Diaspora, Law and Literature Law & Literature

Home , Diaspora (novel), Hackett (surname), Herodotus (physician), Indigenism, Lemberg (horse), Miscegenation

Edited by Daniela Carpi and Klaus Stierstorfer Volume 12 Diaspora, Law and Literature

Edited by Daniela Carpi and Klaus Stierstorfer An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libra- ries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high quality books Open Access. More information about the initiative can be found at www.knowledgeunlatched.org

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License, as of February 23, 2017. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

ISBN 978-3-11-048541-7 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-048925-5 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-048821-0 ISSN 2191-8457

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.

DanielaCarpi Foreword VII

Klaus Stierstorfer Introduction: Exploringthe InterfaceofDiaspora, Law and Literature 1

Pier Giuseppe Monateri Diaspora, the West and the Law The Birth of Christian Literaturethrough the LettersofPaul as the End of Diaspora 7

Riccardo Baldissone Towards aGrammar of the Multiverse AGenealogical Reconsideration of Humans, Places and Diasporas 23

Jeanne Gaakeer Close Encountersofthe ‘Third’ Kind 41

Paola Carbone Fair Hearing and Fair Play in Multicultural Societies Diasporic Narrations from the Commonwealth 69

Peter Schneck Critical Subjects of Belonging Diaspora, Indigenism and Human Rights 89

Florian Kläger Theorizing Reflexivity in Literature, Law and Diaspora 113

Emma Patchett Overlapping Sovereignties Legal DiasporaStudies and the LiteraryText 135

Fabian Wittreck The Old ArmenianLawcode of Lemberg The Law of DiasporaCommunities as Literature? 155 VI TableofContents

Melanie Williams The Diaspora of the ImaginaryinPoliticsand Poetics “Let the Godnot abandon us”–The PoetryofDerek Mahon 171

DanielaCarpi Cultural Mobility and Diaspora: The Case of Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock 187

Franziska Quabeck Cultural Rights and the PoliticsofRecognition in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go 205

Sidia Fiorato Diasporic Fragments Coalescing: Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’sGhost 223

Nilufer E. Bharucha The Indian Diasporaand Laws Reflections in Literature and Cinemafrom the Jahajis to the Transnationals 247

Avtar Brah ArticulationsAcross Diaspora, Law and Literature 273

Janet Wilson Queer Diasporas? LiteraryDiaspora Studiesand the Law 293

Chiara Battisti Unaccustomed Earth: Diasporaonthe Developing Reel 307

Leif Dahlberg Melancholic Face-Off: CarylPhillips’ Elegyover David Oluwale 327

Contributors 349

Index of names 355 Daniela Carpi Foreword

Diasporastudies afford acritical perspective on the very visiblethematic field of culturalmigrancy and on debates about transnationalism and postcoloniality – debates which find aresonanceinthe resurgent multi-culturaldebates.¹ Although the term diasporaoften refers to acatastrophic dispersion, we must now extend the strict literal meaning of diasporatoinclude trade, labour, and culturaldiasporas. In fact the discourse on diasporaisintertwined with issues concerning multiculturalism,neocolonialism, and transnationalism under the large umbrella termofCultural Studies. Multiculturalism,inparticular, means at the sametime variety and cohesion; it implies deracination from one’shomeland and re-contextualizationwithin anew environment,while keeping one’soriginal culturalroots.How to combine the right to keep one’sculture with the necessity of adaptingoneself to new surroundings?Inthis sense the term diasporacan alsobeused as ametaphor: aperson mayfit into anew country while keeping adiasporic consciousness.Inother words diasporacan mean geographic displacement,while at the same time entailing adiasporic sensibility that cannot be suppressed. All this is further complicated by aworld economy which is getting more and more transnational. To some extent global economyhas supersededthe concept of diaspora, because everybodyispart of awidespread economic system that supplants barriers and privateinterests. In other words the idea of diasporamay slowlyfade away and become onlyaquestion of culturalmemory.But the issue of identity construction within cultural differencesstill remains.AsRobinCohen points out:

In the postmodern world […]identities have become de-territorialized and constructed and deconstructed in aflexible and situational way; accordingly,concepts of diaspora had to be radicallyre-ordered in response to this complexity.²

Whereastraditionallydiasporaentailedlivinginthe intersticesofasocietyasa consequence of theglobaleconomywehaveall become diasporicindividuals de- prived of theillusionofafixedidentityand culturalrole. Even in this sensethe term diaspora carrieswithin itself anegativeconception of liminalityand incompleteness.

 Samir Dayal, “Diaspora and Double Consciousness,” TheJournal of the Midwest Modern Language Association . (): –, .  Robin Cohen, Global Diasporas (London and New York: Routledge,second ed. ): . VIII Daniela Carpi

Thediscourse of diaspora displacesthe obsession with (particularlybour- geois) individual identity andthe wholeapparatusofnormativity that sustains it.³ Global consumerismthrives on cultural hybridities.⁴ Actually,hybridity hasal- ways been part of theculturesofthe world, thus intrinsicallyannulling the “myth” of theintegrity,purity, andnationalityofcultures. Discourses on diaspora must also take into consideration the concept of human rights. There are some fundamental rights for the individual that go beyond anynationalism and which intrinsicallypertain to the individual qua human being. Forinstance: everybodyhas aright to life (Section 1, art.2of the “European Convention for the ProtectionofHuman Rights and Fundamental Freedom,” 1953), no one shallbesubjectedtotorture(Art.3)orshall be held in slavery (Art.4.1), everyone has the right to liberty and security of person (Art.5.1), everyone has the right to respect for his privateand familylife, his home and his correspondence (Art.8.1), everyone has liberty of religion. These rights must be respectedfor the sake of the individual in whatever community he/she happens to move. Humanrights therefore go beyond the concept of diaspora: the fact is that each individual enjoys these rights wherever he/she ends up living.Tosome extent,human rights annulthe sense of diaspora: youare at home in the world. At thepresent time diaspora is thereforeacomplexissue to confront because itstraditional meaning is becoming outdated.WhatIobserveisthatthe term tends to survive as ametaphorfor identity crisis or alienation,asdoubleconsciousness or as aproblematization of multiculturalismorevenas“internal andshiftingim- balances of powerwithinWestern democracies, andamong minorities.”⁵ Consequently, it is necessary to distinguish between the cosmopolitan, the refugee, and the exile: the former does not share the same cultural condition as the latter ones. Whether or not it is regarded as aphenomenon coextensive with the histories of decolonization, diasporaisadmittedlyfar from providing an adequate ‘explanation’ or account of recent transformations of nation-states.⁶ Some of these questions aredealtwithinthis volume whichrepresents an in- sightful additiontoanimportant ongoingdebate. Even in ade-territorialized concept of identity the ideasof‘home’ and ‘homeland’ remainpowerful discourses and herethe conceptofdiasporaisset against this linguistic background.

 Dayal, “Diaspora and Double Consciousness,” .  See Brian Massumi, AUser’sGuide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia:Deviations from Deleuze and Guattari (Cambridge:MIT P, ): .  Dayal, “Diaspora and Double Consciousness,” .  Dayal, “Diaspora and Double Consciousness,” . Klaus Stierstorfer Introduction: Exploring the Interface of Diaspora, Law and Literature

Diasporahas become acentral term in the studyofthe continual, and indeed exponential, rise in global migrationand dispersion. The concept has acquired its own inter-and transdisciplinary field of studies which has shown itself as eminently dynamic, vibrant and topical. In fact,diaspora studies can now be considered awidelyestablished research paradigm: Diasporaiscanonized by its inclusion in the ‘Very Short Introductions’ series of Oxford UniversityPress; it has its Reader,and its ownjournal.¹ While in this recent rise of the field, the earlyyears of diasporastudies show apredominanceofthe social sciences – with namessuch as William Safran, Robin Cohen, Avtar Brah or Roger Bru- baker starring that firmament – further disciplineshavemeanwhile joined the discussion with much verveand enthusiasm. Among these, literaryand legal studies have onlyrecentlymoved towards amore focused consideration of the diasporaparadigm, but now generate aparticularinterest. This is not onlybecause these two disciplines can contributevaluable insight and new perspectives to the field as much as they are set to draw further enrichment from theirengage- ment with the studyofdiaspora; lawand literature have themselvesmutual overlaps and stimulatinginterrelations, so that an exciting,productive triangulation between diasporastudies, legal studies and literary studies appears on the horizon. While all three bilateralconnections – between diasporastudies and literary studies, between diaspora studies and legal studies and, finally, between law and literature – have each receivedconsiderable scholarlyattention individually, the innovative claim of the collection of essays presented here is that they actually attempt to allyall three fields in various ways and bring that alliance to schol- arlyfruition. In this rigidlycircumscribed way, the present volume ventures onto new ground. To castthis profile into relief, it will, however,behelpful to recall the existing connections between the disciplines involved.

 Kevin Kenny, Diaspora: AVeryShort Introduction (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, ); Jana EvansBraziel, Anita Mannur,ed., Theorizing Diaspora:AReader (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, ); Klaus Stierstorfer,Janet Wilson, ed., TheRoutledgeReader in DiasporaStudies (London: Routledge,forthcoming ); Diaspora: AJournal of Transnational Studies,ed. Khachig Tölölyan(Toronto:University of Toronto Press) – (–). 2 Klaus Stierstorfer

The literature of various diasporas has receivedplentiful attention by literary scholars. Thus, studies of literaryworks from and about the Indian diasporatotal 254entries in the MLABibliography(up to 2015), with such magisterial studies as VijayMishra’s TheLiterature of the Indian Diaspora: Theorizing the Diasporic Imaginary (2007) among them, and famous authors of Nobel and Booker Prize fame such as V.S. Naipaul or SalmanRushdie to boastof. VijayMishratherefore rightlyclaims that “it mayevenbeargued that it [the literature of the Indian diaspora; K. St.] is one of its [the Indian diaspora’s; K. St.] greater accomplish- ments, as the literature produced is among the best writing in English in the second half of the 20th centuryand after.”² Similar prominencewill be attributed to the literature of the African diasporaand of the Chinese diaspora, with many smaller diasporic groups to be added to this list,frequentlyholding aprominent place in the literatures of both the host cultures and the respective cultures of ‘origin.’ As the multiplying studies of such diasporic literatures and their importance for identity formation and ahost of further issues show,the role of a diaspora’sliterary output is significant with regard to the imageitprojects of itself as adiasporaand of the diasporic imagination governing its relations to the cultureoforigin and the host culture, as wellas, possibly, to other diasporas.³ Although legislators,legal practitionersand researchers in legal studies have been aware of the reverberations of global migration and dispersion in their field, the focused consideration of legal studies in and for adiasporacon- text is onlybeginning to take shape. Clearly, foundational works such as Seyla Benhabib’sseminal monograph TheRights of Others (2004)⁴ have been paving the wayfor achangeofperspective,awayfrom consolidatingthe basis of the lawwithin the framework of the nation state, and towards amoresophisticated, multi-layered approach thatcould do justicetothe numerous individuals and groups within astate who maynot feel they belong (ever,orasyet) to the nation. Meanwhile, more work in this direction has been forthcoming,asdocumented by volumes such as Migration, Diasporas and Legal Systems in Europe (2006), edited by Prakash Shah and Werner Menski. Even if this is not (yet) asystematic approach to the legal challenges posed by diaspora and migration, Shah and

 VijayMishra, “Voices from the Diaspora,” in TheEncyclopediaofthe Indian Diaspora,ed. Brij V. Lal, Peter Reeves, Rajesh Rai (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘iPress, ): –, .  The fact that neither Kevin Kennyinhis Very Short Introduction nor Braziel and Mannur in their Reader so much as mention literatureshows that afair assessmentofthe contribution of diaspora literature still needs to matureand develop in inter- and transdisciplinary diaspora research.  Seyla Benhabib, TheRights of Others: Aliens, Residents, and Citizens [](Cambridge:Cam- bridge University Press, ). Introduction: Exploring the InterfaceofDiaspora, Law and Literature 3

Menskihavebegun to collect case studies and instancesofexplorative research in various legal fieldsand in various areas or on various groups in Europe. As Shah and Menskisummarize it in their Introduction:

Recent migration trends areareversal of those that have been dominant for several centuries,[…when] legaltransplantation tended to occur[…]throughthe export of European legal models to other parts of the world as Europeans carried their cultural and legal bag- gage with them.⁵

The kind of critical rethinking within the legal discipline to be observed here has atraditionalprecedentwithin the interdisciplinary exchangebetween law and literature. The perception of lawand literature as closelyallied, if not mutuallydependent,goes back in moderntimes at least as far as Jakob Grimm’s much-quoted phrase that lawand literature had, as he sawit, “risen from the same bed.”⁶ In more recent times, the “lawand literature movement” which started in the United States,partlyinreaction to the “lawand economics”-approach, in the late 1970 shas giventhis interdisciplinary field amajor impetus. Initiated and pioneered by such galleon figures as James Boyd White or Richard Weisberg, the Americanimpact has generated renewed interest in research in manyparts of the world. Thomas Sprecher’serudite and massive bibliography can give afirst idea of how expansivethis highlyproductive field of research has meanwhile become and what rich traditions it can draw from.⁷ The law and literatureapproach as an integral, interdisciplinary venture is in so far high- ly relevant to diasporastudies as it is carried by akeen awareness of the need to ‘humanize’ the lawand adapt it to ever changingsocial challenges, thereby emphasizing the humanist foundations of lawand legal thinking. With such pairingsofthe threefields of diaspora, lawand literature more or less well institutionalised, the additional benefit of bringingtogether the three individual disciplines, including their established linkages, becomes immediate-

 Prakash Shah, Werner F. Menski, “Introduction: Migration, Diasporas and Legal Systemsin Europe,” in Migration, Diasporasand Legal Systems in Europe. ed. Shah, Menski (London, New York: Routledge-Cavendish, ): –, .  “Dasz ′rechtund poesie miteinander auseinem betteaufgestanden waren, hältnicht schwer zu glauben” (Jakob Grimm, “Vonder Poesie im Recht,” § ,inZeitschrift fürdie geschichtliche Rechtswissenschaft . []: –, ).  Thomas Sprecher, Literatur und Recht. Eine Bibliographie fürLeser (Frankfurt: VittoriaKloster- mann, ); see also James Boyd White, TheLegal Imagination (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, ); RichardWeisberg, Poethics and Other Strategies of Law and Literature (New York and Oxford: Columbia University Press, ); for asurvey see Guyora Binder,Robert Weisberg, LiteraryCriticisms of Law (Princeton:Princeton University Press, ). 4 Klaus Stierstorfer ly apparent with intuitiveinsight.Specifying and pinning down the issues which this tri-disciplinary approach would be best geared to tackle and the answers these engagementsmight yield is, however,amuch harder task which this volume can onlybegin to embark on. It does so in the various discussions presented in the following,which reach out within the field triangulated be diaspora, law and literature in manyproductive directions. Roughly,three main aspects can be differentiated in these essays,subdividing the volume in threelargersections. Afirst set of essays deals with various foundational aspects of the interdisciplinary triangle of diaspora, lawand literature.Thisisfollowed by aseriesofcase studies in the second part,whereindividual authors or topics are specificallyfo- cused on, before afinal collection of contributions opens the vista, so to speak, by looking at issues further afield, using the preceding discussion as astarting point of bringinginfurther media as well as exploring abroader and more metaphorical use of the concept of diaspora. Pier GiuseppeMonateri opens the first group of essays in his foundational exploration documenting how political, spatial, religious and literaryaspects relate in the emergence of aspecificallyWestern concept of diaspora. He shows how St Paul’sletters endedthe Jewishdiasporic constitution by subverting the traditionalconcept of the Lawasadistinguishing feature of the Jewish diaspora, implementing the tradition of letterwriting as agenre specificallygeared to this purpose. Riccardo Baldissone follows in this philosophical note by pointing out the duality between individual and society.This he describes as complemented by space as its defining entity,which is wherethe diasporic elementcomesin and can be contextualised, historicallymost lucidlyinthe concept of the much understudied ius gentium. Jeanne Gaakeer takes her departure from Jo- hann Gottfried Herder’s humanitas-concept,from which she develops acaution- ary philosophyofdiaspora. Paola Carbone then reflects on the legal principle of ‘fair hearing’ and sees diasporics in the position to need an ‘interculturalhear- ing’.She argues that the legal principle of the fair hearing in court can provide a pattern on which intercultural dialogue could be established. Peter Schneck starts out from the thesis of aconceptual interdependence between the diasporic and the indigenous subject.Heatthe sametime emphasizes the differencesbe- tween the two, which are principallystrategic and political in negotiating kinds of legal and literarysubjectivities which mayevenresultinanantagonistic juxtaposition of the two ‘modes of belonging’.Bringingthe focus back to literature, Florian Kläger unites literature, lawand diasporabyhighlightingthe reflexivity which is inscribed in all threeofthem,but he alsoferrets out the differencesbe- tween the three fields by showing how they respectively treat and approach this reflexivity.Finally, Emma Patchett illustrates the ways in which lawand literature diasporastudies can bring out the overlap of sometimes contrastive sover- Introduction:Exploringthe Interface of Diaspora, Law and Literature 5 eignties.Such ‘transjurisdictionalism’ is shown in readingsofliterature from around the world, set in the Romani diasporainEuropa, the British-Asian dia- sporainLondon and the Aboriginal diasporainAustralia. In the second part,aseries of case studies can at least adumbrate the wealth of ideas and directions which the volume’sthemescan combine to develop. Thus, Fabian Wittreck analysis the medievalLawcode of the Armenian diasporic community in Lembergand comes to the astonishingconclusion thatthe law code in question never reallyfunctioned as adirectory for legal procedures but,moreinthe sense of literature, as an instrument of diasporic identity.Mel- anie Williams reads Derek Mahon’spoetry bothwith aview to the Irish diaspora in America and amore general theme of displacement and its legal reverberations, such as in recent ruling on asylum seekers comingtoIreland. Daniela Carpi approachesthe concept of diaspora through the lens of Philip Roth’s novel Operation Shylock,which highlights the importance of the Jewishdiaspora for the European heritageand the gapthe Holocaust has left,advocating anew diasporismasacounterpoint to Zionistunderstandings.Franziska Quabeck’s readingofKazuo Ishiguro’snovel Never Let Me Go bringsout the power of recognition (or the lack of it) of the rights of social groups such as diasporics and migrants: In Ishiguro’sstark allegory,oppressed groups regularlylack the cultural clout to fend for theirown, even most basic rights which, by implications, must be read as aloud appeal for the need for protection of such groups in societies. Sidia Fiorato,inher readingofMichael Ondaatje’snovel Anil’sGhost, bringsinanuanced view of the various (self‐)constructions of complex diasporic identities, especiallypronounced in the law-inspired strategies deployed by Anil who is trainedasaforensic anthropologist.Section twothen concludes with Ni- lufer Bharucha’stour de forceofthe Indian Diasporawith afocus on the laws faced by and tailored to Indian diasporics; laws to be created for Indian indentured labour after the abolishment of slavery to differentiateitfrom slavery to the legal changes within India with aview to the Indian diasporaabroad. In the volume’slastsection, some new departures and directions are sketched out.Avtar Brah begins with areadingofMohsin Hamid’snovel TheReluctant Fundamentalist and, basedonher findings, profiles citizenship as acentral concept connectinglaw,literature and diaspora, which is then refracted by gender issues and multicultural perspectives. Taking the gender theme in another direction, Janet Wilson considers the utilityofqueer readingsfor the topic at hand. She successfullyexpandsthe field of diasporastudiesbyshowing remarkable parallels between the politics of sexualityand gender issues on the one hand and the situation of diasporics on the other.Inher choice of novels, afurther twist is negotiated in so far as both sides, that is, biographies with both queer and diasporic life lines in them,are intertwined. ChiaraBattisti adds photogra- 6 Klaus Stierstorfer phyasahighlyrelevant medium for diasporastudies. She analyses shortstories by Jhumpa Lahiri and shows how the author uses ekphrasticallythe frozenness of the photographic picture in depicting the static memory of the diasporics’ lost homelandinthe past.Leif Dahlberg,finally, scrutinizes Caryl Phillips’ short story “NorthernLights” by harking back to Sigmund Freud’sanalysis on melan- cholyand the bearing this can have on understanding the diasporic situation. Phillips’ use of the elegiac form in his shortstory helps to frame the diasporic situation of its protagonist and thus hints at possible remedies. As becomes evident from this roll call of essays reachingout in so manydi- rections,the present volume cannot (yet) pretend to asystematic mappingofthe field defined by diaspora, lawand literature. Although much has been added, both in further thoughtand discussion as well as in entirefurther essays,the volume still quite consciouslyretains some traces of its germ and origin in asym- posiumofscholarly conversazioni at Villa Vigoni, Italy, in May2012.Itwas this open, and in manywaysless rigorous format in the beginning that made it possible for scholars from so manydisciplines to come together and convergeona common enterprise, encouragingthem to cross disciplinary boundaries and embark on atransdisciplinary exploration. The editors are therefore grateful to the German Research Councilfor funding this initial meeting at Villa Vigoni, and for the continued encouragement and support of Prof. Dr.Immacolata Ammodeo, Generalsekretärin des Deutsch-Italienischen Zentrums für Europäische Exzellenz Villa Vigoni e.V. Pier Giuseppe Monateri Diaspora, the West and the Law

The Birth of Christian Literature through the Letters of Paul as the End of Diaspora

1. Introduction: Back to the Western Diaspora and Beyond

My claim in the following is thatwemust reappraise the birth of Christianityin diasporic terms:that is to saythat we need to use modernresults of diaspora studies to reinterpret even the JewishDiaspora, and to settle her problems prop- erlywithin the legal and political setting of the Greek citiesofthe time,through the emergence of new literary genres,asthe gospels, and the active use of letter writing,asakind of stereotyped but evolving genre. In this way, Imaintain, we can alsocritique and investigate the samenotion of diaspora in its current evolution. Diasporahas in fact become acentral term in the literary debate, from Vèvè Clark to RobinCohen,¹ Greg Egan,² Kevin Kenny,³ and so manyothers, but it is especiallywith referencetothe path-breakingworks of Vèvè Clark that Iwant to address this subjectinrelation to law and literature. Vèvè Clark uses the special label of Diasporaliteracy to flag the ability to understand and read the multi-layered meaningsofstories,words, and other folk sayingswithin anygiven community,with apeculiar referencetothe African diaspora. These meanings supersedethose of “Western or westernized signification.”⁴ They go beyond literal or typical literal interpretationinto an

