Teoria del muro. L'articolazione materiale del potere

In this paper the author analyzes the issue of the statal wall through an interdisciplinary perspective which connects ontology, philosophy of technology and political philosophy. The main argument of the paper is that there is an ontological difference between a statal wall and the border on which it is inscribed. After a brief discussion of some well-known ontological theories, the author argues that a wall is not a social object, but rather an artifact. More specifically, a wall is a political artifact, because it is an instrument that materially inscribes on the space a complex relation of power. In order to conceptualize an emerging global political rationality, a new term has been coined by french scholars Florine Ballif and Stéphane Rosière: teichopolitics. The term comes from the ancient greek teichos, which literally means “the wall of the city”. Therefore, teichopolitics is the politics of building walls, most of the time for security purposes. The paper deals with some aspects of contemporary teichopolitics from a philosophical point view. In the first part of the paper, the author criticizes the postmodern idea of a virtual and fluid global space, and the connected idea of an historical and political consummation of modern categories (e.g. State, territory, sovereignty); in the second part, he analyzes thoroughly the ontological difference between wall and border and some phenomenological aspects related; in the third part, he shows how and why a wall studied as an apparatus (dispositif) implies the acknowledgement of different forms of power (e.g. sovereign, disciplinary, governamental); in the last part, he argues that the issue of statal walls should be analysed through what he calls a political ontology of the artifacts.