Territory, Memory and Archives: Toward a Theory of Implicit Territoriality

Archive studies have traditionally conceptualized archives as documentary repositories and memory institutions, whereas territorial studies have examined territorialities as processes through which social groups produce, signify, and contest space. Although both fields address the social production of meaning, the constitutive relationship through which archives participate in the political–cultural production of territoriality remains insufficiently theorized. This article advances the hypothesis that every archive possesses an Implicit Territoriality as a constitutive property and, by virtue of this condition, contributes to the political–cultural production of territory. To develop this hypothesis, it proposes a theoretical framework in which Implicit Territoriality constitutes the central analytical category. As a constitutive property of every archive, Implicit Territoriality becomes analytically observable through three interdependent constitutive dimensions: the Mode of Differential Documentation (collections), the Territorial System of Site (spatial infrastructures and locations), and the Condensed Informational Potential (contents). The interaction among these dimensions gives rise to the deployment of Implicit Territoriality through two complementary processes—Territorialized Subjectivity and the Regime of Expansibility—which explain how territorial meanings become socially embodied and projected across different spatial and social scales. Its empirical recognition is achieved through a system of Inference Devices, understood as analytical operators that establish the relationship between empirical evidence and its implicit territorial dimension. Together, these components provide an integrated explanatory framework for understanding how archives actively participate in the political–cultural production of territory. Beyond preserving documents, archives implicitly contribute to the production of territories. They organize, stabilize, circulate, legitimize, and project memories and territorial meanings across different social and spatial scales. By conceptualizing Implicit Territoriality as a constitutive property of every archive, this article situates archives within the dynamics of territorialization and provides a coherent framework for analyzing their territorial dimension.