Consciousness as a domain of extraterritoriality

Abstract

ABSTRACT Traditional understandings of extraterritoriality have overlooked human consciousness as an intimate province of territorial governance. Whereas traditional approaches to extraterritoriality often adopt a modernist understanding of territory, this article expands on the concept by referring to extraterritoriality as the process and practice of discovering, reifying and intervening in new domains of territorial governance. Insofar as territorial practices adapt in accordance with emergent knowledges and technologies, the realm of human consciousness appeared as an object of governmental interest during the mid-twentieth century alongside advances in neuroscience and psychopharmacology. Through the subsequent illegalisation of psychedelic plants and fungi, in combination with the hegemonic norms established through disciplinary institutions, the full spectrum of human consciousness has since become territorialised as a new domain of governmental intervention and management. As such, this article argues that the regulation of cognition enforced through drug prohibitions and sanctions enfold human consciousness as an extended domain of extraterritoriality.