 Vèvè A. Clark, “DevelopingDiaspora Literacy: Allusion in Maryse Condé’s ‘hérémakhonon’” in Out of the Kumbla:Caribbean Women and Literature, ed. Carole BoyceDavies,Elaine Savory Fido (Trenton, NJ:Africa World P, ): –;Robin Cohen, Global Diasporas:AnIntroduction (London: Routledge, ); Robin Cohen, ‘Diaspora’:Beyond the JewishExperience (CapeTown: JacobGitlin Library,Western ProvinceZionist Council, ).  Greg Egan, Diaspora (Brno:Návrat, ).  Kevin Kenny, Diaspora: AVeryShort Introduction (New York: Oxford UP, ).  Hortense J. Spillers, Comparative American Identities:Race, Sex, and Nationality in the Modern Text (New York: Routledge, ): –, . 8 Pier Giuseppe Monateri area of folk understandingthat could onlyberecognizedbythoseskilled in such an understanding. Even if we find in this theory arather common academic claim to own a givenfield,from which outsiders, not peculiarlytrained or initiated in it,are to be taken strictlyoutside and cease to have aright to speak,what is implied in Clark’sdiscourse on African studies is remarkably linked to agiven European theological background, which is of the greatestimportance in understanding the JewishDiasporaand its literary meaning. Clark’smodel is, to alarge extent,aspecification of the theoretical concept of interpretative communities stemmingfrom reader-response criticism promot- ed by Stanley Fish.⁵ Accordingtothis theory atext does not have meaning outside of aset of cultural assumptions regarding both what the characters mean and how they should be interpreted. In this context,Imaintain that Fish’stheory is but asecularization of the theological debate of the beginning of the twentieth century around the interpretation of earlyChristian writings, turning,especially by Ernst Käsemann,⁶ the focus of inquiry from the sourceitself, or the author, to the community receiving atext and interpreting it,byrewritingand transmission, accordingtotheir needsand their historical situation. Remembering that gospels, acts, and other writingsare typicallyfolk narratives – full with miracles, extraordinary facts, and contradictions – this shift of the focus from author and text to community and reader has had, at its first appearance, mainlyatheolog- ical impact,more thanamere literarymeaning.The role of communities and their communal life in order to read and understand the processofwriting and transmission of the sayingsofJesus and the folk stories related to him, playedanimmense role in reshaping the theological debate on Jesus and his story.Inthis case, once more, as Northrop Frye suggested,⁷ we find atheological ancestor of amoderncritical concept,having apolitical impact.AsErnest Bor- mann has argued, apolitical community first requires the formation of arhetorical community bound together by shared myths and languages that underscore the uniqueness of the community.⁸

 Stanley Eugene Fish, Is ThereaText in This Class?: TheAuthority of InterpretiveCommunities (Cambridge,MA: HarvardUP, ): –.  Ernst Käsemann, Exegetische Versuche und Besinnungen . (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ru- precht, ): –.  Northrop Frye, TheAnatomy of Criticism (Princeton, NJ:Princeton UP, ):   Ernest G. Bormann, “Symbolic Convergence: Organizational Communication and Culture,” in Communication and Organizations,anInterpretiveApproach, ed. Linda Putnam, Michael E. Pa- canowsky (BeverlyHills,CA: SagePublications, ): –, –;Alaistar Iain John- Diaspora, the West and the Law 9

Diasporaliteracy,from this perspective,ispreciselybased upon several different theoretical concepts. The first concept is that diasporaisthe phenomenon and history of adisplacement.Secondly, that displaced people come to embrace an awareness and appreciation of the political,cultural, and creative self as something unique in itself and thus not required to conform especiallytoEuro- pean aesthetics. The third and final concept is thatofsignifying, as aliterary concept developedbyHenry Louis Gates Jr.tounderlie the apprehension of dominant stories and the fact of imbuingthem with cultural meanings and signs related to the particulardiasporic cultureofthe concernedgroup.⁹ By receptions and reversals one would then see the creation of aDiasporicliterarycanon, imbued with aDiasporic languagethat onlyaliterary examination of the intricacies of the cultures could interpret. Ithink that all these concepts are of peculiar interest for studying that uniqueoffspringofthe JewishDiasporawhich has been represented by the rise of adifferent style and content of the earlyChristian literatureprecisely along the lines of the new awarenessdevelopedbythese communities,within the political setting of ancient world cities (Poleis), including adeepre-thinking of the entire Jewish tradition. In away,this theory reproducespreciselythe history and phenomenon of the birth of Christianitywithin the Western JewishDi- aspora, from the start of anew awareness to the real production of adiasporic canon which became the Canon of the Bible. In away the whole of the theory behindAfrican diasporastudies is the reproduction of the theological upheaval which happened with the birth of Christianitywithin the JewishDiaspora, giving us back anew insight on thoseancient facts. Thus, modern diasporastudies are changingour perspective on our own European origin, refreshinganunder- standing of ourselveswhich derivesfrom the ways others attempt to define them- selvessuperseding European signification. From this standpoint we can see a kind of ‘Eliot effect’ at work in this field, wherethe past becomes altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past.Anoverall cultural order,which is modified by the introduction of the new (the reallynew) work of thought.Indeedthe studies on Jewish diasporaand the rising of Christianity pavedthe waytothe shift towardthe reader as preached by Fish, buildingupa theory of communities and transmission which served as abasis to Diaspora studies applied to non-European cultures,which now can be used to reappraise and illuminatemost of the diasporic roots of European cultures. son, Cultural Realism: Strategic Cultureand Grand Strategy in Chinese History (Princeton,NJ: Princeton UP, ): .  Henry Louis Gates, TheSignifying Monkey:ATheoryofAfro-American LiteraryCriticism (New York: OxfordUP, ). 10 Pier Giuseppe Monateri

Thus what Ishalltry to do in this chapter is, first,todevelop the peculiar diasporic context characterizing in asingular waythe Jewish Diasporainthe West.Then Ishall try to outline the practical, political and legal problems of these diasporic communities within the institutional arrangement of the Greek polis. Thirdly, Ishall analyse the feelingsrelated to this peculiarpolitical and legal situation, in order to appraise the literary responserepresented by the earlyChristian writingsthat developed anew Theologyand simultaneouslypro- duced apolitical changeinthe history of the Diaspora. All this will be done, here, justwith reference to Paul’sundisputed letters, as the privileged place wherethis new consciousness wasdevelopedtoits most obvious conclusions.

2. Diasporaand the Law

Currentlythe term diasporahas spread essentiallyasametaphor,the more and more separated from anyparticular reference, to designatethe samecondition of living in aglobalized world, with acompleteshift from the very idea of being delocalized from aconcrete space like Eretz Israel. Areal space that can have an ontological meaning,and that givessense to the sameterm of diaspora, since adiasporaispossibleonlyinrelation to ameaningful place. Todayweex- perience, however,ashift in the sense of diasporatoward the conception of a world in which spacehas no longer anyreal significance. The very fact of being delocalized becomes such auniversal condition that since everybodyis, no people is immune from it; whereas, Imaintain, the term diaspora has aconcrete, and polemic meaning onlyinsofarpart of acommunity is dislocated, but another part is not.And this term keeps areferential content as long as there is arealspace in relation to which youcan affirmatively define what it means to be delocalized. In order to keep aproper meaning of the worddiaspora, youneed to maintain its own geopolitical reference. From this standpoint,the term diasporahas always been afflicted by akind of paradox, since it is patentlyaGreek wordadopted alsotodescribe apeculiar historical event in the life of Israel. In this wayithas always been asuperim- posed foreign word, an alien portrait,which assumed an overwhelming national character in relation to the self-portrait of the people of Israel living in exile. Ac- cording to me the adoptionofthe Greek term by the diasporic communities displays simultaneouslythe softpower of the ruling Aryan elites of the time, and the willingness by the dominated to accept this dominance even to define themselves. As such it is ironic that this wordbecame alabel for studies directed to self-awareness beyond European signification, when it represented amajor ex- Diaspora,the West and the Law 11 ample of this process of signification attributing to the Jews the category of ‘alienness’ to plot their history. And besides the Greek wordcan mean as well acollective trauma, abanish- ment,whereone dreamed of home but livedinexile,ormere migration, without anynostalgia,aswellasitcan meanevencolonization. No languagehas ever been more ambiguous than the Greek, which is maybe the main reason for its everlasting charm. But what does it mean from aJewishperspective to be labelled by aforeign Greek wordasdiaspora? Of course the best translation of diasporais‘dissemination’.But this is a nice word, which has to cover the traumatic aspects of diasporainthe history of Israel. As anice, and very meaningful, wordinliterarystudies it is important, Ithink,tofollow all the paths it can bring us to, and to open all the links which are allowed by its connotative features,but as long as its denotativeplan is concerned Ithink that first of all this termraises legal questions. Diaspora – as an historical fact affecting Israel – has been the resultofthe LawofWar,and the LawofNations, and still to-day the status of the Diasporais highlydetermined by the LawofReturn, and the perennial matterofWhoisa Jew accordingtothe Law. Herethe Lawisdislocating all other meanings,and also feelings. It is enough to change, for instance,the LawofReturn to affect the sentiments which are bound to the experience of being disseminated in the world. And it is in relation to Law, Imaintain, thatwemay perceive the multiple meanings of diasporic phenomena even within the unique History of Israel. As we all know the first diasporaderived from the outcome of the Assyrian War, which destroyed the NorthernKingdom and transplanted most of Judah and Benjamin into Babylonia, certainlynot to ‘disseminate’ them, but to keep them under control in aforeign land,accordingtoapractice of the Assyrian Empire normallyadopted toward anyconquered enemy. This community receiveda legal status, and self-maintained itself through the ritual observanceofthe Law. And it was adecree from the Persianemperor,after the collapse of the As- syrians, which allowed aPersianservant,Nehemia, to re-establish aPalestinian community,raising huge conflicts,especiallyonproperty and land possession, with those who remained at home. This legal landscapeiscrucial to understand Diasporaand the connected events,asthese events offered atemplatefor other future effortstodestroy and disseminate Israel. The spatial elementhere is determined by the East,and henceforth what the Eastern Diasporameans, awidespread community conserving in Babylon aDavidic descendant as its nominal chief, is strictlydetermined in relation to the space occupied by Eretz Israel. Jer- usalem was of course East for the Greeks,but it was acentreofits own, having an absolute East,Babylonia, and an absolute West,Athens and then Rome. 12 Pier Giuseppe Monateri

This first Diasporaand the Coming Back of manyfrom exile created the intricate problem of who reallyisIsrael: thosewho were left at home, the people of the land –Am Ha-Aretz – or those who came back to re-takethe possession of it ? Aquestion which became arecurringtheme in the history of Israel, and that became akey factor in its own self-definition. The second Diasporahas been, at the beginning,less traumatic, duetothe cosmopolitan eracreated by Alexander the Great,whereareal dissemination of Jews in Greece, and especiallyinEgypt,took place. This dissemination produced astrongWestern Diasporawith very different features in relation to the Eastern one. The Western Diasporaplayedapivotalrole when the third major traumatic historical event happened: the national disaster of 66–70,the destruction of the Temple, and then the war of 135CEand the final legal ban of the Jews to inhabit the land of Israel. This last great Diasporahas thus been the resultofapeculiar law, never adopted against anyother people by the Romans, representing areal apprehension of the land of Israel by aforeign power,changingthe same ontology of all places,tothe point that Jerusalem was transformed into Aelia Capitolina, and a great altar dedicated to Jupiter Capitolinus was erected over the ruins of the Tem- ple. What then becomes crucial, in our current debate, is what happened in the 30 sand the 50 sCEinJerusalem, but in strict relation with the Western Dia- spora: Imean that great antinomian movement of Greek-speaking Jews which is normallyknown as Christianity,within the context of the imminent outburst of the 60 s. In this span of time not onlythe Lawdetermined, to agreat extent, the nature of the Diaspora, but alsothe feelingstowardthe Lawdetermined, after the collapse of the Temple, the historicaldestinyofalarge part of the Dia- sporaand of the most of Europe. Feelingswhich have been elaborated by adopting peculiarliterary genres as the ‘letters’ and then inventing the new literary genre of the gospels. It is preciselythe adoption of these genres,operated to unfold anarrative that could give atheological sense to all this political turmoil and reversal that we shall try to outline in the next paragraph.

3. The Canon of Lettersand Paul’sReading Practice

Having seen the different features of multiple diasporas which occurred during the history of Israel, we can now focus on the birth of the first Christian literature, as abodycomposed at its very beginning by the letters of Paul. Diaspora, the West and the Law 13

Paul is indeed the best polemic, but as such concrete witness that we have of the Western Diasporainthe crucial moment of the first Christian affirmation. All we can know derivesfrom his letters,dating from the 50 softhe first century, but referring to events – as Paul’sown conversion – of approximatelyonlythree years after the Crucifixion, when the writing of the gospels wasstill, at least,35 years in the future. To understand Paul’sletters properly,¹⁰ we need to know something about the practice of letter-writing in the ancient world,¹¹ quite acommon activity in those days.The Hellenistic letter-writing tradition called for certain stereotyped forms. There would be asalutation (AtoB,greetings)and awish for the healthof the recipient; in the bodyofthe letter therewould be much conventional languagethat sounds stilted to our ears; and at the end there would be afarewell formula (rarelyasignature). Paul’sletters are part of this tradition. They are genuine letters,not epistles, in the sense of afictive letter written for publication rather than for mailing.They are written in the standard Koine Greek. In any case we know that they were not written for publication in abook,wherethey now stand. They weremeant to be read aloud to the assembled congregation that Paul addressed. They are asubstitute for Paul in person, and they are all addressed to congregations in cities. Organized Christianity from the start was an urban movementcharacteristic of the Western, Greek-speaking Diaspora, and what,undoubtedly, emergesfrom these letters is astrongopposition to the Law. It was Paul’sgenius to see thatChristianitycould not survive if it were tied to the Jewish Law: the 613separate commandments found in the Torah, with all their ramifications through the dailylives of believers and the whole narrative embodying them within the paradigm of Halakah and Haggadah (substantially translatable as Law and Literature)forming together the bodyofthe writings to be interpreted for legal purposes. Paul sawnot onlythe practical difficulties caused by requiringgentile con- verts to submit to circumcision and obey other featuresofthe JewishLaw but also the theoretical confusion thatsuch arequirement would institutionalize. So he challenged the so-called Judaizers directly, and most important of all, he provided something to put in place of the Lawthrough his doctrine of justification by faith, adoctrine he pretendedtofind not onlyinthe sayingsofJesus

 The undisputed letters of Paul are: Romans –,Corinthians,Galatians,Philippians , Thessalonians and Philemon.  Forall that follows on letter-writing, cf. John B. Gabel and Charles B. Wheelers, TheBible as Literature (Oxford: OxfordUP, ): . 14 Pier GiuseppeMonateri himself – he cites justacouple of them – but in the Old Testament itself.And all this was achieved through his letters. Someone,after Paul’sdeath, thought of assembling them and publishing them as acollection. So great was Paul’sprestige that imitators quicklyfollowed him, borrowingthe form of the Pauline letter and sometimes Paul’sname. Thus Paul was responsible – quite unintentionally – for the introduction of abiblical genre, the letter,just as Mark was responsible for introducing the frequentlyimi- tated genre of the Gospel. The key features of narrative,and henceforth of thinking,that we mayfind in these letters – as is well known – are first of all related to an expectantwaiting that the world wasvery soon comingtoanend. Areader who misses this point can understand very little else about Paul. This means, of course, the comingend of human history and the irrelevance of anypolitical or ontological discourse and distinction, as the history and the ontology of this world are at an end. This means also something very important about the Law, as the Lawwas deemed to be the fabric of this world’sown ontology,and the distinct problem of the Diaspora. As awell-educated and zealousJew,Paulwas intimatelyfamil- iar with the Law. As aChristian, however,hewas convincedthat the Lawnolon- gerapplied! After the Coming, so to speak, the world entered afinal state of exception, a final struggle between oppositepowers,awar,wherethe Lawhas been superseded. TheLaw was meant all along to be onlyaninterim arrangement before the next phase of God’splan unfolded with the comingofJesus. Forthosewho be- lieveinChrist,the Lawhas become completelyinvalid. And they will be saved not for their obedience to aLaw which became obsolete in this state of exception, but for their faith. We must imagine akind of universal ontologicalstate of exception,when the Law, and its distinctions, alsoofwhat is clean and unclean, enter afinal state of confusion, when onlyfaith in anew incarnatedlaw,the Christ,can save us from annihilation. The believers will pass through this state of emergency untouched, when all the rest will be dissolved. Faith is aprotection,just as the lawhad been before the present times. The political consequence of this ontology of acosmic emergency is the end of the distinction between Israel and the nations, as it was based on the acceptance and the practice of aLaw which has now ceased to be valid. The literarydevice by which this theory is producedinthe letters is apeculiar non-interpretative readingofthe scriptures.¹² Thisliterarydevice of Paul is

 Foradefinitionofnon-interpretivism as ause of texts which purport to give asense to it with- Diaspora, the West and the Law 15 normallycalled typological interpretation as it aims to see in all the text of the Tanakh the signs and traces pre-figuring the advent of the Christ in the person of Jesus. So it is reallyamatter of signification as aprocesstoproduce specifi- callynew and diasporic meaningsasanappropriation of the text once it is transplanted from its place of origin into the communities of the West,adopting an alien languagetoexpressatext which once was thoughttobesorooted in its own physical consistency thatthe first duty of the Scribes was to count its con- sonants, in order to be sure thateach copy wasreallyaperfect reproduction of the scroll in the Temple. Paul is, in his ownway,lifting passages out of context or combiningpassag- es from different sources, laying special significance on arbitrarilychosen words, ignoringthe original author’sintention. The text is disrupted, deconstructed, used onlyfor its citationaland polemic possibilities giventhat he already knows, by othermeans, the truth: that Jesus is the Lord, and that the final struggle has begun. It is this knowledge giving him the meaningofthe texts allowing areading of it that does not even tries to be interpretative.Inawaythis is the paradigm of the circle of legitimation in the process of reading. The text is giving alegitimation to the life and death of Jesus, as long as it is forecasting these events, but now the Advent of Jesus is also giving authority to the text as long as this text is speaking of Him.Itcould also be seen here the workingofapecu- liar ‘Eliot Effect’:the Coming of Jesus has changed our perception of the Tanakh so that the old books receive their meaning from the latest events. And it is this Eliot Effect that legitimates Paul’suse of an alien blend, the Greek, to build up his Typological interpretation of the receivedauthorities for the Diaspora, and in adiasporic setting.The power to speak of Paul derivesfrom his readingof the text,but also the text now maintains apower to speak onlyinsofar it is interpreted in this way. Following this line of thoughtwecould saythat the perceivedstate of exception is re-produced through the samereadingtechnique which bringsustosee it as part of God’splan,aswell as the end of the Law – and of its binding rules – is produced by discardingall proper rules of reading. Paul’stext is portraying in itself what he pretends is ontologicallyhappening. His letters displayarefold of the readingupon itself, mirroringthe ontological reversals of the world, while producing,inpolitical terms,the end of Israel; and henceforth the end of the Diasporaand the Greek world as separate entities. Areal ontologicalrev- olution: If thereisnomore Israel, there is no more Diaspora, but also thereare

out tryingtointerpret it,see Pier Giuseppe Monateri, “‘All of this and so much more’:Original Intent,Antagonism and Non-Interpretivism,” Global Jurist Frontiers . (), Art. . 16 Pier Giuseppe Monateri no more Gentiles. It is just the existenceofanIsrael which dislocates such an ontology of the world and its spaces. We have here aperfect parallel between the reading of the past,the construction of the actual text and the events which it is simultaneouslydescribing and producing.AsPaulhimself says the morphè,the shape of this world, is about to pass,and there will be no more Jews and no more Greeks;and,I add, no more Diaspora.

4. PolisasanInstitutionand the Antinomian West

As we have seen especiallyinthewritingsofPaulpeculiarlyaddressed to the Western Diasporawithin the Greek speaking world, Christianity assumedat first the attitude of amovement against the Law, and thatmainlyagainst its pre- scriptionsupon ‘purity’ in relation to food and rituals. My theory is that this matter of food had an overwhelming importance for public life in aGreek Polis. As we know aPolis is not simply aspace with build- ingsand roads,but apeculiar cultural and legal arrangement of aspace. It is not immaterial that the Greek word Nomos means at the sametime Law and District. The Nomos tes Athenes means the CountyofAthens. Nomos is a legally organized territory;there can be no Lawwithoutaterritory.Nocity is aPolis if it has not a square for public meetings(agorà), agymnasium, and at least one theatre to represent what were anyway deemed to be religious spectacles in honour of the gods. From this standpoint Jerusalemhas never been aPolis in Greek terms, since it never had anykind of similar political,culturaland legal space. More- over aPolis had to have space for manydifferent temples, devoted to city gods, but also to alien gods of othercommunities with which the Polis had political relations.Itwas common practice all over the world of antiquity to share gods to signify an alliance, or the establishment of commerce;and temples werealsobanks, wherevaluables could be deposited and transferred from one place to another underthe protection of agod. Within the Polispublic life was scheduled accordingtocommunal gathering duringfeasts when meat was served from sacrifices to different deities. Partici- pation in these ceremonies was absolutelybinding so as to have apublic life, to access public administration, and to exercise anyleading social role. From this standpoint it is clear thatancient Judaism was an immense bar to ‘normal life’ in aGreek Polis, and besides it wasnot understandable for the Diaspora,the West and the Law 17

Greek mind.¹³ The LawofPuritybarred the Jews from eating food comingfrom pagan sacrifices,forbidding their participation in public life and public events, impedingtheir political role in city administration. And especiallythe practice of having onlyone Temple, in Jerusalem, and the impossibility to share it with others, opening,for instance, adependence of it in Athens, as well as the parallel refusal to accept within Jerusalem other templesdevoted to alien gods, was felt by the Greeks as asign of misanthropy,astrong hatred for the rest of the human community¹⁴:Jews werepatentlyenemies of humankind, they despised it,refus- ing to accept and share common practice, manners, uses and even gods (!) in their social,political, international and religious interactions with other nations. The clash on these matters was made apparent during the attempt of Anti- ochus IV Epiphanes to transformJerusaleminto areal Greek Polis with the building of agymnasium, provoking the Maccabean Revolt.InChristian times the clash on food purity is still witnessed by the Acts,¹⁵ since the Christian Jews refused to share the same table with the Christian Gentiles for purity reasons, so thatthe primitive Church had to invent the Deacons to arrangeseparate tables and separate food for all the participants. As Erik Peterson alreadydescri- bed his study, the mystery of the primitive Church had to be simultaneously the Church of the Jews and the Gentiles.¹⁶ Now it is clear that the emancipation of the Diasporafrom the prescriptions of the Law, as preached by Paul in his letters, was areal liberation for all the earlyChristian Jews, allowing them to participate in public life, and so to exercise astandard political and administrative influenceinthe Greek Poleis.From this point of view Paul is very concrete: Jesus makes youfree, because He has superseded the Law, and now youmay eat whatever youwant,and youmay even receive at home your pagan friends. In his narrativethe Lawintroduced the sin into the world, because without the Lawthere is no sin, and no impurity. It is onlythe lawestablishing it.Itisthe Lawdiscriminating between what is clean and what is unclean. As Paul says openly, Jesus is ontologicallytransform- ing the world, because thereisnomoredistinctionbetween aJew and a Gentile.¹⁷

 Peter Schäfer, Judeophobia:Attitudes Toward the Jews in the Ancient World (Cambridge,MA: HarvardUP, ).  Tacitus, Histories, , –;see (acc.  Dec )  Acts :–.  Erik Peterson and Jacques Maritain, Il misterodegli ebrei edei gentili nella Chiesa (Milano: Edizioni di Comunità, ).  Galatians :;Colossians :. 18 Pier Giuseppe Monateri

Of course this narrative represents in Paul’sletters amajor ontological shift, which has not receiveddue attention. Forhim the Lawbecomes performative,so that there is no impurity outside the Law. On the contrary for standard Judaism such beasts as snakes or snails are – really, ontologically – unclean; and the Law is there just to advise us: be careful because eating asnake is unclean. The Law is asign of God’slovefor his people because the lawistrue; the world is really full of hazards and evil, and God, giving the Law, is assistinghis own people in- structing it on how to behave in this world. Paul here – but his use of rhetoric is so marvellous that the point goes quite unnoticed – is entirelychangingthe relation of the Lawtothe World, reversing the samedistinction between that which is descriptive,and that which is performativeinthe legal field. Quite naturallyall these reversals and significations made by Paul werefelt by manyasasuppression of Israel, because if there is no longer anypurity distinction, there is no longer anyIsrael. But certainlyfor manyothers Paul’sreading was perceivedasthe possibilitytofinally live as normalpeople in aGreek city.Itiseasy now to understand that all these issues werepeculiartothe West and its societal organization, just since therewerenoPolis in the East. The issues that we have now sketched werenot at stake in the East,where the institution of the Polis wasabsent.The Community in Babylon, for instance, receivedits own peculiar legal status, and had not to participate to public meet- ingsortheatre for the simple reason that there werenosuch meetings and gath- erings. So, in away,and this is one of my peculiar points, it was the overall institution of the Polis, comprisingits democratic attitude, the very existenceofa political public life, to determine the main problems of the Western Diaspora, and part of its destiny. It was the device of the Polis,dislocating all aspects of life, from athletics to drama, from feasts to assemblies, which made Christianity possible, first of all, in the West.

