Postal territorial conflicts

Abstract

Territorial conflicts have been the fundamental driving force behind History, with the result that both Geography and History share the same body of knowledge. This paper research addresses, therefore, the time-space dimension which embraces all human existence on the planet. However, in practice, this conflict is directed through Politics, conquering, distributing and organising territorial possessions. At an operative level, the Nation State and Federation State models have been widely adopted, although with differing levels of rigidity and flexibility regarding composition. Nevertheless, these models have not completely displaced the idea of an open State, whose territorial organisation in subject to tensions, territorial aims and armed conflict. From this situation arise border conflicts, disputed territories, areas subject to reclamation, or “the Promised land”, with their attendant regional identities. Just as there is no History without territory, so we could conclude that there are no postal stamps without maps, with the result that these micro-objects can be considered to be a direct reflection of the conflict in question. Between Philately and Politics, therefore, a direct inter-relationship is established, as can be seen in the eight case studies.