Tracing Human Territoriality Essay Example

I visited the city park. I like this place very much. It is especially beautiful during spring and summer periods. That day when I came to the park to make observations and notes the park was crowded because it was a weekend.
On the one hand, I like to walk here, in the park, more during weekdays when there are not so much noise and not so many people. On the other hand, I also enjoy walking in the park during weekends because on Saturday and Sunday you can observe and meet here happy families with cute and funny babies, toddlers and older children, romantic couples in love. Also, on weekends you can see there street dancing, to listen to music of street musicians, and so on.
According to the theory of Altman, the city park I visited is the public territory. Every person can walk here, chose any bench to sit. Children played there with a ball; musicians played the guitar in the park, etc. People who walked on that public territory had their personal things (objects as one more type territory) such as purses, handbags, strollers and baby toys, musical instruments, bicycles, books, etc.
According to the theory of Lyman and Scott, areas rented for ice-cream shops, for baby entertainments (such as carousels trampolines) were interactional territories I saw in the park. Also, every person in the park had her/his body territories. People in the park were dressed differently. And I believe their clothes also were a particular marker of their body-territory.
The most prevalent form of infringements I noticed in the park was an invasion. However, in most cases it was incidental infringement. For example, children who throw a ball to each other several times got into strangers and strangers had to move to another territory, etc.
Also, I saw that other child who played catch-up bumped strangers two times. I considered those actions of children as an invasion because “victims’ of running children should have moved to another place in the park.
I noticed that most of the people in the park behaved in different ways to prevent possible infringements. For example, to prevent a theft (violation) people closely watched their belongings, to prevent invasion people in the park tried to keep an appropriate distance between each other, etc.
Young women who, as I supposed, did not want to attract the attention of males or tried to avoid male strangers flirt with them, actively talked with their friends, talked by phone, and chose a secluded place to read the book and demonstrated that they were busy with different activities.
During my observations, I noticed that several people who sat on benches not far from me marked their territory. For example, one woman put her bag and her coat on the bench to demonstrate that it is her territory. When two other women disregarded these markers and also sat on the same bench, the first woman took her bag and left the bench. She abandoned her space because she was in the public place and she could not claim in that situation that that bench was her bench; she could not defend her territory in that situation.
In other situation, I observed there was the aggressive defense of the territory in the situation of “contamination” infringement. Hare Krishna people sat in the park, played their music and danced. However, there was another group of individuals not far from them. The second group listened to their leader who talked about healthy lifestyle, physical activity, etc. Because of Hare Krishna`s music, it was hard to listen to what the leader of the group spoke and many members of the second group demonstrated irritation.
At some point, one individual of the training group went to Hare Krishna and express his annoyance and anger toward their loud music. As a result, Hare Krishna stopped their singing and playing instruments.
For me, it was very interesting to do this assignment. I walked in that park many times, I have met people there. However, I have never assessed that park and behavior of people in that park from the scientific point of view. It was very curious to recognize in simplest actions such as talking, moving, walking, etc. particular forms of territorial behavior. I observed and analyze not only other people`s but also own territorial behavior.
It was hard for me in some moments to distinguish what actions, behavioral patterns could be referred to territorial behavior, to the marking of own territory, etc. and what actions were not associated with the defense of own territory, etc.
For example, I described a situation with a woman who sat on the bench in the park. It seems to me that she left the bench because she perceived sitting of other women on the same bench as invasion in her territory. However, it is possible that the woman left the bench after coming of other females because she recalled that she must go to another place, she tired of sitting on that bench or decided to walk, etc.
On the other hand, the case with that woman also made me asked the question: why territorial markers of one person work well while territorial markers of another person remain unrecognizable or become disregarded by other people. It is interesting for me to learn, why some people “allow” others to make invasions in their territory, while other individual successfully defend their territory.
Making the assignment I began to understand better and deeper information which I got during the classes. I understood that it is very important to know the psychology of human territoriality and I learned what significant role different types of territories can play in our life.