5. Conclusion: Being Within and Without and DiasporaStudies

In the first section we have seen the importance of actual diaspora studies to reappraise the first century Jewish Diasporathrough the analysis of the literary genre of Paul’sletters.The second section has been devoted to outline how important it is to consider the matters related to Diasporafrom the standpoint of the Lawand of aLegal Analysis.Inthis waythe third section has analysed the wayadopted by Paul in his letters to reinterpret Jewishsources in order to preach, on the basis of the Lawitself,anend of the Law. In this paragraph Diaspora, the West and the Law 19 we have traced aparallel between the theological readingofPaulofthe events happened during his lifetime and the theory of the state of exception as the legal theory concerning the suspension and the end of the Lawinemergency situations. From this standpoint we have all along considered the issue of the Law, and its prescriptions,asthe key factor of the split,within the Western Diaspora, between Christian and traditionalgroups inside the same diasporic community. In the fourth section we have linked this peculiar event of the Western Diaspora to the same institution of the Greek Polis,conceivedasadevice dislocatingall aspectsofprivateand social publiclife. Adevice especiallylinked to the democratic nature of the Polis, giving room for apublic political life absent in other parts of the world. In this waywehaveappraised the concurrence of political,spatial, religious and literaryfactors in the rising of peculiardiasporic concepts in the West,starting from legal rules and legal prescriptions,and the problem of their observance. Our major point is preciselythataPolis is a ‘political device’ locating spaces and scheduling life, and, as such, moulding Diasporainthe West in away which was different from other diasporas. Polis has been an overall device. From this standpoint we must consider thatthere has always been something totalitarian at the root of Western European democracy,and some cunning link between it,asapolitical concept,and the city-religion as an all-pervading ideology, concerning all aspects of life, and requiring from free citizens atotal acceptance and compliancewith shared and accepted standards of behaviour. Akind of societal totalitarianism cohabiting with political freedom, as an endur- ing feature of the West.Otherwise the democratic polis of Athens would have never sentenced Socrates to death for atheism. And the onlyofficial constant title of the Roman Emperors would have never been that of Pontifex Maximus, HighPriest. What is the most remarkable,inrelation to the diasporic historical existence, is the extent to which ancient Anti-Judaism, as displayedevenbyTacitus and other authors, wasrooted preciselyinthis democratic-totalitarian religious conception of the urban space as apublic political space, around which all the world had to be organized. It is the samedemocratic notion that apolitical life must be apublic life, with public discussions and debatesthat provoked the problems of the Western Diaspora. Atheory of the political so widelyshared in the Greek World thatHerodotus¹⁸ held that the Persians, the most important Empire of his times, did not have apolitical existence, since in their form of gov-

 Rosaria Vignolo Munson, Telling Wonders: Ethnographic and Political Discourse in the Work of Herodotus (Ann Arbor,MI: UofMichigan P, ). 20 Pier Giuseppe Monateri ernment everything was decided in privatemeetingsamong the members of the inner circle of the Emperor. Hereitbecomes essential to conclude by investigating the literary aspect produced by the Polis-device and the experience of being aJew in aGreek city.Ithink that this situation can be captured using acitation from Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s TheGreat Gatsby:¹⁹

Iwanted to getout and walk eastwardtoward the park throughthe soft twilight,but each time Itried to go Ibecame entangled in some wild, strident argument which pulled me back, as if with ropes, into my chair.[…]Iwas within and without,simultaneouslyenchanted and repelled […].

Formethis existential condition of being “simultaneouslywithin and without” is something thatcan be perceivedthrough Paul’snarrative in his letters.The very fact of being “simultaneouslyenchanted and repelled” by ‘city’ institutions, and simultaneouslyaccepted and excluded by them. Adiasporic Jewwas within aPolis but without it,not allowed by his own lawtoparticipate in communal life, and at the same time he was within Israel, but without its space, its land, Eretz Israel, and, in away,also, at the sametime accepted, but abit excluded by the ruling elite of Jerusalem. This fact of living “within and without” is not amatter of being “captured in athreshold”,because no threshold is possible between cleanness and unclean- ness, as well as between public life acceptance and its refusal. AJew in the West- ern Diasporawas simplybothadisplaced subject,and someone having to develop the particularconsciousness of belongingtotwo irreconcilable legal and political spaces.Alife contended between twodiverging nomoi: a double bios. There is onlyjustone zoè,abare life, but this life is divided between two waysoflife,two bioi. In these terms Judaism and Hellenism werefollowing oppositewaysinde- fining every aspect of dailylife and the peculiar literary position of the Diaspora in the West was that of developing the consciousness of being simultaneously within and without.Ithink that this is the peculiar literaryposition which may have been at the root of the first diasporic Christian communities,mixing memory and desire: the frozen memory of being part of Israel, and the desire of be- comingfull members of the Polis. Akind of double binding which goes far beyond the concept of being simplydisplaced, or the idea of dissemination, since it becomes,and reveals, the nomic conflictatthe root of aparticular historical existence.

 F. Scott Fitzgerald, TheGreat Gatsby [](New York: Scribner, ): . Diaspora, the West and the Law 21

The keyfactor in adiasporic life is perhaps this simultaneity,the experience of contradictory boundsand ties. As Robert Cover has written, aNomos is apeculiar legallyorganized space, aworld with its own ontology,morethansimply its own rules, and, at the very end, we inhabit aNomos.²⁰ In adiasporic condition we inhabit simultaneouslydifferent Nomoi, we experience different ontologies. Paul, and manyotherJews with him, arrivedatamoment of decision,tosu- persede this condition,not thorough mere assimilation, but through aspecifical- ly diasporic attempt to adopt anew signification of this world’sontology,one that was not imposed either by the Greek elites or by the Jerusalem ruling class, and that produced something,that eventuallyhas fostered the emergence of anew theology. In away the concept of diasporahas to deal with the existenceofadouble ontology,produced by the coexistence of two different Laws, so thatdiaspora assumes the meaning of experiencing the juxtaposition of contrasting laws and their ontologies. If one assumesthis point of view diasporabecomes the emblem of living in aclash of norms, in aworld governedbycontrasts. Something that perhaps can explain Walter Benjamin’sfamous proposition that the exception maybecome the rule.²¹ Something which displays aparallel between diasporic life and the state of exception. That is why, Ibelieve, Christianity can be grasped as aproduct of Western Diaspora, operating,through its own literature, from Letters to Gospels, an ontological ruptureofthe ancientworld with its entities and spatiality, rendering the Greek Polis politicallyliveable for all the converters. Paul is keen to emphasize thatthe distinction between Greeks and Jews has passed. This passageiscrucial in his writingsfor the contention of his urgency that the shape of the actual world is passing. Things, entities are to flow away and anew ontology is about to be established, governing the world in atotally different wayand, aboveall, without anydistinction between Israel and the ‘nations;’ acontention thatissimultaneouslyaliberation, allowing manytoinhabit aGreek Nomos, and the end of Israel, which is achieved preciselythrough the end of the Law, and that of diaspora.

 Martha Minow,Michael Ryan,Austin Sarat,ed., Narrative, Violence, and the Law:The Essays of Robert Cover (Ann Arbor,MI: UofMichigan P, ).  Walter Benjamin, Über den Begriff der Geschichte: VIII.geschichtshistorischeThese ()in: Gesammelte Schriften unter Mitwirkungvon TheodorW.Adorno und Gershom Scholem, ed. Rolf Tiedemann, Hermann Schweppenhäuser.vols I–VII, suppl. I–III (in  vols) (Frankfurt a.M., –), vol. I/: . 22 Pier Giuseppe Monateri

Of course, the end of Israel is also simultaneouslythe end of the diaspora. Christianitysupersedesdiasporabyclosing its experience. The New Israel is open to everybody, Gentile or Jew, and has no precise land of reference, nor is it dominated by the Law, but shepherded by Love. The Loveofthe Lordisending the historicalexperience of the Diaspora, as it is blurring away anyspecial dis- tinctionofIsrael as such, towardauniversalism that is not simplyassimilation, because it pretends to convert all the pagans to aform of Religion which is the offspringofJudaism. In away all the world will become Israel, simultaneously with the end of the historical Israel; and indeed the Church will proclaim to be the New Israelinthe very fact of being asingle bodyeating the same bread and drinking the samewine, trying to establish, through the birth and affirmation of this body, anew spatiality of the ancient world: anew geographyofthe Nomos. RiccardoBaldissone TowardsaGrammar of the Multiverse

AGenealogical Reconsideration of Humans, Places and Diasporas

Tanakh], or Jewish ] נת “ ךWhen all the 72 (so goes the story¹)translatorsofthe Bible, decided to render with the same Greek neologism διασπορά [diaspora] five different Hebrew words,² they could not even imagine the tragic success to come of their creative translation. 22 centuries later, in 1991, the introductory article to the first issue of the journal Diaspora included in the semantic domain of the homonymous wordsuch terms as immigrant,expatriate, refugee, guest- worker,exile community,overseas community,ethnic community.³ Thearticle was meanttoprovide the readers with asort of prefacetothe new editorial enterprise, and in its closing paragraph, it peremptorilystated: “the chain of analogies thatonce joined the imageofthe safelyenveloped individual body(the site of unique personal identity) to the homogeneous territorial community (the site of national identity) is no longer plausible.”⁴ Idonot want to question the plausibilityofthis statement.Iwould rather use it as asymptom of our perception of the relation between humans and places.More precisely, Iwould like to construct this sentenceasaquasi-symptom,⁵ as Iwillmake it sayprobablymore than what its author intended to. Forsure,

 The story of the Greek translation of the Bible called the Septuagint is first attested in the second-century BCE letterofthe pseudo-Aristeas. The letter recalls how  translators took  days to produceaGreek version of the Bible at the request of KingPtolemyIIofEgypt.  The Seventy probablyderivedthe noun diaspora from the verb διασπείρω [diaspeirō], to scat- לּ ָג וּ ת terorspread about.The Greek word diaspora was later associated with the Hebrew term [ galuth], exile, which is still often misleadingly quoted as the original reference for the Greek translation.See Stéphane Dufoix, “Deconstructingand Reconstructing ‘Diaspora’:AStudyin Socio-Historical Semantics,” in Transnationalism: Diasporas and the Advent of aNew (Dis) order,ed. Eliezer BenRafael, Yitzhak Sternbergwith Judit Bokser Liwerant,Yosef Gorny(Leiden: Brill, ): –.  KhachigTölölyan, “The Nation-Stateand ItsOthers: In Lieu of aPreface,” Diaspora:AJournal of Transnational Studies . (): –, .  Tölolyan, “The Nation-Stateand ItsOthers,” .  Iproposed elsewhere aquasi-symptomatic hermeneutic approach, which would underlineour responsibility in the construction of the new problematic of which the textual material becomes asymptom, as aresultofour chosen hermeneutic strategy. See Riccardo Baldissone, “Sovereign- ty Forever: The Boundaries of Western Medieval and Modern ThoughtinaQuasi-Symptomatic ReadingofSchmitt’sDefinition of Sovereignty,” Polemos . (): –. 24 Riccardo Baldissone the metaphor of the bodyasasite that mirrors the biggersite of the communal place has along history in Western culture. The parallelism between the citizen and the city structures one of the found- ing textsofWestern thought,Plato’s Republic.⁶ The ideal government of both the individual and the community is entrusted by Platototheir highest faculty. In particular, he attributes to the λογιστικόν [logistikon]orrational soul in the head the control over the other two centres:the Homeric chest-soul θύμος [thy- mos], which Platorenames as θυμοειδές [thymoeides], and the επιθυμετικόν [ep- ithymetikon], the desirous soul set in the abdomen.⁷ These three levels of the Pla- tonic soul match the three classes of the Platonic ideal city,the δημιουργοί [dēmiourgoi], or producers,the φύλακες [phylakes]orsoldiers and the ἄρχοντες [archontes], or philosopher-kings,who are to rule over the previous twoones.⁸ Christian thinkers restatethe metaphorical mirroringofthe individual body and the bodyofthe community.Paulfirst defines the member of the community as amember of the bodyofChrist,⁹ and then he describes Christ as the head of the body, which is the congregation of the faithful.¹⁰ We maynotice that Paul’s metaphors put the emphasis on the individual, as it is the community of the faithful thatisrepresented as a(bigger) body. Later on, Augustine turns the earthlycity into apale and insufficient imageofthe city of god.¹¹ The association of the adjective ‘mystical’ with the bodyofthe Church emergesinthe twelfth-century writingsofPeter Lombard. Peter actuallyuses the Latin word caro,flesh, as ametonymyfor body.¹² He portraysthe Church as a caro mystica,amystical body, both in his theological commentaries and

 FollowingRosenstock-Huessy,wemay describe Plato’sindividual as a micropolis,asmall city, as compared to the macropolis,the big (and actual) city.See EugenRosenstock-Huessy, Lectures on Greek Philosophy [], in EugenRosenstock-Huessy, TheCollected WorksonDVD (Essex, VT:ArgoBooks, ).  Platon, Rep. .d.  As to the gender distribution of roles, because Platoacknowledgesthat natural capacities are distributed (διεσπαρμέναι, diesparmenai,aform of the same verb diaspeirō from which the Sev- enty were to derive the word diaspora)amonghuman beings,hedoes not denytoparticularly talented women the access to the roles of command. See Platon, Rep. .d.   Cor. .–.  Col. ..Asthe authenticity of the letter is disputed by manyscholars,the metaphorical shift of Christ from bodytohead could be justified by the change of author.  See Augustine, The City of God against the Pagans,trans. R.W. Dyson (Cambridge:Cambridge UP, ).  PatrologiaLatina,vol. , ; PatrologiaLatina,vol. , ; Petri Lombardi Senten- tiae,IV, d. ,c.,,ed. PP.Collegii S. Bonaventurae Ad Claras Aquas,vol. II: Liber III et IV, (Grottaferrata ), . Towards aGrammar of the Multiverse 25 in his collection of sentences thatistoremain the major theologytextbook until the sixteenth century. From the twelfth century on, not onlythe bodyofthe Church, to which the faithful belong as limbs, becomes amystical one: more important,the head of the bodyisidentifiedwith the Roman Pontiffasthe vicar of Christ.¹³ By analogy, also medieval kingsare depicted as the head of the mystical bodyoftheir kingdom.¹⁴ The fourteenth-century legal theorists Baldus even describes the city corporation as men (sic) assembled into one mystical body.¹⁵ Renaissance authorsrevive instead the classical double imagebyconstruct- ing the human bodyasareducedmirror imageofthe world. Forexample, Jean Bodin works out the well-being of boththe individual and the commonwealth preciselyasamicrocosm and amacrocosm, asmall and abig world, mirroring each other.¹⁶ On the contrary,one of the founders of modernpolitics,Thomas Hobbes,invents the modernstate by recovering the medievalmystical body, which he calls Leviathan, in good Biblical fashion.Onthe frontispieceofthe homonymous book, the Leviathan is depicted as ahugebody, which is composed of the multi- tude of the citizens’ bodies, and topped with the headofthe king.¹⁷ If we reconsider the initial quotation in the light of my previous brief genealogical sketch, we will notice thatwhilst the classicalanalogybetween the individual and the city linked two ordered multiplicities – the inner multiplicity of the soul and the outer multiplicityofthe city – both its Christian and modern recastings renderedthe communal term as ahomogeneous entity,first as amystical bodyand then as the undifferentiatedbodypolitic. Moreover,modern the-

 Though the absolute powerofthe pope is alreadyclaimed in the  Dictatus papae,the explicit definition of the pope as vicar head of the bodyofthe church appears in pope Boniface VIII’s  bull Unam Sanctam: “Therefore,ofthe one and onlyChurch thereisone bodyand one head, not twoheads likeamonster; that is, Christ and the Vicar of Christ,Peter and the successor of Peter.”  In the words of the fourteenth-century jurist Lucas de Penna: “The Princeisthe head of the realm,and the realm the bodyofthe Prince. Just as men arejoined together spiritually in the spiritual body, the head of which is Christ,soare men joined together morallyand politically in the respublica, which is abodythe head of which is the Prince.” Qtd. in: Ernst HartwigKant- orowicz, TheKing’sTwo Bodies:AStudy in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton, N.J.:Princeton UP, ): .  Baldus,adC...,fol.r.  Jean Bodin, De Republica Libri Sex [Six Books of the Commonwealth](Parisiis:Apud Iaco- bum Du-Puyssub signo Samaritanae, ): I.I.  Abraham Bosse created the etchingfor the book’sfamous frontispieceafter lengthydiscus- sion with Hobbes. See Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (London: printedfor Andrew Crooke, ). 26 Riccardo Baldissone orists even reduced the other term, namelythe individual, to an equallyhomo- geneous entity,which was endowed with univocalreason and aconscience.¹⁸ Though this reduction first took place in the texts of seventeenth-century natural philosopherssuch as Hobbes,Descartes and Leibniz,¹⁹ the modern isolated and self-consistent individual also appeared in legal and literary texts.On the one hand, legal texts translated the theological notion of freewill into the full responsibility of the individual subject, who could then be held accountable and punished for his (and even her)behaviour.Onthe other hand, literary characters,from Bunyan’sPilgrim²⁰ to Defoe’sRobinson,²¹ performed the uprooting of the modern individual from his context. The critique of this modernself-consistent individual slowlyemergedin philosophical texts. As avery shortsummary,wemay recall that the philosophical concept of the consistent self was challenged by Hume,²² fluidified, so to speak,byHegel,²³ refused by Stirner,²⁴ dissolvedbyMarx into the network of social relations,²⁵ and eventually mocked by Nietzsche.²⁶ And yet, it is in the liter-

 The last instantiation of Western modernuniversalism,namelythe human subject of the  Universal Declaration of Human Rights,isprecisely “endowed with reason and conscience” (art. ).  See René Descartes, Discourse on Method and the Meditations [], trans. F.E. Sutcliffe (London: Penguin, ); GottfriedWilhelm Leibniz, Monadology:And Other Philosophical Es- says[], ed. Paul Schrecker, trans. Anne Martin Schrecker,Paul Schrecker (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, ).  See John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’sProgress: From This WorldtoThat Which Is to ComeDelivered under the Similitude of aDream [](London: Lutterworth, ).  Daniel Defoe’snovel Robinson Crusoe was originallypublished in  with the rather explanatory title TheLife and StrangeSurprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York,Mariner: Wholived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on ShorebyShipwreck, wherein all the Menperished but himself.With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver’dby Pirates.  In the introduction to his Treatise of Human Nature, Hume sardonicallyremarks that human beings, “settingaside some metaphysicians […]are nothingbut abundle or collection of different perceptions,which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity,and areinaperpetual fluxand movement.” David Hume, ATreatise of Human Nature [–], ed. P. H. Nidditch, L. A. Selby-Bigge(Oxford: Clarendon P, nd ed. ), .  See GeorgWilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit [], ed. J. N. Findlay, trans. Arnold V. Miller (Oxford: Clarendon P, ).  See Max Stirner, TheEgo and Its Own [], ed. David Leopold, rev.trans. SteveBiyngton (Cambridge:Cambridge UP, ).  YoungMarx argues in his sixth thesis on Feuerbach that human nature “in seiner Wirklich- keit ist es das Ensemble der gesellschaftlichen Verhältnisse.” [in its reality is the ensemble of Towards aGrammar of the Multiverse 27 ary field that Dostoyevsky first gave expression to the inner multiplicityofthe self. Dostoyevsky depicts the endless dialogue between the various parts of the individual self and its resonancewithin other multiple selves.²⁷ Moreover,in Dostoyevsky’sliterary characters the acknowledgement of the inner otherness does not exclude the self, which, as it were, does coexistwith its other.More precisely, Bakhtin underlines that in each Dostoyevskian character coexist both яидругой [ya idrugoi],²⁸ the Iand another,which are in continuous communication. Moreover,inner and outer dialogues are intertwined, to the point of being sometimes indistinguishable. Thisrelative indistinction transcends the limits of the modern isolated and self-consistent individual. Following in Dostoyevsky’sfootsteps,Freud puts forth an alternative model to the modern self-identical self. He also emphasizes the necessity of an ongoing negotiation between its various psychological components.Nevertheless, as indicated by his personal motto “wo Es war,soll Ichwerden,”²⁹ whereIdwas, there Egoshall be, Freud’spluralization of the self does not go too far.Inparticular, Freud confines the multiplicities that refuse to convergetowards aunified will to the field of psychosis, which is apathological realm that exceeds the reach of psychoanalytical treatment.³⁰ Whilst from then on, more and more philosophical, psychological and literary texts engagewith human inner multiplicity,quite often they cannot escape the temptation to make this multiplicity convergetowards some kind of unity. This should not be surprising,ifweconsider,asItried to show,that such con- vergencewas somewhat prepared by Plato’shierarchical soul; thatitfound a human relations], in Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Werke,ed. Institut für Marxismus-Leninismus beim ZK der SED (Berlin: Dietz, ) :.  Forexample,Nietzsche [], writes in the Genealogy of Morals: “But thereisnosuch sub- stratum, thereisno‘being’ behind doing, working, becoming; ‘the doer’ is amere appanage to the action.” Friedrich Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals (New York: Boni and Liveright, ): .  Dostoyevsky first makesemerge the split self as aterrifying doppelgänger in Двойник [Dvoi- nik], TheDouble,which appears in print in .Inhis later novels he lets the various psychological components of the characters interact in apolyphonic dialogue, in the wordsofBakhtin.  Mikhail Bakhtin, “TowardaReworkingofthe Dostoyevsky Book,” in Problems of Dostoyev- sky’sPoetics,ed., trans.CarylEmerson (Minneapolis:Uof MinnesotaP,): –, .  Sigmund Freud, “New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis [],” in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological WorksofSigmund Freud,ed., trans. James Strachey (Lon- don: Hogarth P, ): :–, .  Despitehis various investigations and hypotheses on the aetiology of psychoses,Freudtell- ingly describes psychoanalysis’ understandingofpsychosis as “aglimpsebeyond the wall,” in “An Autobiographical Study[],” in TheStandardEdition of the Complete Psychological WorksofSigmund Freud,ed., trans. James Strachey (London: Hogarth P, ): :–, . 28 Riccardo Baldissone theological justification in Christian thought; thatitwas then construed in theory by earlymodern thinkers and it was eventuallyrealized in practice through the disciplinary procedures of mass societies,³¹ which spread in both worlds of colonizers and formerlycolonized.³² At this point,wemay set the notion of diaspora within such genealogical landscape. By striving to link personal identity with aplace, the very idea of di- asporaapparentlyundermines the de-contextualization of the modern individual. However,ifmygenealogical remarks holdtrue, in Western thought the human subject has always been construed as aterm of acouple, which included as its otherterm asocial entity,beitthe Greek city,the Christian community or the modern nation state. Hence, the displacement stigmatizedbythe claims of diasporas is aconfirmation of the traditional coupling, as it were, of small and big subjects. Rather thanquestioning the modern individual and state, diasporas instead bring out the role of athird entity,namelyplace, in the joint construction of individual and social identities. The crucial role playedinthis joint construction by aspecific place appears paradoxicallythrough the loss of this very place, as a resultofprocesses of displacement and dispersion. Hence, we maysay that diasporas point to the threefold solidarity between the identities of individuals, communities and places. Ialreadysketched avery rough genealogical account of the jointproduction of the identities of individual and collective subjects. Iwill now attempt to sup- plement this sketch with abrief narration of the Western production of place. In Western narrations, the notion of place overlaps with that one of space. Homer deploys the verb χωρέω [chōreō]³³ to describe amovement of withdrawal,

