institutional entanglements reveal both diachronic and synchronic interactions wherein the dynamics of control, shifts in power, growth or decline in time and space co‐join LaT and LaP. Such political complexities question views of land's transformation being contingent on archaic ideas of the Westphalian state and uni‐polar framings of capital moving from the North to the South. The tongbian philosophy allows the exploring of ideas of difference without alienation, embracing epistemic and ontological equivalence in theory and fieldwork, and between the North and South—themes seldom taken up in the geographical literature. Finally, the paper proposes a study of land dynamics using the concept of land occupancy via the spatial story approach.