Territoire multisitué, complexité territoriale et postmodernité territoriale : des concepts opératoires pour rendre compte des territorialités contemporaines ?

Multi-sited territory, Territorial complexity and Territorial postmodernity: a relevant conceptual toolbox for tackling contemporary territorialities? This paper discusses the relevance of the concept of ‘‘multi-sited territory'', proposed for the specification of spatial entities associating non-contiguous places sharing a coherent territoriality. Such a concept would be in accordance with the relational nature of socio-spatial analysis challenging the “territorial trap'' and its container methodologism resulting from the modern way of designing regions. For this reason, it seems essential for us to address simultaneously the concept of ‘‘territorial postmodernity'' related to the context which makes it possible to conceive the ‘‘multi-sited territory'', and the concept of ‘‘territorial complexity'' pertaining to the simultaneous production of territories with different natures. The analysis of the noticeable South African territorial experiences illustrates with exacerbation each of these concepts and the political contradictions that they express