 Foucaultexplores at length the deployment of disciplinary procedures for “the orderingof human multiplicities.” See in particular Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish,trans.Alan Sher- idan (New York: Vintage, ).  The historical contingencyofcolonization universalized in practiceWestern concepts and frameworks that weresupposed to be universal in theory.Lateron, whilst on the one side political and culturaldecolonization processeshavebeen provincializingthe West,onthe other side neo-colonial globalization processes have been universalizingthe neoliberal approach, which is deeplyrooted in Western conceptual history.The cornerstones of neoliberal ideology,namelythe Individual and the Market,would be unthinkable outside of the entity-based theoretical framework that seventeenth-century natural philosophers inherited fromtwenty centuries of Western speculation. Hence,the relevanceofaradical reconsideration of the canonical history of West- ern thought goes wellbeyond the Western horizon.  See, e.g., Hom. Il. .; .; .. Towards aGrammar of the Multiverse 29 which makesroom for another.The (scarce) space left is namedwith the word χώρη [chōrē],³⁴ which also define a(presumablyreoccupied)place.³⁵ In the Theogony by Hesiod, who is the first Greek alphabetic writer,the notion of space takes shape as aprimordial generative character, χάος [chaos].³⁶ Though the English word ‘chaos’ is used since the late sixteenthcentury as the opposite of order,³⁷ Hesiod’sword chaos is the resultofthe nominalization of the action of gaping,which in the previous Homeric epic is rendered with the verb χαίνω [chainō].³⁸ Hence, the Hesiodean chaos is not the personification of an original condition of disorder,but it is rather achasm, awide-opened space. This use of the word chaos is still in place in the sixteenth century,when the English Catholic translators of the 1582 Rheims New Testament choose the Eng- lish borrowing ‘chaos’ to translate the Latin word chasma,which in turn twelve centuries before was used by Jerome to render the Greek word χάσμα [chasma], chasm,inLuke 16.26.³⁹ In the meantime, after Hesiod the Greek notion of space as achasmalsoin- forms Plato’srecasting of the Homeric word χώρη [chōrē], which in the Attic di- alect is spelled as χώρα [chōra]. The Platonic character Timaeus narratesinthe homonymous dialogue acosmogony where chōra plays the fundamental role of athird kind of reality,⁴⁰ alongside immutable and mutable things. Chōra is immutable too, but she⁴¹ also contains all born things.⁴² Timaeus calls her “the nurse of becoming.”⁴³ Aristotle moves another decisive step towards the definition of place by put- ting at work the powerful inquiring tool first used by Socrates, and then by Plato: in the Physics,Aristotle both formallyasks the fateful question “what is place?”⁴⁴

 See Hom. Il. .; .; ..  See Hom. Il. .; ..  Hesiod, Theogony, .  “They maketheir volumes no betterthan […]ahuge Chaos of foule disorder.” Stephen Gos- son, Theschoole of abuse, containing aplesaunt inuectiue against poets,pipers, plaiers, iesters and such likecaterpillers of acommonwelth [], (London: Shoberl, ): .  See, e.g., Hom. Il. ..  Full text available at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/r/rheims/.  Platon, Tim., a.  The Greek word chora is feminine.  Platon, Tim., b.  Platon, Tim., d–.  Aristotle, Phys. a.Aristotle uses the word τόπος [topos], which is alreadyattested in Herodotus. 30 Riccardo Baldissone andattemptstoformulate an answer alternative to Plato’s.⁴⁵ Giventhe shiftinHo- mericlanguage, it is notsurprisingthatAristotle begins hisenquiry by grounding theveryexistence of placeonthe experience of mutual replacement.⁴⁶ On the same basis, he takesfor granted that twobodiescannotoccupythe same place.⁴⁷ Aristotle carries on his search as an exploration of language, by considering the ways in which something is said to be in something else. He then acknowl- edgesthat place is onlyconceivable because of movement: it is because the whole universe is moving that we conceive of place as the container,soto speak,ofmoving bodies.⁴⁸ On the basis of this consideration, Aristotle moves away from the genetic and dynamic Platonic metaphor of the nurse, and he puts forth the static imageofanon-movable vessel.⁴⁹ Aristotle writes: “Hence the place of athing is the innermost motionless boundary of what contains it.”⁵⁰ It is worth recalling that in Aristotle’sstable cosmological order,thingsfit- tingly movetowards their proper place,⁵¹ wherethey also tend to remain.⁵² The epistemic notion of place as defined by Greek philosophersisnot the onlymajor classical contribution to the Western genealogyofplace. Akey influence is also the set of normative interventions thatinRoman lawregulate the dealing with non-Roman citizens, and which is referred to as ius gentium,the lawofpeoples. Ius gentium is the legal acknowledgment of the presenceofforeigners in republican Rome first,and then of the coexistenceofRoman legal jurisdiction with other legal systems in the territories of the Empire. Hence, in its first formu- lation ius gentium recognizes that foreigners carry with them, so to speak, not onlytheir territorial identitybut alsotheir law. By analogy, Roman legal scholars later build on this recognition the acknowledgement of the overlappingoflegal systems in the conquered territories outside Italy.⁵³ Playing with Aristotelian

 “Imention Plato,” Aristotle writes in Phys, b–, “because, while all hold placetobe something, he alone tried to say what it is.” TheComplete WorksofAristotle.The Revised Oxford Translation,ed. Jonathan Barnes,  vols (Princeton: Princeton UP, ), I, .  Aristotle, Phys. b–.  Aristotle, Phys. a–.  Aristotle, Phys. a–.See also b–.  Aristotle, Phys. a–.  “οστε το του περιέχοντος πέρας ακίνητον πρώτον, τουτ′ εστιν οτόπος”,Aristotle, Phys. a, Complete Works,I,.  Aristotle, Phys. b.  Aristotle, Phys. b.  From the beginningofthe first century BCE on, as aresultofthe social (from socii,allies) war,Roman citizenship is extended to the inhabitants of the Italic territories. Towards aGrammarofthe Multiverse 31 terms,accordingtoRoman jurisprudencetwo bodies of lawoccupy the same place. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, both Greek philosophicaland Roman legal written sources are lost to the West⁵⁴ for more thanhalf amillenni- um. When they both reappear,between the eleventh and the twelfth century,⁵⁵ they are incorporated within the Papal revolution’shegemonic attempt to face Western medieval fragmentation with the grandiose mission of Christian universalism.⁵⁶ In the fourteenth century the project of political hegemonyof the Church is shattered by the rise of the French nation-state: and yet, its theological, legal and political theoretical apparatuseskeep reproducing the new model of principled order,which eventuallyseventeenth-century natural philos- opherstransfuse in their construction of modernnature. The new Galilean physics rejects the Aristotelian doctrine of proper places, so that each object,ifnot hindered, would not movetowards its natural position (or staythere), but it would rather maintain its condition, be it of motion at a constant speed or rest.⁵⁷ Galileo thus puts in ideal motion Platonic and Eucli- dean ideal shapes,and he obtains an equallyideal model of moving objects. With regard to place, Descartesgoes even further,ashis geometrical formal- ization of space seizes,asitwere, the position of each point by determiningthe numerical values of its coordinates.But it is Newton who reducesmovement to an accidental feature of accidental bodies, by devising the mathematized notion of absolutespace. There is no doubtabout the theological derivation of this sort of ultimate container, as Newton himself describe it as the Sensory,orthe organ of sense of god.⁵⁸ In general, the seventeenth-century inventors of modernity dismiss the attempt to reach abalance between the local and the global dimension,which in the Renaissance could still produce the recalled mirroringofmicrocosm

 In this case, the term West onlydescribes the Christian-ruled part of Western Europe.  The textofthe Corpus Iuris Civilis,orBodyofCivil Law, that collects the Byzantine compi- lations of Roman Lawcodes, is recovered in toto about .The copies and the Latin translations of classical Greek philosophical works begin to reachChristian non-orthodoxEurope in mid-twelfth century.Willem de Moerbeketranslatesthe bulk of extant Aristoteliantexts only in the thirteenth century.  See EugenRosenstock-Huessy, Out of Revolution: Autobiography of Western Man (Berg: Ox- ford, ).  Whilst the principle of inertia is onlyexplicitlyformalised by Newton, it is alreadyimplied in Galileo’sphysical theory.  “[T]hereisaBeing incorporeal, living, intelligent,who in infinite Space,asitwere in his Sen- sory,sees the thingsthemselvesintimately.” Isaac Newton, Opticks (London: W. and J. Innys, ): . 32 Riccardo Baldissone and macrocosm. We maysay that in the theoretical constructions of earlymodern authors, space largely overpowers place. However,asStephen Toulmin suggests, the seventeenth-century natural philosophers’ rejection of the local dimension is part of amore general reaction to the trauma of religious wars, so thatthe new scientific universalism is expected to reconnect European intellectuals beyond the religious divide.⁵⁹ The alleged descriptive order of universal natural laws is then the counterpart of the prescriptive Westphalian order,inwhich place, that is the limited totality of the state, dictates the rules of subjectification.⁶⁰ This bipolar modernorder onlybegins to be openlyquestioned in the late twentieth century.Onthe one side, the risingscepticisms towards grand narratives, in the languageofLyotard,⁶¹ undermines the universalist ideological pole. On the other side, the various and even conflicting modes of transnationalization of the economic and political spheres challengethe (relative)autonomy of local arrangements, from village economies to nation states. Current reactions to the implosion of ideal modernities and to the shift of powers within and without national political agencies still oftencling to the pattern of totalbelongingasanalternative to the spreadingfragmentation. Andyet, on the horizon of my genealogicalsketch, the total identification with alocalized identity (beitindividual, sectarian, communitarian or national), and the total adherencetoaglobal perspective (beitreligious,cosmopolitan or ecologist) appear as the two faces of the same coin. The monistic construction of modern place onlyallows it to be filled with one physical body, one community,one bodypolitic, one god, one ecosystem, one universe. Against this genealogical background, Iwill now attempt to tame the complexity of the issues at stake by proposingasimple scheme, which is undoubt- edlyalso an oversimplifying one. And yet, my clear-cut depiction of two alternative ways of constructingdiasporas can show at once the limitations of understanding diasporas on the basisofthe notionofidentity,and the possibility to transcend it.

 See Stephen Toulmin, Cosmopolis: TheHidden Agenda of Modernity (New York: Free P, ). As the wars of religion replicateonabiggerscale the struggle that takes placewithin the faithful’sconscience,wemight welldefine them as clashes of subjectifications.  Well beforethe  peace of Westphalia, the  Augsburgprinciple cuius regio,eius re- ligio,or“whose realm, his religion,” establishes the priority of local politics as averitable geo- theological order.  See Jean-François Lyotard, ThePostmodernCondition: AReport on Knowledge,trans.Geoff Bennington, Brian Massumi(Manchester: Manchester UP, ). Towards aGrammar of the Multiverse 33

The first wayconceivesofdiasporas as anomalies in regard to athreefold distribution of individual, national and territorial identity. By making space for individuals and communities within this threefold distribution, the diasporic condition of individuals and communities would be supposed to become more temporary than permanent.Ofcourse, such aprocess of integration would also implysome kind of flexibilizationofthe modes of attribution of identities, which in turn would require some kind of adjustment of legal instruments and, more in general, of the narratives of identityconstruction. The alternative waywould instead consider diasporas as the inevitable and not exceptional resultofthe processes of production of identities. In turn,these processes would be deemed as part of specific social,political and economic strategies,sothat the system of individual, national and territorial identities would appear as an ongoing performative task rather than astate of fact.In other words, the simple, sole and stable identity of human beings,human collectivesand places would be understood as the eventual and temporary result of competingprocesses of identity construction, rather thanpreliminary conditions or,inphilosophical jargon, ontologies. Hence, bothspecific identities and the very notion of identity would be regarded as mere historicalcontingen- cies. Such aperspective would reopen the decision about the opportunitytocon- tinue repeatingthe operation of reductio ad unum,orreduction to one, of individual, collective and place identities. In this case, we could think to assess the cost of production of the identities of individuals, collectivesand places.And we mayevenrealize that we payadouble price: not onlythe terrifyingamount of dysfunctional minority leftovers, from prison and asylum inmates to diasporic subjects and victims of genocide, but also the no less dysfunctional majorities of individuated subjects.⁶² Does this second view implythe universal indictment of both the West and the Westernized world?The answer would be bothyes and no.We have in place a myriad of practicesthat alreadytranscend identity reductionism.For example, literarytexts not onlywereable to expose the construction of identitiesasanar- rowingdown of human multiplicities, but,atleast from Dostoyevskyon, they could also perform such multiplicities as inner and outer dialogical interactions. And also legal practices happen to overcome the stricturesoflegal procedures and to construct actual legal subjects as narrative paths, or existential trajecto-

 This is the bulk of the “deviant majority,” to put it in the words of the eponymous studyby the critical psychiatrist Basaglia. See FrancoBasaglia, Franca OngaroBasaglia, La maggioranza deviante (Torino:Einaudi, ). 34 Riccardo Baldissone ries, which go well beyond the bottleneck of the univocal reconstruction of a criminalevent. Nevertheless,these and othernon-reductionist practices are subjecttothe tremendous pressureofthe ubiquitous repetition of operations of construction of identities as uniformentities. These operations include Western languages’ formattingofrealities,which are constrained within the straitjacketofconceptu- al typologies.Bycontinuingtopose the Platonic question ‘what is?’ to the individual, the nation, place and, of course,identityitself, we surreptitiouslyrecon- struct the individual, the nation and place as something-that-is, and which thus can be captured with adefinition. In the face of this apparatus of capture that continuouslyemergesfrom the very words we use, we need theoretical tools thatcould help us to overstretch the Procrustean bed of identity.Literature can offer us extraordinarilyeffective narrative tools to construct subjects and places as trajectories and not as entities. Lawcould make use of these toolsbothinthe exercise of its openlyprescriptive role, as well as in the more general construction of human subjects by legal means. Diasporastudies could integrate these narrative and performative aspects of non-reductionist practices in the double construction of analyses and proposals about human displacements and dispersals. As an example of alternativestoidentity reductionism,Iwould consider here aseries of textsthat not onlymay be placed close to either side of the supposed boundary between literature and philosophy, but which mayalsobethought of as blurring this very boundary.Moreover,regardless of textual taxonomies, if we envisagephilosophical writing as the mise en scène of ideas, we maythink to borrow some narrative tools from philosophical performances too. Plato invents philosophyasweknow it by stagingvirtual theatrical performances in the pages of his dialogues. Though Platonic characters never entirely disappear behind the topics of their discussions, these very topics take centre stageasthe actual protagonists of the dialogues. The narrative priority of ideas is even enhanced by the elusive character of their definitions, which are always presupposed and (almost) never reached. Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals is both an alternative and an answer to Pla- tonic dialogues, as moralconcepts and their transformations are the main characters of the Nietzschean narrations.⁶³ In the Genealogy,Nietzsche operateson the Platonic model of adouble reversal, because each concept is traced genea-

 See Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality,ed. Keith Ansell-Pearson, trans. Carol Diethe (Cambridge:Cambridge UP, ). Towards aGrammarofthe Multiverse 35 logicallyasifithad ahuman ancestry,and it is turned from astable entity into a trajectory. More in general, Nietzsche seems to walk in the reverse direction of the Greek classicalpath thatled the icastic Homeric idiom towards alanguageofab- stractions. Péguyappears to embark on the same reversed trip, as he even dares to revive Greek allegoricalrepresentation in the person of Clio, the muse of history.⁶⁴ Throughout atext that defies classification, Péguylets the eponym deity undertake areflection on history thatliterallyturnsupside down the canonical approach to temporalization. Possibly drawingonBergson’sconstruction of possibilityasaretroactive projection onto the past,⁶⁵ Péguy’sClio contends that past occurrences repeat successive ones. In the perspective of substitutinganentity-based framework with acartographyofpaths, Clio’sidiosyncratic remarks are aprecious reminder that we always reconstruct past trajectories from theirfuture, thatis, our present. Whilst amuse can afford the hybris of monologue, in the Philosophical In- vestigations Wittgenstein more modestlyperforms the Platonic dialogue of psychē – the individuation principle – with herself,but he takes it in adecidedly non-Platonic direction.⁶⁶ Wittgenstein recovers analogyasapluralizing tool, so that each wordismultipliedinto the multiplicity of its uses. Forexample, whilst consideringthe word ‘game,’ Wittgenstein recalls that there is no meaning that is common to all the definitions of the various kinds of games.And yet, we keep using the word ‘game,’ because all its uses are linked through anetwork of similarities, which Wittgenstein likens to family resem- blances.⁶⁷ The familyresemblances that link the different usesofthe (morphologically) same wordmake this very wordturn into an expanding semantic constellation, which can no longer be constrained within asole conceptual identity.And yet, there are words, such as, for example, ‘immortal,’‘infinite’ and ‘absolute,’ which maybeclaimed to resist this pluralization, as their supposed univocality cannot be put to the test of human uses. JorgeLuis Borges bypasses this apparentlyinsurmountable obstacle through acts of literature, to sayitwith Derrida. Moreprecisely, Borges puts the words of absoluteness – which are the models on whose inhuman scale human identities

 See Charles Péguy, Clio,Dialogue de l’Histoireetdel’Âme Païenne (Paris:Gallimard, ).  See Henri Bergson, TheCreativeMind,trans. Mabelle L. Andison (New York: The Citadel P, ).  See LudwigWittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations,trans. Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe (New York: Macmillan, ).  Wittgenstein, PhilosopicalInvestigations,§§–. 36 Riccardo Baldissone have been long construed as insufficient copies – to the narrativetest of his wondrous stories.The practical implementation of absoluteness within the fictional world of Borgesian narrations produces odd effects on human lives. For example, immortality is shown as being practicallyunbearable,⁶⁸ and absolute power appears in the end as useless,⁶⁹ justlike absolutememoryand absolutely identical reproductions.⁷⁰ We mayargue that Borgesnarratively performs the Nietzschean celebration of the gift of mortality. However,this is never acelebration of mere human limitation, but rather of unlimited production. This unceasingproduction is ac- knowledgedbySimondon as the very fabric of individuation.⁷¹ Simondon indicts Aristotle for the codification of the teleological model of individual entitiesthatfocuses on the resultrather than the process of individuation. Simondon argues instead that individuation never stops, and individuals are never completelydetermined (or individuated), but they still always carry the residues of their pre-individual or natural stage. He defines this inexhaustible inner component with the Greek term apeiron,orindeterminate, which he recovers from atextual fragment of the pre-Platonic philosopher Anaximander. AccordingtoSimondon, the persistenceofsome residual apeiron within each individual would always allow her relation with other individuals as a call for afurther individuation, which thus would be at once atransindividual one. Following Nietzsche, Deleuze takes further Simondon’sderivative notion of individual identity by claiming the more general priority of differenceoveriden- tity.Inhis works with Guattari,⁷² this claim becomes an invitation to embrace our multiplicity,⁷³ and to replaceboththe notionand the practice of individual iden-

 See Jorge Luis Borges, “The Immortal,” in TheAleph and other Stories,trans. AndrewHurley (New York: Penguin, ): –.  See Borges, “The Writingofthe God,” in TheAleph and other Stories,trans. Andrew Hurley (New York: Penguin, ): –.  See Borges, “On Exactitude in Science,” in TheAleph and other Stories,trans.AndrewHurley (New York: Penguin, ): .  See Gilbert Simondon, L’individuation psychique et collective (Paris:Aubier, ).  See Gilles Deleuze,Félix Guattari, Anti-Œdipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia,trans. Robert Hurley,Mark Seem, Helen Lane (London: Continuum, ); Gilles Deleuze,Félix Guattari, AThousand Plateaus:Capitalism and Schizophrenia,trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis:Uof MinnesotaP,).  Deleuze in conversation with Foucault, in Michel Foucault,”Who speaks and acts?Itisal- ways amultiplicity,evenwithin the person whospeaks and acts,” in Language,Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essaysand Interviews,ed. Donald F. Bouchard, Simon Sherry,trans. Donald F. Bouchard (Ithaca: Cornell UP, ): . Towards aGrammarofthe Multiverse 37 tity with paths of becomingthat at once pluralize the self and transcend its boundaries. Foucault rethinks the individual subject in processualterms by exploring the social practices of assujettissement,that is, the construction of subjects as subjugated ones.⁷⁴ However,healso recovers from the classicalworld the more positive and proactive notion of subjectification as productive care of the self.⁷⁵ In bothcases, he emphasizes the processofconstruction of subjectivities, as opposed to the various ontologies of the subjectasan entity. The transindividual link claimed by Simondon is conceivedofbyStiegler as aprocess of transindividuation.⁷⁶ Moreover,this process not onlyconnects subjective paths but also engages with objects, which Stiegler constructs as prosthe- ses thatare indispensable tools for hominization.⁷⁷ Whilst Stiegler particularly focuses on produced objects as aresultofhuman technological activities, also places maybesimilarlyrecast bothasresult of human production and as indispensable prosthetic contributions to the processes of subjectification. Latour and Loweexplicitlyattempt to reconceive objectsastrajectories. In writing about apiece of art,they notice that it could not survive without repeated interventions, which include maintenanceand restoration activities. Hence, they claim that “apainting has alwaystobereproduced. [Italics in the original]”⁷⁸ Moreover,inorder to take account of the transformations of the object,they pro- pose to imagine it as “acatchment area, ariver along with its estuaries, its tributaries, its rapids,its meanders, and, of course, its hiddensources.”⁷⁹ This hydrological system would include boththe object of art and its history or,bor- rowingawordpopularized by anthropologists, its career.

