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The objective of this article is to critically discuss the issue of territorial planning, usually understood as an instrument of public policy aimed at solving territorial problems and conflicts and at defining a desirable territorial model. The discussion is based on an understanding of planning as an intrinsic dimension of the production of space, which regulates appropriation and use according to a certain, always disputed order. The article analyzes two empirical situations in the province of Misiones (Argentina), which the State usually conceives as "territorial planning problems": the production of living spaces in situation of informal land ownership and the tensions between the conservation of nature and productive activities. The research is grounded in the systematization of primary information (deriving from interviews with members of public, private, and social organizations) and secondary sources (specialized bibliography and institutional documents), gathered during fieldwork. The paper shows different practices and meanings of order through which planning is displayed, in both State policies (housing, zoning, environmental education, productive reconversion, among others) and the local population, in a complex, inseparable relation of order/disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]