Space Invaders — Territories and Personal Spacecalled cities and towns, within which are suburbs, containing
many streets that, in themselves, represent a closed territory to
those who live there. In the cinema it's an armrest where we do
silent battle with strangers who try to claim it. The inhabitants
of each territory share an intangible allegiance to it and have
been known to turn to savagery and killing in order to protect
it.
A territory is also an area or space around a person that he
claims as his own, as if it were an extension of his body. Each
person has his own personal territory, which includes the area
that exists around his possessions, such as his home, which is
bounded by fences, the inside of his motor vehicle, his own
bedroom or personal chair and, as Dr Hall discovered, a
defined air space around his body.
This chapter will deal mainly with the implications of this
air space, how people react when it is invaded and the impor-
tance of sometimes keeping an 'arms-length' relationship.Personal Space
Most animals have a certain air space around their bodies that
they claim as their personal space. How far the space extends
depends mainly on how crowded the conditions were in which
the animal was raised and the local population density. So per-
sonal territory can expand or contract depending on the local
circumstances. A lion raised in the remote regions of Africa
may have a territorial space with a radius of 30 miles (50 kilo-
metres) or more, depending on the density of the lion
population in that area, and it marks its territory by urinating
or defecating around the boundaries. On the other hand, a
lion raised in captivity with other lions may have a personal
space of only several yards (metres), the direct result of
crowded conditions.
Like most animals, each human has his own personal
Portable 'air bubble', which he carries around with him; its
size is dependent on the density of the population in the place