 Cf. Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization:AHistoryofInsanity in the AgeofReason, trans. RichardHoward(London: Routledge, ); Michael Foucault, TheBirth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception,trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books, ); Michael Foucault, Discipline and Punish: TheBirth of the Prison (New York: PantheonBooks, ).  See Michel Foucault, TheHistoryofSexuality Volume :AnIntroduction,trans. Robert Hurley (London: Allen Lane, ).  See BernardStiegler, De la Misèresymbolique: Tome ,LaCatastrophe du sensible (Paris:Gal- ilée, ).  See BernardStiegler, Technics and Time, :The Fault of Epimetheus,trans.R.Beardsworth, G. Collins (Stanford: StanfordUP, ).  Arthur Lowe, Bruno Latour, “The migration of the aura,orhow to explorethe original through its facsimiles,” in Switching Codes,ed. T. Bartscherer,R.Coover (Chicago:Uof Chicago P, ): –, .  Lowe, Latour, “The migration of the aura,” . 38 Riccardo Baldissone

We maywell extend to places the imageofthe watershed, provided we do not simply use it as amore flexible representation of something thatisalready out-there, regardless of reproducing interventions. In this case, we should also be readytoacknowledge each place as amultiplicitynot onlyovertime, but also in relation to different subjectivation paths. Iargued for such a ‘subjectivating’ multiplication of objects, whilst attempt- ing to construct the trajectory of the tomb of Cyrus the Great in Pasargadae in the terms suggested by Latour and Lowe:

[W]e could reasonablysupposethat after the Islamic invasion, the tomb in the Morghab plain was at the same time adifferent object for different people. Iwould push further the expression of this difference,and Iwould arguethat for an amount of time that I am not able to quantify,two tombs, as it were, shared the same place. The first one was the tomb of Cyrus,according to those former subjects of the SassanidEmpirewho kept this attribution alive;the other one was the tomb of the Mother of Solomon, according to the Islamic invaders, and then to an ever-increasingnumber of Islamized Persians. The secondtomb was to completely replacethe first one, but the process was reversed in the course of the twentieth century,when the archaeological attribution of the tomb to Cyrus reproducedaduplicity of objects that probablyhas not yetcompletely disappeared.⁸⁰

If we applied similar considerations to aplace such as the city of Jerusalem, we would be confronted by aperturbing proliferation of places,according to the dif- galuth], the exile,ofthe Christian Via Sancti ] לּ ָג וּ ת ferent narrativesofthe Jewish Sepulchri,the waytothe holysepulchre, and of the Palestinian [Yawm an-Nakba], the dayofthe catastrophe, respectively. And yet, the apparentlyinconceivable co-presenceofatleast threeplaces in the same place would not be so disconcerting in the pluralist perspective of the Roman ius gentium,which, as previouslynoted, emergespreciselyfrom the co- presenceofamultiplicityofbodies of law. Of course, the Roman legal multiverse presupposes the imperial domination, and the Romandestruction of Jerusalem witnesses the ambiguous cohabitation of pluralism and hierarchical centraliza- tion. However,wemay recast the Roman model of legal pluralism accordingto the theoretical double shift,from entities to processes and from representation to production, which Iendeavored to show.Inthis case, we mayimagine for ius gentium an encompassing limit thatisdifferent from the imperial border.In-

 RiccardoBaldissone, “The Costs of Paradise: Temporalisations of Place in Pasargadae,” in WorldHeritage in Iran: Perspectives on Pasargadae,ed. Ali Mozaffari (London: Ashgate, ): –. Towards aGrammar of the Multiverse 39 stead of conceiving it as the Aristotelianpre-existing fixed boundary,wemay understand it as part of an ongoing task, namely the task of producing place as a shared place. This task would be more in line with Aristotle’sacknowledgement of the priority of movement (which Isuggested is derived from action-oriented Homeric Greek)than with his attempt at capturingmovement with an ultimategesture of representation. By constructingplace as aresult rather than aprecondition, we mayunderstand its limiting ability as the effect of an operation of closure. In this case, as Ipreviouslysuggested, we might well assess the costs of this operation of closure, which constructs the univocality of place. Andthough the costs of producing the univocal identity of Jerusalem exceed by far thoseofthe sole attribution of the area surrounding the tomb of Cyrus, we could easilydetect that in both cases similar procedures of exclusion are at work. If we now come back to my proposed scheme, we mayrealize thatifdiaspo- rasare conceivedofasanomalies in the distributionofthe identities of individuals, collectivesand places,they can onlybeaddressed through afairerand more inclusive redistribution of these identities. And yet, though inclusion is the logical opposite of exclusion, its practice either involves the assimilation to apre-existing common order or – as in the case of Romanlegal pluralism – the submission to ahigher and possiblybenign authority,which would grant identity niches. My proposed alternative wayofconstructing diasporas would instead consider them as the inevitable result of the processes of production of univocal identities. Hence, in order to properlyaddress diasporic conditions,wewould need to renouncethe Sisypheantaskofproducing simple, sole and stable identities for human beings, human collectivesand places. In this case, we might want to follow Simondon, and recast individuals as processes of individuation, which, as Stiegler suggests, are at the same time processes of transindividuation, because they onlyhappen in the relation with the others. This construction would turn both individual and collective identities into multiplicities (in the sense of Deleuze and Guattari), which are constantly undergoing processesofsubjectification (in the languageofFoucault). In turn, the construction of places as narrative trajectories would implytheir pluralization according not onlytotheir transformationsintime but alsotothe multiplicity of human perspectives. This is whyIwould argue, taking acue from 40 Riccardo Baldissone

William James,⁸¹ that we humans do not inhabit a cosmos,orasingle universe, but rather a polycosmos,oramultiverse. Such apluralization of place could allow us to address diasporasnot as the effect of the imbalance between the alleged scarcity of places and resources on the one side, and of the overabundance of peoples on the other,but as the missed acknowledgement,bothintheory and in practice,ofthe multiplicity of each human and place. This long due acknowledgement would not requireus to define aonce-for-all repartition of roles and places,but to engage in never- ending negotiations. Inasmuchasliterary narrations would help us imagine ourselves, our com- munitiesand our places in astate of becoming, such stories would help us to elude the formatting power of identities. In this case, the very proliferation of stories would challengeinpractice the paradigm of scarcity,which long justified the identity straitjacket. We have never stopped producing stories,but in moderntimes supposed rational criteria have turned their profusion into excess, and theirrichness into overgrowth. It is maybe time to accept the gift of abundance.

 See William James (October ), “Is Life Worth Living?,” International Journal of Ethics  (): . Jeanne Gaakeer Close Encountersofthe ‘Third’ Kind

[M]emory is an integral part of anysystem of justice,[…]itispreciselythe act of forgetting that makesitpossible for lawtobeapplied indiscriminately and thereforeunjustly.¹

1. Introduction

My starting point is the basicidea that the common bond of lawand literature is languageand thatlanguageisour wayofbeing in the world, i.e., our onlyway, too, to expressour humanity.² Since timesimmemorial this has been connected to power and autonomy. Recall the story of the tower of Babel that occurs after the Flood when Noah’sdescendants are the onlyones left on earth (and aren’t they diasporic creatures too?). In the Bible’sBook of Genesis, we read how the whole earth had one languageand one speech, i.e., people used the same words, and how the people decided to build atower and make aname for themselves, “lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:4,AV). God’sinterpretation of this human action is basedonfear of losing authority,because “now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do” (Genesis 11:6,AV). The divine reaction is to cause linguistic diaspora. God confuses the people’slanguageand, as aresult, preciselywhat they feared might happen, occurs.They are scattered abroad, – the literal meaning of the Greek root diasperein being to sow or to scatter – and the original relation between languageand the individual is destroyed. Viewed metaphorically, this earlyexample of diasporainspires me to investigate the topic of Lawand Literature’simportance for diasporadiscourse by means of an analysis of the concept of Humanität as developedbyJohann Gott- fried Herder (1744 – 1803)and to connect that to contemporary ideas about the value of literary-legal Bildung for (the topic of)our common humanity by asking whether the genre of the Bildungsroman is afeasible lens with which to view literary-legal representations of diaspora. If we keep in mind the current emphasis put on empathy, (self‐)reflection and education in humanisticstudies, aturn to relevant aspectsofthe history of ideas on how literatures function as binding

 Michael Blumenthal, “Poetic Justice, Legal Justice,” Legal Studies Forum .(): –, .  Or,asMartin Heideggersaid in his letter on humanism, “die Sprache [ist] das Haus des Seins” (Über den Humanismus [Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, ]: ). 42 Jeanne Gaakeer agents within and without diaspora, in my view at least,can also help to shed a new light on the question how to accomplish the aim of finding a third that can give form to the bond of law, literatureand diasporaand, at the same time, it can illuminatethe ongoing importance of the meta-level discussion on the very idea of interdisciplinarity itself.³ Formethodological as well as epistemological reasons, my suggestion would be to try and think of interdisciplinarity itself as the result of adiasporic movement.That is to say, whynot applythe idea of diasporafiguratively to think about the nineteenth-century differentiation of disciplines, or Ausdifferenzier- ung? This processhas resulted in autonomous, academic disciplines, and, also as far as the subsequent development of apositivistic approach to lawisconcerned, in the idea that the autarchyofthe discipline is aprecondition for the objectivity of its results. This differentiation maywellbelooked upon as a form of diasporawhen we recall the unity of lawand humanities until the eighteenth century and the subsequent developmentofsociology, economyand anthropology that occurred when scholars trained as lawyers, with Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim as well-known examples, began to leave the mother discipline of law. Or,evenmore provocativelyperhaps,wemay turn the argument up- side down and think about the reaction to the very idea of autonomous disciplines since the 1970sinthe form of various Law and … – movements as diasporic themselves, paradoxicallyperhaps giventheir return to the ideaof unity,but feasible from another point of view,ifwethink of them as driven away from the safety of the monodisciplinary methodologies of the disciplines they originallycame from, in the case of Law andLiterature,from the safety of doctrinal black letterlaw.Viewed this way, what can the Law ands as diasporic phenomena teach us? These topics are acute. On the one hand, because the function of humanism as constitutive of friendship between people across borders,literallyand metaphorically,iscontested for reasons as varied as aloss of faith in the Grand Nar- rativesofthe Western Tradition, as Lyotard alreadyput it in his 1979 analysis of the postmodern condition, and technological developments in the field of com-

 Iaminspired here by Homi K. Bhabha’sview that culturalidentity cannot be understood simplyasasynthesisoftwo original sourcesbut rather as anew form constructedinacontra- dictory thirdspacethat destroysany “hierarchical claims to the inherent originality or ‘purity’ of cultures” (TheLocation of Culture [London: Routledge, ]: )and, as far as the perspective of Law and Literature is concerned, by James BoydWhite’sview on interdisciplinarity as aform of translation and integration, i.e. the effort to put twothingstogether with the hope to make somethingnew with ameaningofits own (Justice as Translation [Chicago:Uof Chicago P, ]: ). Close Encountersofthe ‘Third’ Kind 43 munication, with new possibilitiesfor the creation of identity and social cohesion in diasporic situations.⁴ Whereas,onthe other hand,fields such as Law and Literature and/or Law and Humanities stronglyemphasize the value of literature for other disciplines, lawobviouslyincluded, by meansofafocus bothon the edifying function of literary Bildung,and on language, generally, in the form of narrative.That is to say, as far as the latter is concerned, the focus is on the ontological view proposed by James Boyd White: ⁵

One fundamental characteristic of human life is that we all tell stories, all the time, about ourselvesand others,both in the lawand out of it.The need to tell one’sstory so that it will makesense to oneself and others maybeinfact the deepest need of that part of our nature that marks us as human beings,asthe kind of animal that seeks for meaning.

At the same time,there is the epistemological perspective proffered by Jerome Bruner, that “[…]narrative is alsoour simplest mode of imposing amoral structure on experience” so that “aprincipal function of narrative is to explore alternative versions of the human condition, ‘possibleworlds’ as it were,” with as a resultofour going back and forth between fiction and the worldwefind our- selvesin, that we can gain abetter understanding of our ownexperiences and learn to empathize with other people’sexperiencesaswell.⁶ Such counterfactual engagement is importantfor our ethical development.⁷ And, put more broadly, it is closelyconnected to the political aspect of the educative function of culturefor the development of democracy as found in ancient Greeceinthe idea that at- tendanceattheatrical performances of the tragediestriggers the imagination to accept the worldpresented before us so that we can not onlylearn to empathize with others, but also to reflect on theirand our ownexperiencesasavital

 Peter Sloterdijk, Regeln fürden Menschenpark: Ein Antwortschreiben zu Heideggers Brief über den Humanismus (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, ): , ;Jean-François Lyotard, ThePost- modern Condition: AReport on Knowledge,trans. Geoff Bennington, Brian Massumi(Minneapo- lis,MN: UofMinnesotaP,).  James BoydWhite, Heracles’ Bow (Madison,WI: UofWisconsin P, ): .  Jerome Bruner, “The Reality of Fiction,” McGill Journal of Legal Education . (): – , .  Forthe counterfactual aspect,see JürgenHabermas, “Philosophyand ScienceasLiterature?,” in Postmetaphysical Thinking:Philosophical Essays,ed. JürgenHabermas,trans. William Mark Hohengarten (Cambridge,MA: MITP,): –, ; “Aliterary textismarkedbythe fact that it does not comeforth with the claim that it documents an occurrence in the world; nonetheless,itdoes want to drawthe reader into the spell of an imagined occurrence step by step,until he follows the narrated events as if they were real.” On the ethical aspect,see Steven L. Winter, “Law, Culture and Humility” in Law and the Humanities: An Introduction,ed. Austin Sarat,Matthew Anderson,CathrineO.Frank (Cambridge:Cambridge UP, ): –. 44 Jeanne Gaakeer element of our shared, peaceful co-existenceinthe polis. This is important, whether or not we think of diasporaasachallengetothe nation state or in terms of the formation of anew community,imagined or real.The playthat comes to my mind here in relation to the subject of diaspora,isEuripides’ The Trojan Women. Relatedinalater ageisThomas Paine’scomparison in Rights of Man (1791) of the aims of the republic of letters and thoseofthe best form of government: to bring forth the best literary works and the best law.⁸ At the same time, to strike afair balance between an idealistic and amorepragmatic approach, we should recognize as Elaine Scarry asks us to, “[…]the severe limits of imaginative accomplishment” because “[t]he human capacity to injureother people has always been much greater than its ability to imagine other people” and, arguably, in the end the juridical-political litmus test of the imagination is whether we are prepared to act on it and changethe law.⁹ Allofthe abovemat- ters,Iwould claim, when we seek ahumanisticapproach to the phenomenon of diasporabroadlyconceived, it being acontainer concept with dispersal and dislocation of people(s)asits coremeaning, the sense in which Iuse it here.

2. “Tisall in pieces, allcoherencegone”¹⁰

JohannGottfried Herder’sthoughtand its possiblecontribution to aliterary-legal perspective on diasporadiscourse can onlybefruitfullyinvestigatedifwetake into consideration the rationalist quest for certainty of his immediate predecessors such as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Ashorthistoric recapitulation of the prelude of modernity is thereforeinorder,toask which forces were at work at decisive moments in European history,i.e., what the ideas werethat moved Europe forward and what the accompanying constitutive narrativeswere.¹¹ Suf- fice it to say, first,that the Renaissance replaced the medieval emphasis on tradition and authority by the spirit of tolerance especiallyfrom areligious view-

 Thomas Paine, Rights of Man (Harmondsworth: Penguin, ): ;See also, morerecently, Terry Eagleton, TheEvent of Literature (New Haven, London: Yale UP, ): , “exhibitingthe complexities,ambivalence,and fragility of human relations is by no means just a ‘literary’ purpose, if by this is meant one confined to that realm.”  Elaine Scarry, “The Difficulty of ImaginingOther People,” in Martha C. Nussbaum et al., For LoveofCountry: Debating the Limits of Patriotism, with respondents,ed. Joshua Cohen (Boston: BeaconP,): –, –.  John Donne, “An Anatomyofthe World” [], in John Donne: TheMajorWorks,ed. John Carey(Oxford: OxfordUP, ): –, .  Peter Sloterdijk, Falls Europa erwacht (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, ): . Close Encountersofthe ‘Third’ Kind 45 point to which the 1598 Edict of Nantes that granted French Protestants certain civil rights bears testimony,¹² by experimental curiosity and trust in what man could accomplish,i.e., the idea that manisthe measure of all things. The Ren- aissance world wasone of complexity and diversity accepted as inextricably bound up with the human condition. The period after,roughly,1580,however, was one of social and political instability (and diaspora) as aresultofwarfare, such as the Dutch Eighty Years’ WarofIndependence against the Spanish (1568– 1648), the Anglo-Spanish conflicts between 1585and 1604,and the Thirty Years’ Warfought on Germangrounds (1618–1648).¹³ The Peace of Westphalia, signed in Münsterand Osnabrück in 1648, marked the onset of anew erainwhich, as a reaction, the desire for stability and order became prominent.Adesire for unity and certainty rather than diversitybegan to characterize the period.¹⁴ The treaty formedthe basis for the developmentofaEuropean system of nation-states that continued to exist well into the twentieth century. In science, the quest for certaintystarted with the elaborationofFrancis Ba- con’sempirical methodology, and René Descartes’ rationalism basedonthe method of deduction, the duality of mind and matterand the principle of fundamental doubt as expressed in his Cogito,ergosum in the 1637 Discourse on Meth- od. It ended in amechanistic worldview that put everythinginthe perspective of causal relations,the dreams of which Toulmin describes as those of auniform method aimed at universal application, aperfect languageasthe ultimaterepre- sentation of objective reality,and aunitary system of nature.¹⁵ Cultural and other diversities werethoughtofasinteresting onlyinsofar they elucidated universal principles. What Cartesian rationalism meant for the natural sciences was extended to ethics acentury laterbyImmanuel Kant (1724–1804) in the abstract categorical imperative as the guideline for human action. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) elaborated on the idea of unity to prevent war and dissension by means of auniformlanguage, i.e., shared meaning on the plane of linguistics. Leibniz was obsessed by the ideal of the charac-

 It should at oncebenotedthat religious tolerancedid not extend to Jews whowere expelled from Spain in  and from Portugal in .And Frenchtolerancewas short-livedifwenote the diaspora of FrenchHuguenots after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in .  Cf BertoltBrecht’s  play Mutter Courage and her Children set in the Thirty Years’ War. The English internal strife culminating in the trial and beheadingofthe sovereign, Charles I, in  of course also contributed to the unrest.  Forabrilliant treatment of the modernist ideal of unity,see Stephen Toulmin, Cosmopolis: TheHidden Agenda of Modernity (New York: The Free P, ), the title referring to the ancient ideal of harmonyonthe combined basis of the natural order of the cosmos and the social order of the polis destroyed at the dawn of modernity.  Stephen Toulmin, Return to Reason (Cambridge,MA: HarvardUP, ): –. 46 Jeanne Gaakeer teristicauniversalis,auniversal system of characters not onlyfor different peoples to share and communicateby, but especiallyasaneutral medium to convey the resultsofsensoryperceptions and rational thought.¹⁶ The Leibnizian design failed because it was logicallyimpossible: apeople’slanguagecannot be disso- ciated from its wayoflife and what is more, languageitself as it wereprovides the categories with which we think and perceive,soreciprocity rather than linguistic transparencyisthe keyword. Whatculminatedphilosophicallyinthe twentieth century in the late Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations (whereas his picturetheory of meaning in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)was still stronglyinfluenced by Leibnizian ideal of correspondence between word and world) and empiricallyinthe Sapir/Whorf-hypothesis, was alreadypresaged by Johann Gottfried Herder. The falling to pieces of the cosmopolis and subsequent rise of dichotomies such as mind versus matter, and nature versus culture, led to adualistic worldview that affected lawand legal theory as well.¹⁷ Thereception of Roman law throughout continental Europe from the rediscovery of the Corpus Iuris Civilis from the eleventh century onward was agradual one, in which local lawbecame permeated by this iuscommune as the dominant force, also when it cametointer- preting localcustomarylaw.Roman law, in short,epitomized thelaw held in com- monbecause of itsgenerallyaccepted claimfor legitimacy and because it formed the basis for thesubsequentdevelopment of specificareas of law.¹⁸ Afterthe legal humanist philology of thesixteenth century,followingDesiderius Erasmus (1469– 1536)and Thomas More(1477–1535), hadalready advocatedareturntothesources (inErasmus’ words, Ad fontes)ofthe Corpus Iuris Civilis,ratherthan adding to the text as the glossatori and post-glossatori of theprevious centurieshad done,and as aresulthad questioned its claim of universalapplicability,seventeenth-century

 “The general tool for investigation was to include auniversal languagefor spoken and written communication, another languageofsymbols for scientific analysisand synthesis (the universal characteristic), acalculus for using them in discovery and analysis,and auniversal encyclopedia based on this characteristic and logic,” Leroy E. Loemker, G.W. Leibniz: Philo- sophical Papers and Letters (Dordrecht, Boston: D. Reidel Publishing, ): .  John M. Coetzee, DiaryofaBad Year (New York: Viking, ): . “If anyone in the picture is naïve, it is the person whoelevates the operating rules of Western scienceinto epistemological axioms,arguing that whatcannot be demonstrated scientificallytobetrue (or,touse the more timid word used by science, valid)cannot be true (valid), not just by the standardoftruth (val- idity) used by practitioners of sciencebut by anystandardthat counts.”  “Diese Rechtswissenschaft war nicht nur europäisch in ihrem Geltungsbereich, sie war auch universal ihremGegenstand nach. Alle Materien, vomStaatsrecht zum Privatrecht, vomSeerecht zum Strafrecht,fanden in dieser Rechtswissenschaft ihre Grundlage.” Helmut Coing, Die ur- sprünglicheEinheit der europäischen Rechtswissenschaft (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, ): . Close Encounters of the ‘Third’ Kind 47 legal theorists responded to theperiod’sinstability by emphasizing the human in- tellect or rectaratio. This lead to thedevelopment of rational naturallaw initiated by theDutch scholar Hugo Grotius (1583 – 1645)asaresponsetointernationalwar and strife,for example in his De iure belli ac pacis (1625).InGermany,SamuelPu- fendorf (1632– 1694) andChristian Wolff (1679 – 1754) followedsuit andbuiltalegal system moregeometrico,i.e., by means of adeductive method as propagated by the natural sciences, andimplemented alreadyinEngland by Thomas Hobbes (1588– 1679) in his Leviathan (1651) with thesocial-contract theory of sovereignty. The view of lawbased on human reason contributed to the Enlightenment ideal of rationallaw in the second half of the eighteenth centuryand, subsequently, to the idea of lawasasystem of codified rules and the concept of democracy under the rule of law. Roman lawfaded into the background as the ratio scripta of Europe and became obsolete with the rise and consolidation of European nation-states which lead to arapid growth of interest in national legal systems at the end of the eighteenthcentury.With it came the codifications of national positive law, such as the French Napoleonic Code Civil (1804) and the Austrian codification of 1812.Thisdevelopment was accompanied by the notion originating in Montesquieu’s TheSpirit of the Laws that the judge is la bouche de la loi,the literal spokesperson who tells us what the lawgiver intends,atleast in the interpretation that positivist thinkers gave to it.Onthe positivisticview,law and justicecoincide. The (Hobbesian-Leibnizian) languageview behind this is that the instrument of languagecan adequatelyfulfil its task of objectively and comprehensively describingthe world as it trulyis.¹⁹ OnlyinPrussia did Roman lawsurvive abit longer,but there it derailed into formalism. In his fierce struggle against codification Friedrich Carl vonSavigny (1779 –1861) posited the true legislator in the spirit of the people, the Volksgeist. On the view that its developmentcould be traced throughout the ages, the study of Romanlaw wasdeemed essential for the very reason that this lawitself had developedfrom the very sameconsciousness of the people. Or,turned the other wayaround, German lawwas the naturalsynthesis of Roman law. Paradoxically, vonSavignyand his followers of the Historical School then used Roman law, more specificallythe Digests or Pandectae,tobuild astrict system of legal concepts of akind totallyunknown to original Roman lawitself, case-based as it was. This Pandektenwissenschaft resulted in adeductive,formalistjurisprudence

 The simultaneous existenceofavariety of types of legal systems along the lines of nationhood is also alegacy of Hobbes giventhe superiority attached to the state as the sole legislator, i.e., when it comes to the very creation of lawassuch. 48 Jeanne Gaakeer of concepts, the Begriffsjurisprudenz,devoid of anyethical or social notion.²⁰ So much is clear,the general Roman law-based view of lawwas forced to give up its territory to the studyofnational jurisdictions and the new field of comparative law.

3. Humanus, Humanität,Humanity: Johann Gottfried Herder

VonSavigny’sthesis that the root of lawisto be found in the people builds on Herder’sviews on the organic relation between languageand culture. This is not onlyinteresting for the topic of nationality and diaspora,but alsofor recent developments in interdisciplinary legal studies such as the renewed interest in the relation of lawtocultureinLaw and PopularCulture and, closelyconnected to this, for the history of ideas of the differentiation of law. As farasthe latter is concerned, it should be noted that the process of the late eighteenth-century differentiation of knowledge into separate academic disciplines and its effect on law in the nineteenth century in the form of an external differentiation resulting in the new disciplines of economics,anthropologyand sociology, found its twentieth-century counterreaction with the development of interdisciplinary fields such as sociologyoflaw and legal anthropology.The contemporary trend to rethink the bond of lawand culture(be it highcultureorpopularculture) more broadly, however,again movesbeyond current sociological and anthropological issues and harks back to earlyviews on the cultural rootedness of lawand lan- guageasfound in Herder.Thisisimportant to note, if onlybecause the external differentiation of lawresulted in the development of separatescholarlycommun- ities each with their own disciplinary cultureinthe sense of conceptualand professional languages andframeworks,methodologies and values,that is to sayacog- nitive andintellectual diasporathat contemporary interdisciplinary fields now attempt to overcome when they aimatdevelopingathirdwithalanguage of its own.

