The territorial turn and the strong and weak uses of the association between territory and public policies

Abstract

One of the main innovations in the landscape of public policies in Brazil and Latin America at the turn of the 21st century was the introduction of the territorial approach into the repertoire of government bureaucracy. This territorial turn was not always accompanied by a reflection on the nature of the territorial processes that should be considered by the investments and incentives practiced by the State. It would not be an exaggeration to say that there was, simultaneously with its dissemination, a certain trivialization in the use of the territorial approach. Often, territories are passively taken, merely as places of policy incidence, as a flat space on which resources are deposited and public or private actions are applied. The objective of this article is to offer a critical reading of the meanings of the association between territory and public policies and to show in what ways it has been experienced. To this end, the first section of the article aims to demonstrate that territory is a synthetic category that has as one of its main assets the ability to address how different dimensions and multiscalar processes are concretized there. The second section is dedicated to highlighting how development theories rescue this synthetic category to suggest the need for territorial policies. Third, finally, the last section outlines a typology of how this translation by the field of public policies has been experienced, with strong and weak uses of the territorial adjective.