At its simplest, deterritorialization may mean the take-over of an area or place (territory) that is already established. G. Deleuze and F. Guattari (1972) use the term to represent the freeing of labour-power from specific means of production, as when the English Enclosure Acts (1709–1869) enclosed previously common land for private landlords. As such, deterritorialization is the severance of social, political, or cultural practices from their native places and populations. Connell (2004) PHG, 28, 3, 342 uses this concept of separation to describe world music as a deterritorialization of place and identity, undoing what has already been done. From this, we can see the decline in the role of the state as deterritorialization; ‘certain transnational corporations have more financial power, within a state, than the state itself’ (Kapferer (2005) Anthrop. Theory 5, 3). ‘The nation-state may be in decline but it is giving way to a relatively original state order or political/economic formation with multiple state-like effects that is able to act in ways systemic with deterritorializing global processes’ (Hudson (2002) PHG 26, 3). Globalization has been explicitly seen as deterritorialization by J. A. Scholte (2000), but Eldon (2005, TIBG 30, 1) is reluctant to accept Scholte’s straightforward understanding of territory: ‘work proposing an idea of deterritorialization requires an explicit theorization of what territory is’. Akinwumi (2006) Pol. Geog. 25, 7 seems to see the euro as a deterritorialization strategy. For tax havens, ‘the legal advantages of non-sovereignty are significant’ (R. T. Naylor 2002).

Deterritorialization makes it increasingly difficult to maintain a convincing nationalistic discourse that involves ‘cultural purity’ (Gjerde and Onishi (2000) Hum. Dev. 43). Connell and Gibson (2004) PHG 28, 3 claim that the expansion of world music exemplifies the deterritorialization of cultures.