 Fortunately, Rudolf vonJhering(–), the great theorist of this jurisprudenceofcon- cepts (as elaboratedupon in his Der Geist des Römischen Rechts auf den verschiedenen Stufen seiner Entwicklung,  vols.[Leipzig: Breitkopfund Härtel, –]), eventuallyrecognized its dangers. He then rejected the idea that the Volksgeist directed the development of lawand designed amoresociological jurisprudenceonthe basis of the interests of individualpersons in society,the so-called Interessenjurisprudenz (in Rudolf vonJhering, Der Zweck im Recht,  vol., (Leipzig:Breitkopf und Härtel, –). Close Encountersofthe ‘Third’ Kind 49

Onward to Herder then. His own Bildung significantlystarted in Königs- berg.²¹ He went there to studymedicine but he also attendedlecturesbyImma- nuel Kant whom he later praised in the Briefe zurBeförderung der Humanität,but of whose Enlightenment stance he was also critical. In Königsbergheread Milton and Shakespearetogetherwith the Enlightenment critic Johann Georg Hamann. In 1764 he went to Riga to teach. Around 1770 he befriended Goethe, and one of the topics of theiralmostdailyconversations was the immaturity of Germanlit- erature as they perceivedit. Herder by then had alreadyfulminated, albeit anon- ymously, in Fragmente über die neuere deutsche Literatur (1766 – 1767)against the lack of originality of German literature, the cause of which he took to be the Ro- manist influencepervasive in German society.Soitshould come as no surprise that he dedicated himself to the task of setting thingsright as far as language and literaturewereconcerned. Demandingthe right to speak about his language, nation and times as he deems fit,ashewrites in the Introduction,²² Herder claims thatone cannot separate apeople’sliterature from their language, and that languageisnot amere instrument but formative of thought itself; it is astorehouse, also, of what can be said, and of what has been said, i.e., ahistoric sourceand acharacteristic of a nation, a Volk in Herder’sterminology, meaning apeople with ashared language and culture.²³ This is especiallypertinent if in literary-legal terms we think of Benjamin Cardozo’sviewonthe unity of form and content in writing; in short, the idea that the what and the how of anytext are intimatelyconnected.²⁴ What is more, Herder immediatelyturns to the cognitive aspect of language when he writes of the impossibilityofa100 percent correspondencebetween languageand thought and critically engageswith the concept of translation,

 Forbiographical informationonHerder IdrawonEverard Jean François Smits, Herder’sHu- maniteitsphilosophie (Assen: VanGorcum and Co. N.V., ).  References aretothe second edition of the Fragmente in Johann Gottfried Herder, “Die Sprache überhaut,” in Werke. Herderund der Sturm und Drang –,ed. Wolfgang Pross(München: Carl Hanser Verlag, ): :–.  Herder, “Sprache,” , “Nicht als Werkzeugder Literatur allein muss man die Sprache an- sehen; sondern auch als Behältnis und Inbegriff; ja garals eine Form, nach welcher sich die Wissenschaften gestalten,” and, , “Nunist aber die Sprache mehr als Werkzeug: sie ist gleich- sam Behältnis und Inhaltder Literatur.” See also Robert E. Norton, Herder’sAesthetics and the European Enlightenment (Ithaca, NY,London: Cornell UP, ): ,who translates “Behältnis und Inhaltder Literatur” as “its contents and quintessence.”  Benjamin N. Cardozo, “Lawand Literature,” Yale Review (): –.The point is elaborated by RichardWeisberg, Poethics and Other Strategies of Law and Literature (New York: Co- lumbia UP, ):  and passim. 50 Jeanne Gaakeer comparable to the one that James Boyd White discussed for literary-legal studies in Justice as Translation.²⁵ In one breath, Herder points to the importance of semiotics to decipher the human soul behind its linguistic utterancesand offers the interdisciplinary and comparative argument,both diachronicallyand synchronically, thattobe able to understand languageasthe sourceofknowledge aresearcher has to combine philosophy, history and philologyaswellasspeak foreign languages to be trulyable to judge his own.²⁶ Thus, to Herder,reciprocity characterizes the relation between languageand thought: languagegives form to human knowledge because we think in language, and the limits of languageare the limits of what can be said, or as Wittgenstein later defined it,the limits of my world.²⁷

 Herder, “Sprache,” , “Man trotze meiner Behauptung, und übersetze Homer in das Hollän- dische, ohne ihn zu travestieren” and “Sollte man nicht in jedem Gebiet der Wissenschaften Ge- danken und Schriften haben, die für diese und jene Sprache durchaus unübersetzbar sind?”, and, , “die Form der Wissenschaften, nicht bloss in welcher,sondern auch nach welcher sich die Gedanken gestalten: wo in allen Teilen der Literatur GedankeamAusdrukke[sic] klebt,und sich nach demselben bildet.” James B. Whitepointstothe fact that anytranslation causes modification of theoriginalinmorethanone way. First,there is thegiven that areduction of meaningtakes place whenever thetranslator choosesthe meaninghewilluse from therange of possibilitiesoffered by theoriginal. Secondly,there is theideaofmeaning as culture-specific, a pointforcefullybrought home by White’sexample: “TheGerman ‘Wald’ is differentfromthe Eng- lish ‘forest,’ or theAmerican ‘woods’,not only linguistically butphysically: thetrees aredifferent.” (White, Justice, )  Herder, “Sprache,” , “Allein die Stelle eines solchen Sprachforschers ist freilich schwerzu besetzen,weil in sie ein Mann vondrei Köpfen gehört,der Philosophie und Geschichteund Phi- lologie verbinde – der als FremdlingVölker und Nationen durchwandert, und fremde Zungen und Sprachen gelernt hätte, um über die seinige klugzureden[…].”, . “Alsdenn würde man erst einzelne Schriftsteller characterisieren können, dass ihr Bild in der Geschichteder Wissenschaften lebte:alsdenn erst Schriftsteller verschiedner Nationen gegen einanderstellen können, um sie zu vergleichen […]alsdenn erst würde man ein Feld der Liter- atur ausdem andern kennen […].” Cf. Stephen Greenblatt whowrites, “Iamnot at all surethat we have made much conceptual progress beyond Francis Bacon whonotes, in the expanded Latin version of TheAdvancement of Learning,that ‘the History of Literature is wanting’. ” That is to say, Bacon, givenhis epistemological project, “appears to envisage acomparative study,” so the studyofliteraturemust be, “[…]cross-cultural; thereisnothingtobegained by stayingwithin one’sown national boundaries because aculture’sfitness for aparticular discursive practicecan onlybegrasped by settingitagainst another’s.” Stephen Greenblatt, “What is the History of Literature?,” Critical Inquiry 23 (1997): 460 –481,470 [footnote omitted].  Herder, “Sprache,” : “Wirdenken in der Sprache” and “Jede Nation spricht also, nach dem sie denkt,und denkt,nach dem sie spricht.” Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Phil- osophicus,Logisch philosophische Abhandlung (Frankfurt/Main:Suhrkamp, ): proposition .. Close Encounters of the ‘Third’ Kind 51

The same applies to literature.²⁸ In view of the topic of diaspora, it is therefore essentialtonote that Herder consistentlyemphasizes the idea of languageas a“crucial determinant of culturalidentity.”²⁹ No people should diminish its own languageand cultureinfavour of foreign elements, literallyand figuratively, because in the end we are all αυτοχϑονες.³⁰ In his 1770 Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache Herder offered amore systematic treatment but his coreargument remains the same.³¹ He clearlydis- tances himself from the Enlightenmentview on the relation between language and reality,between the wordand the idea it aims to express,asfound in Hob- bes’s Leviathan and Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding.³² That is, that languageisonlyavehicle for the communication of our thoughts to others, the adequatiorei et intellectus,the ideaoffullcorrespondence betweenthe thing andits reproductioninlanguage, thescholasticpretencethatremains difficult to suppress,ifweconsiderthe continueddominance of Enlightenmentmethodo- logical individualismin, forexample,strands of contemporary Lawand Economics.³³ Herder’sconstitutive view on languagetakes its leave of the Leibni- zian prioritizing of human cognition, i.e., that languageisonlyamirror of thought. To Herder,the births of languageand thought coincide, and they form the basis for human reason and culture. Hisepistemology is anthropological: to be able to know is ahuman characteristic, and ontologicallyhuman being as being is prior to thought. Isaiah Berlin in his seminal studyonVico and Herder pointed to the impli- cationsofthis view.Atthe level of human co-existence,or“expressionism,” i.e. “the doctrine that human activity in general, and art in particular, expressthe entire personality of the individual or the group, and are intelligible onlyto

 Herder, “Sprache,” : “Die Literatur wuchs in der Sprache, und die Sprache in der Litera- tur.”  Sonia Sikka, Herder on Humanity and Cultural Difference: Enlightened Relativism (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, ): .  Herder, “Sprache, “ , ”Können wir uns also nicht für αυτοχϑονες ausgeben, die auseige- nem Grund und Boden hervorgewachsen[…]sind […]?”  Johann Gottfried vonHerder, Sämtliche Werke,, ed. BernhardL.Suphan, vols.  (Berlin: Weidman, ). See Norton, Herder’sAesthetics, ,for the contextthat occasioned Herder’s Abhandlung,viz. the Berlin academy’squestion for the prize contest of  on the subject of whether or not people left to their own faculties would be able to invent languageand, if so, how?  Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan,(London: J. M. Dent and Sons,Everyman’sLibrary, ); John Locke, Essay concerning Human Understanding,ed. RogerWoolhouse(Harmondsworth: Pen- guin, ).  Cf. Norton, Herder’sAesthetics, . 52 Jeanne Gaakeer the degree to which they do so,”³⁴ the idea thatwords and ideas are one suggests that “[…]the entire network of belief and behaviour that binds men to one another,can be explainedonlyinterms of common, public symbolism, in particular by language.”³⁵ Andsince intelligenceisunthinkable without language, – Herder calls this Utopian – languageisthe cement of human solidarity given that it is the instrumentofhuman communication, between individuals and between nations, hence also the need for comparative linguistic and literaryre- search. The political implication is thatonce languageisapeople’sdeterminant, nation and state do not necessarilycoincide. In other words, in the ideal situation astate is bothalegal institution and “acommunity bound by spiritual ties and culturaltraditions, a Kulturstaat as well as a Rechtsstaat.”³⁶ But what if this is not the case? Herder’sviews obviouslyspring from his desire to bring institutional and cultural unity,and political cohesion too, so that a disparate group of small states, or Kleinstaaten,could form aGerman nation- state. He even wroteaplan for this process in 1787.But if the premise is that ide- ally Volk and languagecoincide, the political and methodological consequence of the situation in which the idea of cultureisnot in accordance with the rule of law(or the other wayaround) maywell serveasastrategyof, first,exclusion and, secondly, expulsion, the dark side of this line of thoughtdrawn to its – il- logical but historicallydemonstrable – conclusion. Nevertheless, differentiation of human beingsaspart of nations along these Herderian lines may, by contrast, provefruitful for our thought on group-identity as aform of unity when we think of diasporas and/or minorities, namelywhen we look upon ashared languageas an element of an argument for cultural and political recognition, givenHerder’s insistenceonthe connection between place and identity.³⁷ What is more,the prominent position thatHerder awardstoscholars of languageand literatureextends to the political plane when it comes to shape cohesion and national identity.Extended to contemporary research in (lawand) the humanities, it is acall to arms to the humanities to playamore prominent role in the public debate on big societalissues if they would take up the challengeand thus create more impact for theirown work too. One thing is clear,for Herder (the studyof) languageand literature deservesour social and political attention

 Isaiah Berlin, Vico and Herder:Two Studies in the HistoryofIdeas (London: The Hogarth P, ): .  Berlin, Vico and Herder, ,referring to Herder, Sämtliche Werke, :,i.e., “Briefe zur Beförderungder Humanität.”  Frederick M. Barnard, Herder’sSocial and Political Thought (Oxford: Clarendon P, ): .  Sikka, Herder on Humanity, –. Close Encountersofthe ‘Third’ Kind 53 and they should be developedfor reasons both of individual Bildung and of Bil- dung of the community as awhole, because we always live in aworld that we help build ourselves. Thisties in with aseminal concept in literary-legal studies, i.e., nomos as the normative universe of narratives which we inhabit,aview de- velopedbyRobert Cover.³⁸ The consequence for lawisthatinthe normative legal world, lawand literature are inseparably related and thatthis relation is located in narrative when the concept of narrative is taken broadly, i.e. as theway in whichall humanexperiencefinds itsexpression, andonthe understandingthat everynarrative assertsits prescriptive point,its moral.Thus, as amethodology forjurisprudence,the narrativeparadigmcan be especially fruitful when the moral dimension of lawisthe topicofdiscussion. This is also afeasiblelens with whichtoviewdiasporainrelationtothe idea of national literatures(andju- risdictions)functioningasbinding agents or not, i.e.,the combined ideasofliter- atureasaninstitution that serves to constitute andlegitimatenationhood andas an instrument to criticizenationalist ends.³⁹

 Robert Cover, “Nomos and Narrative,” Harvard Law Review  (): –, – “We in- habitanomos—anormative universe. We constantlycreate and maintain aworld of right and wrong,oflawful and unlawful, of validand void […]. The rules and principles of justice, the formal institutionsofthe law, and the conventionsofthe social order are, indeed, important to that world; they are, however,but asmall part of the normative universe that oughttoclaim our attention. No set of legal institutions or prescriptionsexists apart from the narrativesthat locate it and give it meaning. Forevery constitution thereisanepic, for every decalogueascripture. Once understood in the context of the narrativesthat give it meaning, lawbecomes not merelyasys- temofrules to be observed, but aworld in which we live.”  See also, from aculturalist point of view,Simon During, “Literature – Nationalism’sother? The case for revision” in, Nation and Narration,ed. Homi K. Bhabha (London, New York: Rout- ledge, ):–, .For US foundational narratives, this idea is elaboratedupon by Robert A. Ferguson, Law and Letters in American Culture (Cambridge,MA, London: Harvard UP, )and Brook Thomas, Cross-Examinations of Law and Literature (Cambridge:Cambridge UP, ). In Lines of Equity,Literatureand the Origins of Law in Later Stuart England (Ithaca, NY,London: Cornell UP, ). Elliott Visconsi does so for British lawand literature of the Stuart era, with the salient suggestion that emotionalidentification is central to most earlymodern models of political obligation. The culturalmoment when lawand literatureare integrated provides agood startingpoint for further investigation. To me as aDutch citizen, the example of the playwright and poet Joost vanden Vondel comestomind here. Vondel wroteacerbic plays and poems on the political situation of the Dutch Republic of his days,criticizingthe stadtholder and his faction for their view on the religious shape that the community should take (see Jeanne Gaakeer, “Lawand Literature: Batavische Gebroeders ()” in Joost vanden Vondel (– ): Dutch Playwright in the Golden Age, ed. JanBloemendal,Frans-Willem Korsten (Brill: Ley- den, ): –.Inthe nineteenth century the struggle of the Belgian people to gain in- dependencealso took the form of astruggle for literary and linguistic autonomy in the sense that the Flemish Movement wanted Flemish-Dutch literaturetoacquirethe same importance as the 54 Jeanne Gaakeer

Interrelated to the languageand knowledge view is his concept of Humanität as developed in his remarks on Humanität Erziehung and Briefe zurBeförderung der Humanität.⁴⁰ Humanität is “anotoriouslyvagueterm” as Berlin aptlynoted,

connotingharmonious development of all immortal souls towards universallyvalid goals: reason, freedom, toleration, mutual loveand respect between individuals and societies […].⁴¹

Nowheredoes Herder offer aworking definition other than the circular “Alle Ihre Fragen ueber den Fortgang unsres Geschlechts[…]beantwortet […]ein einziges Wort: Humanität,Menschheit” and‚“Humanität ist der Charakter unsres Ges- chlechts; es ist uns aber nur in Anlagen angeboren und muss uns eigentlich an- gebildet werden.”⁴² Humanität is not translatable as humanity, humankind or humanitarianism, although it includes aspects connotingall of these terms. To Herder,the human being is born to live in acommunity and the long period of his education shows it.Attaining Humanität is thereforethe purpose of human life, i.e., to try and develop as best as one can one’scapabilities, anotion that presagesMartha Nuss- baum’scapabilities approach as delineated in FrontiersofJustice and Creating Capabilities, the Human DevelopmentApproach. Thus Humanität is teleological and Aristotelian in outlook and pertains both to the individual and the whole, the nation, for as a zoon politikon the individual contributes to his community. The process is universal, but not to be viewed in abstracto,hence there are no fixed rules by means of which success is guaranteed. It is relative to time and place, or rather context-dependent as can be deduced from the existing differences between people and nations, also,inview of the problem of translation that Herder posits,asfar as the mental images that words conjureupbefore aspeak- er of aspecific language’seye,acontemporary illustration of which can be found in the translation of legal terms in countries such as Canada with two official languages, or in the official languages used in the European Union or for the European Convention of Human Rights. The very idea of aright to acommon- law-trained British jurist viewed against the background of along tradition of an unwritten constitution is dissimilar not onlyasfar as the place of the concept of

Francophone. The battle cry of the movement was: Languageisthe entirepeople (see the constitutive workofthe novelists Hendrik Conscienceand Charles de Coster as wellasthat of the influential lawyer-writer Anton Bergmann).  Johann Gottfried Herder, Schriften: Eine Auswahl aus dem Gesamtwerk,ed. Walter Flemmer (München: Wilhelm GoldmannVerlag, ): –, –.  Berlin, Vico and Herder, .  Herder, Schriften, , . Close Encountersofthe ‘Third’ Kind 55 aright in his legal system is concernedtothat of the French droit,but more importantly it is culturallydissimilar against the background of the Ancien Régime and the French Revolution.⁴³ With the combined aim of cultivating Humanität individuallyand nationally, Herder allows for the simultaneous existenceofculturalsimilarities and differences while acknowledging thatthese are relative,and without precluding the possibilitythat thereare attitudes or characteristics common to all humans such as, precisely, language, so thatwecan understand otherpeople(s) (and, historically, otherages), and the desire for freedom. Herder’srelativism is defi- nitelynot of the cynical anything goes-type. It is rather apluralism avantlalettre that rejects Enlightenment abstractions. It should at once be noted that contrary to the reproach sometimes hurledatHerder thathis views immediatelyopen the door to fascist theories of Volk in the sense of asuperior people, his aim is not mono-culturaldominance.⁴⁴ This idea of human situatedness can obviouslyserveour discussion of cultureinconnection to diaspora. One reason is that Humanität and nationality are not mutuallyexclusive but organicallyconnected, and the term nation in the political sense mayinclude more than one nationality.⁴⁵ What is more,the realization of actual inequalitiesdoes not preclude, as Sikka quiterightlypointsout, that our common Humanität serves as abulwark to the “[…]inhumanity of oppressors and assassins.”⁴⁶ The latter group includes royal despots, as well as colonials and slave owners.Herder looks upon colonialism and slavery as the negation of Humanität,ascrimes against Humanität,because he favours cooperation rather than coercion, and culturallyspeaking,isagainst forced assimilation.⁴⁷

 Ielaborateonthe topic in “Iudex translator: the reign of finitude” in Methods of Comparative Law,ed. Pier-Giuseppe Monateri (Cheltenham UK, Northampton USA: EdwardElgar, ): –, –.Cf. Walter Benjamin, “The Task of the Translator” in Illuminations,ed. Hannah Arendt (London: Fontana P, ): –, –,ontranslatability:onhow the word Brot means somethingdifferent to aGerman than the word pain to aFrenchman while they point to the same object.  Cf. Sikka, Herder on Humanity, –,and Berlin, Vico and Herder,  “Herder is not asub- jectivist.Hebelieves in objective standards of judgment that are derivedfromunderstanding the life and purposes of individual societies and arethemselvesobjective historical structures, and require, on the part of the student, wide and scrupulous scholarship as wellassympathetic imagination.”  Robert Ergang, Herder and German Nationalism: Studies in History, Economics and Public Law no.  [], (New York: Octagon Books, ): .  Sikka, Herder on Humanity, .  Barnard, Herder, –. 56 Jeanne Gaakeer

These views are the resultofwhat Herder deems essentialinthe concept of Humanität and that is – very important also for literary-legal studies – the connection of Humanität to the Roman humanus,and with it,the differentiation between the legal and the just. Humanität finds its root in humanitas and humanus,

Rom hatteharte Gesetze gegenKnechte, Kinder,Fremde, Feinde; die oberen Stände hatten Rechtegegen das Volk, u.f. Werdiese Rechtemit grösster Strengeverfolgte,konnte gerecht sein, aber dabei nicht menschlich. Der Edle, der vondiesen rechten,wosie unbilligwaren, vonselbst nachliess, der gegenKinder,Sklaven, Niedre, Fremde, Feinde nicht als römischer Bürgeroder Patrizier,sondern als Mensch handelte, der war humanus,humanissimus, nicht etwa in Gesprächen nur und in der Gesellschaft, sondern auch in Geschäften, in häuslichen Sitten, in der ganzen Handlungsweise […] Da bei den Römern also die Humanität zuerst als eine Bezähmerinharterbürgerlicher Gesetze und Rechte, als die eigentliche Tochter der Philosophie und bildenden Wissen- schaften einen Namen gewonnen hat,der sich mit diesen nachher weiter vererbte:solas- sen sie uns ja Namen und Sachen ehren. Auch in den abergläubigsten, dunkelsten Zeiten, erinnerteder Name humaniora an den ernstenund schönenZweck, den die Wissenschaf- tenbefördern sollen.⁴⁸

Humanität as the attitude with which to deal decentlywith other people closely resembles practical wisdom or phronesis as developedbyAristotle in the Nico- machean Ethics,aconcept that the Greeks and Romans usedinorder to mitigate the harshness of the general rule. It is the lawofequity as well as the golden rule of not doing to others what youwould not wish them to do to you. So Herder’s thoughtties in with the prominenceofthe topic of equity in literary-legal studies these past few years, yetanother reason to promoteHerder studies.⁴⁹ The problem of the human, individuallyand as anation, is thatwedonot always succeed in following the true studium humanitatis as exemplified in Greek and Roman culture. Forany failure, however,weourselvesare responsible for we constitute ourselvesinour various rolesand relations and,inthe Kantian vein, Herder adds that we should follow reason as alaw.⁵⁰ Asign of the value Herder attaches to Bildung,isexpressedinthe following claim:

Alle Einrichtungender Menschen,alle Wissenschafte und Künstekönnen, wenn sie rechter Art sind, keinen anderen Zweck haben, als uns zu humanisieren, d.i. den Unmenschen

 Herder, Schriften, .  Cf. Daniela Carpi ed., TheConcept of Equity,aninterdisciplinaryassessment (Heidelberg: Winter, )and Daniela Carpi ed., Practising Equity,Addressing Law:Equity in Law and Liter- ature (Heidelberg: Winter, ).  Herder, Schriften, , “Der Mensch hat einen Willen, er ist des Gesetzesfähig;seine Ver- nunft ist ihm Gesetz.” Close Encountersofthe ‘Third’ Kind 57

oder Halbmenschen zum Menschen zu machen,und unserm Geschlecht zuerst in kleinen Teilen die Form zu geben, die die Vernunft billigt,die Pflicht fordert,nach der unser Bed- ürfnis strebt.⁵¹

