What do states have in common with municipalities, the Catholic Church, criminal MC gangs, virtual communities, nomadic peoples, and corporate empires? A degree of autonomy within some form of territory is a common goal for such, in other respects, very different entities. In a globalized world, alternative forms of territories are emerging and gaining in significance, a development largely overlooked by the literature on globalization as well as by traditional state-centric perspectives. Past theory and research pay scant attention to, on the one hand, territories which, in contrast to the nation-state, are geographically disconnected, and on the other, to territories with boundaries that are not distinctive lines but rather diffuse zones. This opens up for analysis of various types of groups and entities which are rarely considered in analyses of political territory - from criminal groups’ attempts to control drug trade in certain, often diffusely delineated and sometimes disconnected areas, to the Catholic Church’s global network of territorially-defined parishes (with the Vatican as a microstate center). The purpose of this project is to contribute with theory and research which investigates alternative territorial forms, and how globalization benefits some types of territories rather than others.