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Terra Nullius : a space in which all are equal, a space that belongs to nobody

- Bedhesi, Kshir

Authors: Bedhesi, Kshir
Date: 2018
Subjects: Space (Architecture) , Free trade , Land tenure - Political aspects , Architecture - Réunion
Language: English
Type: Masters (Thesis)
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/293226 , uj:31879
Description: M.Tech. (Architecture) , Abstract: In Latin, the term terra nullius means ‘land belonging to nobody, a term that, in itself, is derived from Roman law, where res nullius means ‘nobody’s property.’ It is at once a legal term and a legal fiction (i.e. something which may not be true but is assumed to be so in order to facilitate legal findings). In the colonial or imperial context, terra nullius is an important concept since it sets up the expectation that ‘empty land’ is both appropriate and legally justifiably ready for appropriation or conquest. In this framework, ‘discovered’ lands (generally by European explorers) were, or are, ‘empty’. Réunion Island, an ‘overseas’ department (region) of France, is an island of contradictions. It lays waste to the notion or idea of a national singular identity. Ethnic groups on the island include people of African, Indian, European, Malagasy, and Chinese origin. There are no indigenous people, since the island was originally uninhabited. All Réunionese, therefore, come from ‘somewhere else’. Since France does not include questions of ethnicity or race on its national census, it is not possible to determine the exact degree and percentage of créolisation on the island, although it is estimated that créoles (people of mixed racial and ethnic ancestry) make up approximately 60% of the population. My Major Design Project will attempt to explore the idea of a terra nullius (a land belonging to no one, an empty land) through the design of a ‘free trade’ zone, also known as a hetrarchy, a space in which all elements share the same horizontal positions of power and authority. Drawing on Eyal Weizman’s reading of ‘smooth space’, a space in which borders have no effect (Weizman 2007), the Free Trade Ministry will attempt to explore questions of identity, belonging, hierarchy and hetrarchy, institutionalised power and anarchy in spatial and material terms. According to Lebbeus Woods, whilst a ‘smooth space’ may be referred to as a ‘zone of crisis’, it is also true that ‘zones of crises are the only places where actualities of the dominant culture are confronted, and from which new ideas essential to the growth of new culture, can emerge.’ (Woods 1997:14). The project is located along a 3.2km stretch of the island’s outermost edge, beginning with the existing Port Authority and ‘spilling out’ into both the sea and the public land surrounding it. It will take the form of both a landscape and a formal building, although split into several discrete elements or interventions. Following Woods, the Free Trade Zone is intentionally uncomfortable, aimed at disrupting our comfortable, bourgeois and essentially Western ideas of space, form, and programme. ‘You can’t bring your old habits here. If you want to participate, you will have to reinvent yourself.’ (qtd in Ouroussoff, Nicolai. New York Times, August 2th, 2008). Using terms such as ‘guise’, ‘cognitive dissonance’, ‘subversion’ and ‘terra nullius’, the project aims to design the impossible, a place in crisis, a ‘smooth space’ in which all are equal, neutral before the law.
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