He warns against Nationalwahn (excessive nationalism), and the dangers of war, and incites us to apply Humanität in our dealingswith othernations, for individual Bildung and national Bildung are two of akind. This humanist approach makes Herder valuable because he goes beyond the Enlightenment views of his days that favour explanatory processesofverification after rational investigation. Herder’shermeneutics are thoseofVerstehen,the empathetic understanding of the humanities, not of Erklären,the explanatory method of the natural sciences,and this is the bond alsobetween Herder and Giambattista Vico. This can alsobeseen in the dialectics internal to Humanität in its combiningthe subjective and the objective element: we confront the contingent local situation into which we are born – and like Montesquieu before him in TheSpirit of the Laws Herder alsoattachesgreat importance to the totality of environmental factors rather than formal, drawing-table legislation which he criticizes⁵²– and our response to it shows the extent to which, by means of our Bildung,weare able to recognize our mutualdependence.ToHerder,self-re- flectionleadstoself-knowledge and constitutes bothour capability of self-determination and our empathyfor others. That is whyfrom earlyyouth onward, we should be formed to attain our full Humanität and education is essentialinthe process.⁵³ With regard to the task of literature in the sense mentioned aboveinparagraph one, Herder pointstothe classic Greek and Roman authors, especiallyCic- ero’swell-known definition of what we now call the humanities:

[…]artes quae ad humanitatem pertinent,adhumanitatem informant,also Wissenschaf- ten, die uns menschlich machen,die uns zu Menschen bilden: man könnte sie also auch vielleicht am besten bildende Wissenschaften nennen.⁵⁴

 Herder, Schriften, .  I.e., Montesquieu for lawand Herder for culture both emphasize the importantinfluenceof geographical particularities. Cf. Johann Gottfried Herder, Auch eine Philosophie der Geschichte zurBildung der Menschheit (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, ): –, , “Es gabeine Zei- talter,wodie Kunst der Gesetzgebung für das einzige Mittel galt, Nationen zu bilden […]”‚ and –, “Kann man sich etwas über jene Regierungskunst,das System![…]denken?”  As can be deduced from the title, “VomBegriff der schönen Wissenschaften, insonderheit für die Jugend,” Herder, Schriften, –.  Herder, Schriften,  [italics mine]. Herder referstoCicero’s “Pro Archia Poeta” (his defense speech for the poet Archia) in which it says, “Etenim omnes artes, quae ad humanitatem perti- 58 Jeanne Gaakeer

He does not do so, however,toincite us to imitate the classics but to emulate them as it wereindeveloping our ownnational literatures.ThusHerder differs from thoseEnlightenment literarytheorists who focused on the development of rules with which to write,e.g., following Boileau’s ArtPoétique and French dramatists such as Corneille.⁵⁵ His is indeed a Sturm und Drang proposal to find alocal literaryform and content,ahabitation and aname,suited to the people and sprung from theirculturalbackground. It is reflectedinhis research into folk songsorVolkslieder (Stimmen der Völkern in Lieder,1778–1779) as the medium for the expression of popular or democratic sentiment,and shows in his folk and fairy tales, the latter also influential on Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s research that culminated in their 1812 Kinder-und Hausmärchen,while his general idea of organic growth served vonSavignyand Grimmasjurists.⁵⁶

4. Humanism and Bildung

Herder,Iclaim, thereforestill matters widelyfor contemporary literary-legal studies, for apractical approach as advocated by Martha Nussbaum to cultivate humanitywith the help of the combined studyofthe humanities in higher education,⁵⁷ as well as for areturn to amore fundamentallyhumanistic approach thatCostas Douzinas envisages. Douzinas turns to the term humanitas in the Roman republic, in the sense of the eruditio et institutio in bonas artes that we would now call Bildung as Herder sawit, because it goes beyond the aux- iliary function of the humanities as instruments of education and encompasses an attitude and the worldview of precisely Humanität,ofempathy, one thatorig- inates in the circumstancethat as humans we can stand backasitwerefrom an actual experience and reflect on it.⁵⁸ Underlying the literarythemesofSturm und Drang was the idea of the for- mationofthe human and his individual personality to attain the ideal of Human- ität and Goethe’s WilhelmMeister exemplifies it.Atthe same time,the ancient

nent,habent quoddam commune vinculum (the common bond of those arts pertainingtohu- manity [trans. and italics mine]) et quasi cognatione quadam intersecontinentur.”  Cf. Ergang, German Nationalism, .  Cf. Berlin, Vico and Herder, .  Martha C. Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity:AClassicalDefense of Reform in Liberal Educa- tion (Cambridge,MA, London: HarvardUP, ).  Costas Douzinas, “AHumanities of Resistance: Fragments for aLegal History of Humanity,” in Law and the Humanities: An Introduction, eds.Austin Sarat,Matthew Anderson and Cathrine O. Frank (Cambridge:Cambridge UP, ): –, . Close Encounters of the ‘Third’ Kind 59 idea of tragic conflict resulting from the clash between the individual and the (moral) lawreturns in Tasso. Thisbond as far as the latter is concernedwith Greek tragedyisgood cause to again think in terms of the educative function of the literary work as noted aboveinparagraph one. Since Bildung is the key wordinGerman neohumanism thatdevelopedonthe basis of Humanität,⁵⁹ the formerasanexample of the Bildungsroman should alert us to the possibility of renewed use of the genre and concept in circumstances different from thoseof its origins.While Sloterdijk mayberight that in contemporary societies literature by now has reached its final stageasasubculture sui generis,Idisagree with his conclusion that the eraofhumanism and Bildung is thereforeover.⁶⁰ Icontend that it is preciselyinour common Humanität that we can find the justification for our continued effort to bring in the humanities to discuss and confront issues that traditional approaches deal with onlyfrom an instrumental, socio-political point of view. In this view,the Bildungsroman and its characteristics deserveour continued attention because,asMoretti claims, it was the narrative form that dominated the ‘GoldenCentury of Western narrative,’ i.e., the nineteenth century.⁶¹ Since that is alsothe epitome of modernity,the novel of formationand acculturation remains an acute topic also from apoint of view of the history of ideas in that “the conflict between the ideal of self-determination and the equallyimperious demands of socialization” is reflected in the development of nation-states and their struggle for nationallegal systems, ⁶² free from the empire that was Roman law. What is more,the dichotomywhen perceivedatthe level of an individual’sstruggle offers afruitful paradigm with which to view diasporasitua- tions when combined with both mechanisms of textual organization thatMoretti sees at work in the Bildungsroman as agenre. That is to say, the “classification” principle that makes “astory[is] more meaningful the more trulyitmanages to suppress itself as story,” with marriageand the renouncement of freedom as the emblematic form of closure, and “the transformation principle” that creates meaning by means of “its narrativity,its being an open-endedprocess.”⁶³ The idea of socialization as the possible renunciation of aperson’sindividuality can be elevated to the diasporic group to discuss subjects such as assimilation,

 Hans-ChristofKraus, Kultur,Bildung und Wissenschaft im .Jahrhundert (München: R. Old- enbourgVerlag, ).  Sloterdijk, Regeln fürden Menschenpark, .  Franco Moretti, The Wayofthe World: TheBildungsroman in European Culture (London: Verso, ): .  Moretti, Wayofthe World, .  Moretti, Wayofthe World, . 60 Jeanne Gaakeer the culturalassumptions internal to adiasporic group, and the possibilityofcul- tural transformation. This is especiallyacute when we think through the circum- stance that in diasporic situations when memoriesofhomeoccur in adifferent culturalcontext,there is always the risk of adistortion of views so that ahermeneutics of suspicion remains urgent for our readingsofdiaspora.⁶⁴ While Iam well aware of the fact thatthe eraofproduction of the Bildungsroman is behind us and we should thereforekeep in mind its historical contingency, Iamnever- theless convinced that my argument holds in the sense thatthe process of becoming, not being,iscrucial in literary-legal diasporastudies. So the need to question one’sown reflection and stand back as it werein order to (re)view one’ssituation is always in order and with Herder’shumanism and the Bildungsroman we have an interesting starting point for amethodology of self-knowledge,inthe individual life as much as in the largersetting of society.⁶⁵ Iwholeheartedlyagree with Slaughter when he contends that “an in- fringement on the modern subject’sability to narrate her story” wasagood lens with which to view abuses of human rights and Iclaim that it can equally fruitfullybeapplied to diaspora discourse.⁶⁶ That is to say, the humanistic idea of narrative self-determination and an independence of voice seen in terms of modernity’semphasis on the individual when combined with insights derived from Herder’slinguistic and culturalist view ties in with current debates in Law and Literature,and can provide anew formofinvestigation in the wayin which various cultural forms and cognitions work in the world, particularly, of course, when “culture-bound knowledge confronts its own limits” as is the

 And think of diasporas of the kind experienced by the Hungarian people when after the Treaty of Versailles ()they suddenly found their country reducedtoone third of its original area, and as aconsequenceagreat number of people found themselvesinthe bizarre diasporic situation that the country had left them.  EarlyoninLaw and Literature,Robin West alreadyargued that the bond between lawand literaturealso consists of the narrative component itself that every theory of lawhas and that can be fruitfullyanalyzed in away analogous to the methodsused in literary analysis,onthe view that anytheory is aform of narrative.She applied Frye’ssubdivision of narrative to jurisprudential developments.The two contrasting methodsofstory-telling which Frye calls romance and ironyare linked to natural lawand legalpositivism; the two contrastingworld views,the comic and the tragic vision, find their legal counterpartinliberalism and statism. This connection of atypology adopted from literary theory to legal theory has undeservedlydisappeared from scholarlysight and needs revivinginthe contextofliterary-legal contributions to diaspora discourse. See Robin West, “JurisprudenceasNarrative:AnAesthetic Analysis of Modern Legal Theory,” New York University Law Review  (): –,referringtoNorthrop Frye, Anat- omyofCriticism (Princeton, NJ:Princeton UP, ).  Joseph R. Slaughter, “AQuestion of Narration: the VoiceofInternational Human Rights Law,” Human Rights Quarterly  (): –, . Close Encountersofthe ‘Third’ Kind 61 case when literary-legal insights are combined with, or applied to diaspora discourse.⁶⁷

5. Diasporaand Interdisciplinarity

When we view the abovewith an interdisciplinary lens, the question of the what- ness of the co-operating fieldsthenbecomes acute, lest we pass as shipsinthe disciplinary night. What do we mean by diaspora in diasporastudies?AccordingtoJennifer Brinkerhoff, “modern diasporas [are] ethnic minoritygroups of migrant origins residingand acting in host countries but maintaining strongsentimental and material links with theircountries of origin – their homelands.” Again, the combination of dispersion, (commitment to)acollective memory and myth about the homeland, the hope of return and consciousness of one’shybrid identity emerge as the decisive criteria of diaspora.⁶⁸ Or is it onlyamatter of the dispersalofany population from its destroyed home-land and its settlementinanother territory with trauma and victimization as aresult?⁶⁹ The samegoes for culture, and even more specificallyso, giventhe longer tradition of scholarlyattention to the subject. The number of definitions of culture that have vagueness as their common characteristic is abundant.⁷⁰ This ob-

 Joseph R. Slaughter, Human Rights Inc. TheWorld Novel, NarrativeForm, and International Law (New York: Fordham UP, ): .One of the texts that Slaughter cites by wayofepitaph is “To undergo Bildung is to identify with humanity:ahumanity that is itself an ongoingprocess of self-realization or becoming” (citingMarcRedfield, “The Bildungsroman” in Oxford Encyclo- pedia of BritishLiterature,ed. David Scott Kastan (Oxford: OxfordUP, ): –, ).  Jennifer M. Brinkerhoff, Digital Diasporas, Identity and Transnational Engagement (Cam- bridge:Cambridge UP, ): , .  Andoni Alonso and PedroJ.Oiarzabal, “The Immigrants’ Worlds,Digital Harbors,anintroduction,” in Diasporas in the New Media Age, Identity,Politics,and Community,ed. Andoni Alon- so, PedroJ.Oiarzabal (Reno, NV,Las Vegas: UofNevada P, ):–, .See also Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur, “Nation, Migration, Globalization: Points of Contention in Diaspora Studies,” in TheorizingDiaspora, areader,ed. Jana EvansBraziel, Anita Mannur(Oxford: Black- wellPublishing, ): –,  for caution against an unreflective application of the term diaspora to anyand all contexts of global displacement.  Austin Sarat and Thomas R. Kearns, “The Cultural LivesofLaw,” in Law in the Domains of Culture,ed. Austin Sarat,Thomas R. Kearns (Ann Arbor,MI: UofMichigan P, ):–,  for the view that traditionallythe studyofculture was the studyof“that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art,morals, law, custom, and anyother capabilities and habits ac- quiredbyman as amember of society.” Such adefinition is abroadumbrella under which prac- ticallyevery topic finds shelter,and it disregards aspects of socialisation and acculturation 62 Jeanne Gaakeer viouslyleads to new conceptual Babels when talkingabout cultural locations from which to start new research,orabout topics such as cultural identity or cultural supremacy.⁷¹ So Homi Bhabha is right when he starts his discussion of the culturalrepresentationofthe ambivalenceinmodern society of the idea of nation by pointing “to competingdispositions of human association as societas (the acknowledgement of moral rules and conventions of conduct) and universi- tas (the acknowledgement of common purpose and substantive end)” in the Eu- ropean tradition and distinguishing between national consciousness and nationalism,asHerder did.⁷² Speaking about (dis)similarities requires clarity when it comes to what Bhabha wittilycalls “DissemiNation.”⁷³ And what is law? Is it astate institution, apower structure, asystem of rules, an instrumentofjusticeoroppression?Isitatheoretical structure or apractice? Or is it all of the above?⁷⁴ And giventhe replication of the problem in the cultural studies of lawaswell as the culturallives of law,⁷⁵ i.e., when lawdealswith cultures,wewilldowell, as Cotterrell asks us to,⁷⁶ to specify how and whereculture

connected to culture. Peter Burke, on the other hand, defends abroad definition that includes “[…]attitudes,mentalities and values and their expression, embodimentorsymbolization in ar- tefacts, practicesand representations” (Cultural Hybridity [Cambridge:Polity P, ]: ). Foran extended treatment of the topic, see Jeanne Gaakeer, “Reverent RitesofLegal Theory:unity-diversity-interdisciplinarity,” Australian Feminist LawJournal  (): –.  See Stuart Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora” in Theorizing Diaspora: AReader,ed. Jana EvansBraziel and Anita Mannur (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, ): –,theorizing two ways to reflectoncultural identity,i.e., understood as acollective,shared history among individuals affiliated by race or ethnicity that is consideredtobefixed or stable and understood as unstable, and marked by similarities as much as by differences.  Homi K. Bhabha, “Introduction: Narratingthe Nation,” in Nation and Narration,ed. Homi K. Bhabha (London, New York: Routledge, ): –, .  Homi K. Bhabha, “DissemiNation: Time, Narrative,and the Margins of the Modern Nation,” in Nation and Narration,ed. HomiK.Bhabha (London, New York: Routledge, ): –. See also Simon During, “Literature – Nationalism’sOther?The Case for Revision,” in Nation and Narration,ed. Homi K. Bhabha (London, New York: Routledge, ): –.  See Jeanne Gaakeer, “The FutureofLiterary-Legal Jurisprudence: MereTheory or Just Prac- tice?” Law and Humanities . (): –.  See PriskaGisler,SaraSteinert Borella and Caroline Wiedmer, “Settingthe Stage:Reading Lawand Culture,” in Intersections of Law and Culture,ed. PriskaGisler,SaraSteinert Borella, Caroline Wiedmer (Houndmills,UK: PalgraveMacmillan, ):–;Austin Sarat and Thomas R. Kearns, “The Cultural LivesofLaw,” in Law in the Domains of Culture,ed. Austin Sarat and Thomas R. Kearns (Ann Arbor,MI: UofMichigan P, ): –.  RogerCotterrell, “LawinCulture,” Ratio Juris .(): –.Cotterell distinguishes six different interrelations of lawand culture, to which Iwould add the point that lawitself is also a siteofcultural heritage in the sense that traditionallyatleast legal codification is an affirmation of existingviews in society. Close Encountersofthe ‘Third’ Kind 63 and legal research meet,when it comes to analysingdiasporas. Austin Sarat al- readysuggested that legal education should focus on questions such as “How ought lawtobeunderstood as aculturalsystem?[…]How have legal institutions embraced and constructed, as well as silencedand stigmatized, various national, social,cultural, and personal identities?,”⁷⁷ and this line of research also works for diaspora studies. As far as Iamconcerned, all of the abovequestions are extremelysalient. When it comes to the project that motivates this volume, creating an interdisciplinary ‘third’ in the form of literary-legal-diasporastudies, what then should be taken into consideration in order to engageinthe close encounters of this article’stitle? Obviouslyfor the project to be successful, we need to address questions of each separate discipline’sterminology, values and methodology, for Homi Bhabha is right when he writes that “Cultural difference emergesfrom the borderline moment of translation that Benjamin describes as the ‘foreignness of languages’,”⁷⁸ and points to “the radical incommensurability of translation” as Walter Benjamin did before him and as James Boyd White has consistently argued with his metaphor for law: justiceastranslation. AccordingtoWhite, the central premise for understanding and claiming meaning is thattranslation between languages as much as between disciplines has to deal with the impossibility of total correspondence.Onthis view,translation or integration as aform of establishing the right relations is aprocessthat also depends,⁷⁹ as does interdisciplinary co-operation on the meta-level, on the success of cross-culturalfer- tilization.Thisisimportant,for when we ask whether the and in any Law and… actuallyworks,weshould always highlight the underlying idea that no exchange or translation of anydisciplinary concept in crossingdisciplinary cultures can take place isolated from the cultural background it originatedfrom. So the linch- pin of this volume’sproject is and remains linguistic,although honesty compels me to admit thatasalegalpractitioner Iamfirmlyrooted in the idea of lawas text and thereforestronglyfavour – yetrecognize my own disciplinary bias here – the idea of languageasour predominant culturalsoftware.⁸⁰ Givenour humanistic outlook,weobviously cannot escape the hermeneutic circularity that Hans GeorgGadamer alreadyacknowledgedbecause we never start from a tabula rasa. But,asHerder kept emphasizing,

 Austin Sarat, “SituatingLegal Scholarshipinthe Liberal Arts,” in Law in the Liberal Arts,ed. Austin Sarat (Ithaca, NY:Cornell UP, ): .  Bhabha, “DissemiNation,” , .  White, Justice, .  Jack M. Balkin, “Ideology as Cultural Software,” CardozoLaw Review  (): – , . 64 Jeanne Gaakeer

Ihaveproven that the use of reason is not only ‘not very well’ possible without signs, but that not even the slightest use of reason, not even the simplest distinct recognition, not the most basic judgment of human reflection is possible without adistinguishingmark: the difference between two thingscan onlyberecognized through athird.⁸¹

Combinedwith his view that Bildung starts at birth,⁸² this speaks for continued attention to Herder’ssuggestion on how to deal with sites of culturaland discursive,disciplinary translations by means of comparison as the preferred method- ologyasdiscussed aboveinparagraph three. The humanistic tradition of self-re- flectiontogain self-knowledge is admirablysuited to this end and as far as diasporastudies are concerned, an interesting example of “the meta-critical art,the techne,ofwitnessing the witness of the event called diasporacriticism” that feeds on multiple disciplines is alreadydeveloped by Sudesh Mishrainthe concept of diaspoetics.⁸³ The topic of interdisciplinary theorizing ties in with the topic of modernity as discussed aboveinparagraph two. Modernity’smethodological individualism, as found in empirical sociologyand early Law and Economics,finds its root in the centralidea of theindividual’sdeliberateagreementtosubject himself to the sovereigninexchangefor peaceand is one of the logical conclusions of the quest for certainty.The ongoing dominance of this methodologycan be adraw- back for contemporary interdisciplinary work. As Evans Braziel and Mannur quite rightlypoint out,diasporaasaconcept cannot “[…]stand alone as an epistemological or historical category of analysis,” i.e., separate from concepts of gender,race, class.⁸⁴ Methodological individualism is alsoconnected to the natural sciences paradigm of scientificpositivism of philosophers such as Auguste Comte, John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer,and it culminatedinlegal positi-

 Johann Gottfried Herder, Abhandlung über die Sprache,qtd.in Norton, Herder’sAesthetics, .  Herder, Schriften, “Über den Charakter der Menschheit,” –, , “.Mit dem Leben des Menschen fängt seine Erziehungan.” Cf. Sikka, Herder on Humanity, , “ForHerder,cultures arethe products of Bildung,ofprocesses of education and cultivation involvingthe active exercise of specificallyhuman, reflective faculties.”  Sudesh Mishra, DiasporaCriticism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, ):  [italics in the original]. The use of techne ItaketobeHeidegerrian for Mishra speaks hereinterms of the methodology of “abringingforth” as proposed by Heideggerin“The Question ConcerningTechnology” in Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technologyand Other Essays (New York: Harper & Row,  []): –.  Jana Evans Braziel, Anita Mannur, “Nation, Migration, Globalization,” .Evans Braziel and Mannur offer an importantlist of “futurediasporic paths” (), one that can fruitfullybecom- bined with the alternative list giveninSudesh Mishra, DiasporaCriticism (Edinburgh:Edinburgh UP, ): . Close Encountersofthe ‘Third’ Kind 65 vism in the nineteenth century.The idea behindlegal positivism is the presupposed correspondence of the wordand the world and this favours an interpretive theory that takes the lawgiver’svolition as decisive when it comes to ascertaining legal meaning.This, too, is alogical conclusion of the quest for certainty as noted aboveinparagraph two. Hereisalso the root of theongoing methodolog- icaldisputebetweenthe natural sciences and thehumanities on the use of empirical findings by theformerand thesupposed lack of them in the latter. This makes me wonder whether on the meta-level of adiscussion of the very idea of interdisciplinarity (methodologicallyaswell as epistemologically),we could think of interdisciplinarity as itself the resultofadiasporic movement. In other words, when we applythe idea of diaspora – if onlymetaphoricallyper- haps – to think about the nineteenth-century differentiation of disciplines or Ausdifferenzierung resulting in autonomous (academic) disciplines, and, also as far as the development of apositivistic approach to lawisconcerned, in the idea that the autarky of the discipline is aprecondition for the objectivity of its results, what implications for,and/or suggestions to anyintersection that includes diasporadoes this have?Ido not have an answer to this question but Ithink Ihavegood reason to bring it forward. The movement from the disciplinary unity of the heydayofhumanism to the differentiation of knowledge in academic pigeonholesoccasioned the development of separate disciplinary languages and methodologies and as aresult concepts long shared diverged. In other words, disciplinary differentiation viewed as diasporic is the root of the problem of terminologicaland conceptual (un)translatability between disciplines. To me, this speaks forour continuedattention to thehistory of ideasand we will therefore do welltokeep in mind Herder’sremarks on Humanität as wellas Matthew Arnold’sassertion that “[…]literature[contains] the materials which suffice for […]making us know ourselvesand the world” and “the humanist’s knowledge is […]aknowledge of words.”⁸⁵ ForasNicholas Carr recently claimed in his defence of the humanities, “What’sstored in the individual mind – events, facts, concepts, skills – is more than ‘the representation of distinctive personhood’,thatconstitutes the self […]It’salso ‘the crux of culturaltransmission’.”⁸⁶ There is yetanother reason to do so,because the reaction to the very idea of autonomous disciplines since the 1970 sinthe formofthe development of various Law and …-movements can, paradoxicallyperhaps in view of theirreturn to the idea of unity,also be lookedupon as diasporic from yetanother point of

 Matthew Arnold, “Literature and Science” [], in The Norton Anthology of EnglishLiter- ature,seventh ed. (New York :W.W.Norton, ): :–, , .  Nicholas Carr, TheShallows,what the Internet is doing to our brains (New York, London: W.W. Norton &Co, ): . 66 Jeanne Gaakeer view.That is, if we think of them as drivenawayfrom the safety of the monodisciplinary methodologies of the disciplines they originallycame from; for example, in the case of Law and Literature from the safety of doctrinal black letter law. Iaim to provoke here. When the declineofjob opportunities in the humanities drovegraduatestudents of literature away from their homediscipline – aform of diaspora – and they sought refuge in law,⁸⁷ they often favoured theirown epistemological and methodological backpack so to speak and began to theorize from thatbasis. The development and application of philosophical and literary deconstruction as amethodologyfor lawcomes to my mind as one of its effects. While manyofsuch contributions have been and are of great value to interdisciplinary legal studies, they suffer from alack of attention to legal practice. Not onlydoes this diminish the (academic) impact of interdisciplinary studies, the practice of lawalways being the combination of knowing and doing,any tendency to sticktotheorizing per se also runs the risk of continuingconceptual Babels and this is unhelpful in the context of diasporic studies aiming not onlytoillu- minate intellectuallybut also to contribute practically. So my caveat for interdisciplinarians would be not to imitate Gustave Flau- bert’sBouvard and Pécuchet who probe the cognitiveworth of one discipline after another when they find that no single methodologysuffices to give answers to all of their questions or to solve all problems.Bouvardand Pécuchet’sdia- sporaled them into an epistemological desert for lack of practical wisdom to do what the circumstances required. When Pécuchet,finally exasperated, asks “What is the point of it all?,” Bouvard answers “Perhaps thereisn’tapoint,”⁸⁸ and this should be our caveat too, i.e., not to engageinanongoingdisciplinary diasporathat cannot but lead to methodological shallowness.

