Etymology
The phrase may have originated as a reference to the game of American football where two teams confront each other on a field of grass or turf.(Can this(+) etymology be sourced?)
Noun
turf war (plural turf wars)
- A dispute over territory between rival gangs.
- (idiomatic) A fight or confrontation between two divisions or parties for access to resources or capital.
2014 July 18, Thomas Christie, Notional Identities: Ideology, Genre and National Identity in Popular Scottish Fiction Since the Seventies, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, →ISBN, page 202:It's a fascinating distinction, and one that also has the neat effect of moving the debate on from the contentious territory of the SF/litfic turfwar into that of value-neutral literary theory.