 RichardPosner, “Lawand Literature:ARelation Reargued,” Virginia LawReview  (): –, , “[…]the displacement of manygraduate students,and some faculty,from the humanities intolaw,followingadecline in academic job opportunities in the humanities that began around ”;Harold Suretsky, “Search foraTheory:AnAnnotated Bibliography of Writingsinthe Relation of LawtoLiterature andthe Humanities,” RutgersLaw Review  (): –, , “Perhapssome of the interest is the result of recent economic troubles affectinghumanisticstudies which have no doubt led manywould-be graduatestudents of lit- eraturetoknock at the doors of the nation’slaw schools,” Martha Minow, “LawTurning Out- ward,” Telos  (): –, , “Thefirst simple explanation is that thejob market for Ph.D.’sconstricted dramaticallyinthe last  years. Bluntlyput, people whointhe past would join academic departmentsinstead went tolaw school andjoinedlaw faculties. Thesepeople broughtwiththemquestions andmethods of inquirycommoninnonlegaldisciplines,and subject- ed lawtoscrutiny.”  G. Flaubert, Bouvardand Pécuchet (tr.A.J.Kreilsheimer), Harmondsworth UK, Penguin Books, ,at Close Encountersofthe ‘Third’ Kind 67

Ashort tale in conclusion, and to shift the balance and end on apositive note: In 1688 the Swiss Johannes Hofer obtained his doctorate at the faculty of medicine of the University of Basel with adissertation in which he coined a new term, nostalgia,inorder to describe the mental suffering (algos)caused by an intense longing, diagnosed in Swiss mercenaries fighting in France and wanting to go home(nostos).⁸⁹ In the context of this volume’stopic of interdisciplinary diasporastudies, the aspect of nostalgia frequentlyfound in those in diasporic situations, leadsmetosuggest that as interdisciplinarians we should not wallow in nostalgia for,nor rejoiceinconceitedness about our own disciplinary homelands, but neither should we “flee in terror” from what other countries have to offer.⁹⁰

 JohannesHofer, “MedicalDissertation on Nostalgia,” trans. Carolyn Kiser Anspach, Bulletin of the Institute of the HistoryofMedicine,vol.  (Baltimore:Johns Hopkins Press, ).  Mishra, Diaspora Criticism,  n.,onthe meaningofdiaspora, pointingtoDeuteronomy : and the rendering of the Hebrew Za’avah as diaspora in the Greek of the Septuagint which denotes “fleeinginterror.”

Paola Carbone Fair Hearing and Fair Play in Multicultural Societies

Diasporic Narrations fromthe Commonwealth

Literaturehas always playedaleadingrole in the interpretation and representation of national ideologies, thereforeithas always been co-responsible for the portrayal of the Other even when, in anegative tone, the Other is identified with the barbarous,the enemyor, more generallyspeaking, with an unknown (that is ‘not yetidentified’ and thence perceivedasapotentiallydangerous) subjectivity such as the diasporic one. Regardless of the postmodern idea of subjectivity as aform of narration, we can saythat literature shapes the Self and the Other from the inside of adialogical praxis which confronts anet of lines of reasoning involving characters and readers.Insodoing,literature suggests different configurations of reality,evenwhen it is the normative statute of the collective mind-set to prevail. In particular,since fiction can be atool of propaganda both for and against the Western political hegemony, we must acknowledge that the juxtaposition of different cultural identities, as one of the most distinctive phenomena of our contemporary multicultural society,can unveil the rhetorical structures of the colonial canon. By unmasking the semiotic, semanticand rhetorical devices usedtoproduce reality and meaning,literature creates akeen awareness of the ‘living speech’ or of a ‘truth’ rooted in dialogical relationships, which Isuggest to translate in legal terms as the disclosure of afairhearing.Iintend to consider the judicial hearing as acognitive model useful to observeand to understand some of the cultural boundaries of amulti-ethnicsociety.Iam not suggesting to cross-examine the existenceofadiasporic presenceinagivencountry,but to point out the need for adialogical exchangebetween divergent identitiesinaccordancewith well-defined rules. Aconfrontationalattitude can be overcome by the right to the audiatur et alterapars,that is the right to afair hearing (before an impartial judge)evenifout of the courtroom.This Latin caption refers to the distich from Seneca’s Medea “Qui statuitaliquid parte inaudita altera, aequum licet statuerit, haud aequus fuit” (2.2.199–200) meaning thatevenanequitable judgment is unfair unless all the parties have been heard: onlythe rightform of the judgement conveys justice. The philosophicalpremises implythatthe structure of the fair hearing is the structure of reality:nojudgment (that is no discourse on reality and truth) should be formulated away from an unbiased dialogical context.Pro- vided that the fair judgement is aright,amethod, aprinciple and anorm which 70 PaolaCarbone givesform to the Western legal civilization, whyshould not it be metaphorically and procedurallyused to understand the reasons of adiasporic identity?Judg- ment is here not so much connected to aquestion of legality or to the act of being lawful, but to issues of culturalvalues which should be formallyfree of prejudice. It is an action towards knowledge.Inmyopinion amulticultural society based on adialogical practice should be potentiallyabletoencourageand foster the ideal of humanitas,which implies human refinement as well as respect for the rights and dignity of all persons. One of the problem in court is to find amethodthat makes the audatio possible, which means to define the praxis of the hearing (its rhetoricalpremise) by means of shared knowledge and rules. Forexample, in common lawduringthe pre-trial the tentative demurrer is away for the lawyer to ask the judge in ad- vancealegal rule so as to know the issues of facts or of lawtoraise for the jury,that is, how to build an argumentation.¹ Here the judge concretelybecomes part of the hearing in view of the fact that from the beginning he is asked to be responsible for the practice and procedureofthe trial and, as aconsequence, for the rhetoricalmechanism of the dialectical synthesis – sentence – he will pro- duceinorder to ascertain alegal truth from twoopposing discourses.Whatever is not taken into consideration by the parties duringthe hearing (evidence, dep- ositions, statements,legal norms, regulations, laws, etc.) cannot be taken into account by the judge when he writes the sentence. The proof is made in the con- cretefactual context of the trial and therefore also the legal truth. The concept of ‘truth’ in lawisanimportant issue, but as FrancescoCavallastates,truth is useful because the search for it unveils the criteria of judgement and certifies not onlypossible mistakes in the final judgementbut alsothe vulnerabilitiesof the opposing argumentations.² On the one hand, the fair hearing is an epistemological category rooted in ius while, on the otherone, it is anarrative praxis, because it defines how the lawyers state the case and consequentlyhow the judge re-writes apossible truth out of the debate. The rhetoric of the judgment relies on shared diegetic constructions in order to attainalegal truth, that is, atruth emerging from the narratio itself. Traditionally, the rhetorical truth of afair hearing is the resultofalogical reasoning (a narration of past events) applied to a litigation.

 See Giuseppe Rossi, “Contraddittorio processuale eformazione della regola di diritto,” in Audiatur et alterapars. Il contraddittorio fraprincipio eregola,ed. Maurizio Manzin, Federico Puppo (Milano:GiuffrèEditore, ): –, –.  Francesco Cavalla, ed. “Retorica giudiziale, logica everità,” in Retorica, processo,verità:prin- cipi di filosofia forense (Milano:Franco Angeli, ): –, . Fair Hearing and Fair Play in Multicultural Societies 71

Equallyimportant,afair hearing is the onlyway to assert one’srights in front of the court.Ifone does not have the right to speak out and to be heard, one cannot even ask for rights: we should simplythink about the principle of Due Process of Lawwhich, in its specific differences, shares across-the-board ap- proval almost all over the world. Since the lawestablishes rights, duties,and privileges thatare consistent with the values of society,how can amulti-ethnic society ignorethe values of part of its citizenry?The implementation of the cognitive model of the fair hearing to amulti-ethnic society should grant the right to aprinciple of reality,that is, the respect for the human being and his/her human rights over the race. It is my opinion that we should reckon with such premises when we theorize literature from the perspective of legal Diasporastudies. It might seem an impractical, idealistic scheme,but as the legal process removes arift in justicebymeansofadialectical agon,sointerculturaldialogue, as averbal challenge, should provide asolution to social ambiguities or,evenbetter,it should make such social conflicts epistemologicallyexplicit. Ultimately, we must recognize thatafairhearing becomes significant only when aspecific caseistaken into court,that is, when both parties take an interest in confronting each other.Onthe whole, amulticultural society is not always equitable because the parties do not have the same power,and so theirdispute is intrinsicallyasymmetric: the clashwith an imperialist culture is unbalanced, and the subordinates are submitted to judgement and to an instance of uniform- ity (integration) or rather enforced conformity to dominant norms (assimilation), even though we must admitthat also migrantsare often unwilling to engagein dialogue. James Boyd White says that the lawis“living speech,”³ or the voice of anation or the voice of anational identity.Itismyopinion that literature regis- ters the gaps in the, so to say, ‘intercultural hearing’ of diasporic identities.

1. Fair Hearing and Self-Representation

Manyworks of literature are structured around the archetypical conflict between protagonist and antagonist.Postcolonial literature in English is often inspired by the presenceofanexpatriate from the former British colonies who is not accepted in England as a civis Britannicus,thatis, he is not recognized as part of apolitical and social community.Itismyintention to forcethis limit and to suggest a multiplicity of ‘cases,’ in order to underline the complexity of adiasporic litera-

 James BoydWhite, Living Speech, Resisting the EmpireofForce (Princeton: Princeton UP, ): . 72 PaolaCarbone ture and cinema from the Commonwealth. An inalienable element is the fact that the diasporic subjectivity is obliged to narrate himself, that is to represent himself within the languageofthe other,asEdwardSaid, SalmanRushdie, Arjun Appadurai have widelyunderlined. The storytelling of apostcolonial multi-ethnic society is morelike amonologue than areal fair hearing,but the arts highlight such lack of intra-communication. The problem of self-representation lies midwaybetween diasporaand fair hearing.Inboth contexts, from arhetorical, as well as procedural, viewpoint topoi and commonplaces (cliché and stereotypes) are fundamental firm beliefs to ground the argumentation when in adebate there are no shared premises.⁴ A topos facilitates the narration of the conflict,since it guidesthe ingenium of the rhetorician (lawyer)inpresentinghis own legal reasoninginorder to shape the reasoning of the interlocutors. The discourse on multicultural conflict arises from such commonplaces, which are to be considered neither true nor false, but shared knowledge among speakers.Inthis way, acase is set into asocial-culturalcontext so to become apotential discourse,thatis, adialogue.⁵ If the pre-trial defines the matter of lawtobedebated, as the prerequisite for a fair hearing on which to ground the topoi,inamulticultural society thingsare more difficult because subjects are not always dealingwith ‘illegal’ behaviours but mostlywith prejudicial, unjust,unsuitable ones (also with respect to human rights). All fair hearingsneed aconflict,that is, either an offence or a recognized threateningharm. Hence, just like alawyeridentifiesthe correct legislation for the type of violation, in adiasporic society the main interlocutors need to make the potential danger explicit,thatis, visibleaswell as audible. Di- asporicsubjectivities must struggle to understand, first of all, what make them different,then whythey are perceivedassuch, and, eventually, they must make people understand thatthey do not put the hostingsociety at risk.⁶ By playing the double role of the defendant and the lawyer,the diasporic subjectivity is not supposedtoinsist upon his or her truth, but to let the weakness of the antagonist’sreasoning and emotions emerge.The commonplacedefined,the

 Cavalla, “Retorica giudiziale, logica everità,” .  Cavalla, “Retorica giudiziale, logica everità,” .  It might be interestingtoread what Mudrooroo writes about ‘whitemasters’ in Australia: “the master constructs stereotypes of the Other as Woman, as Native,and all he is doing is building on his own emotions,his feelings,which want everythingtoconform, so to be controllable,tobe amenable to his own well-being. […]The masterrefuses to see the Other,the Native,asbeing equal, as beingcapable. It is acolonial discourse, away of speakingwhich seeks to disarm, away of removingathreat,” Narogin Mudrooroo, Us Mob: History,Culture, Struggle: An introduction to Indigenous Australia (Sydney:Angust &Robertson, ): –. Fair Hearing and Fair Play in Multicultural Societies 73 cognitive model of the fair hearing – conceivedmore as amethod thananorm – becomes useful to reject the premise of an unjust attitude in order to settle differences.⁷ An example of narrative representationofaculturalconflict is offered by the movie West is West (2010), the sequelofthe 1999 hit film East is East (1999) directed by AndyDeEmmonyand inspired by Ayud Khan Dyn’shomonymous play.⁸ The story is about GeorgeKhan, who moves to England in the 1960s, leaving his first wife and two daughters in Pakistan. Once in the West,hemarries a whiteBritishwoman – Ella, called “Mrs Khan #2”–who giveshim six children, despite the fact that he keeps sending money to his ‘first’ family. When the two women eventuallymeet in Pakistan, and they bothconfront themselveswith their husband’slife choice to walk away from his country to live in England as asubjectivity in-between two cultures,atfirst they feelincompetition with each other.Nonetheless, they immediatelyacknowledge their ownright to live under the same roof since both of them are George’slegal wives. At first they keep silent,they scrutinize each other from their personal culturalstandpoint, and they hold areciprocal grudge,Then they shout their reasons and prejudices in their own languages but without making the attempt to listen to each other, and onlyafterwards they start talking.Evenifthey communicatethrough gestures,symbols and photographs,inquite aprimitive form of dialogue, they succeed in re-localising theirtruths no longer as abstract ideals (topoi), but in terms of human and culturalvalues. They both face the reasons of the ‘adversary,’ that is life-long assumptions of responsibility:Ella had coped with discrimination from her familybecause of her ‘Paki’ husband,but she had also worked hard to send money to Mrs Khan #1;Mrs Khan #1 had taken on all the duties George avoided in the face of society and her children. In theirconfrontation, the narration of their similarities emerges. In this context the presenceofanindependent judge is useless since the ‘sentence’ emergesnaturallyasthe form itself of the hearing,which provides an equalsolution to the conflict. When they first argue, they are mainly ‘suggestive’ as they try to psycholog- icallystress the counterpart,but with no logicallystructured argumentationand legitimate knowledge of the other. In this case the effect is null and void, as well as the contents obscure. In trial, when aconsensus is basedonsuch obscure ar- bitrarypremises it is too fragile to be considered for asentence.⁹ On the contrary,

 See Cavalla, “Retorica giudiziale, logica everità,” .  Ayub Khan-Din, East is East (London: Nick Hern Books, ).  Cavalla, “Retorica giudiziale, logica everità,”, –.That is also what happens in APassage to India by E.M. Forster,whenone of the pleaders,MrMahmoudAli, tries to make use of the emotions and rage of the crowdtomanipulatethe judgement. 74 Paola Carbone the intimate dialogue between the twowomen does not lead to a ‘conviction’ but to the ‘acquittal’ of their husband, who is the onlyone to be blamed. Indeed, they are bothvictims of adiasporic subjectivity since he has obliged them to live in-between two realities,customs and legislations: albeit polygamyis legal in Pakistan and Ella did not know about Mrs Khan #1 when she gotmar- ried, she has accepted to live as asecond wife. As the wise manasks Ella’s youngest child, Sajid, when at lastheaccepts his Pakistani origin without rejecting his British culture, “What needschanging?The boy?Orthe world around him?”,¹⁰ the world is always the same, but the gaze is different.¹¹ Each woman has convinced the other one of her own reasons withoutlosing her dignity, that is, in the respect of their legitimate culturaldifference. They have shown their skill in changingtheir self-representation without forgoing their cultural identity. As far as George is concerned, we must saythat while in England he obses- sively remembers his homeland to the point that it becomes the space of negotiation of his own identity,once in Pakistan he can witness his wives’ conten- tions from within as well as from without their conflict.¹² As in England, also in Pakistan he feels alone because he is always displaced and he does not trulybelong to anycommunity.Besides he does not have acounterpart to arguewith, because he has not contravened anylaw,but acivil and moralre- sponsibility. Therefore, we see him engaged in asortofauto-da-fé in order to find – as ajudge – an equitable solution to aconflict he has created.

 In the movie West is West,atacertain point,the old wise man has aconversation in front of amirror with Sajid at Khari Shirid, known for housingthe Shrines of Sufi Saints: “Idonot know what they want.Ido not know whoIam supposed to be”, “But youstill look likeyou. What needs changing? The boy?Orthe world around him?”  Ayub Khan-Din statedthat both East is East and West is West are based on his personalex- periences: “It was an interesting time in my life – to be taken to this whole new place, Pakistan, and livingfor awhile with my extended family. It made me understand my father better – it gave me an idea of where he was coming from and whyhewas the wayhewas.[…]Khan is aslightly different man in the sequel. He’sdesperatefor his youngest son to accept his wayoflife, but finds anew side to himself in the process.” Aniruddha Guha, “Ayub Khan Din: Not his Father’s Son” ( April, ), DNA INDIA,(acc.  March, ).  See EdwardW.Said, Representations of the Intellectual (New York: Vintage, ): . Fair Hearing and Fair Play in Multicultural Societies 75

2. PoliticsofAudibility and (In‐)Visibility

The two wivesdonot recognize George as acultural construct,but as aman who was led astray by his licit and innocent aspiration, and for this reason they almostnever come into areal intercultural conflict with him. George is a Pakistani in England and an Englishman in Pakistan. Different territories,orliv- ing places, seedifferent rules and jurisdictions, but also different perceptions of reality. Adiasporic identity is always asked to find new ways to be human, new images of him- or herself,¹³ and that is oftenconnected to his or her physical appearance since the migrant ‘trans-lates’ his or her bodyfrom one land to the other.¹⁴ Iwonder if the complex matter of habeas corpus,and in particularthe “Habeas corpus,adsubjiciendum judicium!” (“Youshould have the bodyfor submitting”), which is conceivedtodetermine whether the custodyisunlawful, can be useful to unveil discriminatory rules. In amulti-ethnic society the body often becomes the pretext for discrimination. The displayofdifferent cultural identitiescan be alimit to agood dialogue, albeit we must keep in mind that also anon-verbal, physical confrontation can assume the value of afair hearing if grounded on an equal comparison. Literatureand cinema have exploited the controversialrelationship between the visibility vs. invisibility of the Other.Cultural studies highlight how the body is asocial marker which emphasises differencesinanus/we vs. they/themrela- tionship. If on the one hand,abuse and oppression are directlyput into practice on the mind and the bodyofthe human being,onthe other hand the bodymight become the ‘ground’ wheretoroot aconstructive interculturaldialogue. It happens thatthe visual imageofabodydoes not onlybecome the metonymyofa national (or racial) identity, but also a ‘location’ that enquires as well as a ‘location’ enquired into. Once the self is embodied in agiven situation, the bodycan be seen as asituated self, thereforebymakingoneself visible, one becomes the agent of one’sown presenceinthe community.Wemight arguethat the visualization of the identity re-codes the personal semiotics by additions, deletions, and revisions, in what activelyconstitutes and motivates the operative ‘I.’¹⁵ It

 See Salman Rushdie, ImaginaryHomelands (London: Granta Books, ): –.  See Silvia Albertazzi, Lo sguardo dell’Altro.Leletteraturepostcoloniali (Roma: Carocci ): –.  See Edwin Thumboo, “ConditionsofCross-Cultural Perceptions.The Other Looks Back,” in Embracing the Other.Addressing Xenophobia in the New Literatures of English,ed. Dunja M. Mohr (Amsterdam,New York: Rodopi, ): –, –. 76 Paola Carbone happens that the visual semiotics of one’sown identity becomes aform of narration which could be more or less efficient in afair intercultural hearing.Let’s take for example Gandhi’soutfit during his visit to England in 1931 and in particular to Buckingham Palace, when he decided to wear the loincloth of the poor- est Indian farmers. Hisaspect waseloquent not onlyofthe living conditions of the most disadvantagedIndians, but alsoofthe British imperialist responsibili- ties towardshis country. We cannot forgetthat the displayofthe diasporic identity forces the West to reassess itself as acentre, since any ‘alien body’ makesalso the peculiarities of the ‘domesticbody’ visiblethanks to adialogical hermeneutics guided by differ- ance,which is favoured by the physical distance of the migrant from his own country.Avariation in the proxemics fosters the complexity of the signified and the awareness of racial individual features.Caroline Nagel and Lynn A. Stae- heli maintain:

Bodies are imbued within ideas about differenceand sameness.[…]Integration, in this sense, needs to be understood as avisual practice and politics that involves identifyingpar- ticular visible differences as meaningful and placingthese differencesinwider narratives of belongingand social membership.¹⁶

With respect to the delicate and long debated theme of integration and assimilation,the impossibilitytocancel the physical difference of the foreign bodyhas come to the fore. It might be worthwhile rememberingwhat Henry Hopkinson, Foreign Minister in 1954,addressing the House of Commons, stated:

As the lawstands, anyBritish subject from the colonyisfreetoenter this country at any time as long as he can produce satisfactory evidenceofhis British status.This is not some- thingwewant to tamper with lightly. […]Westill takepride in the fact that aman can say civis Britannicus sum whatever his colour may be and we takepride in the fact that he wants and can come to the mother country¹⁷ [My italics].

But alsowhat Enoch Powell said in his (in‐)famous “The RiverofBlood”-speech:

To be integrated intoapopulation means to become for all practical purposes indistinguishable fromits other members.Now,atall times, wherethereare markedphysical differ-

 Caroline Nagel, Lynn A. Staeheli, “Integration and the Politics of Visibility and Invisibility in Britain: The Case of British Arab Activists,” in New Geographies of Race and Racism,ed. Claire Dwyer, Caroline Bressey (Farnham:AshgatePublishing, ): –, .  Ian R.G. Spencer, BritishImmigration Policy Since :The Making of Multi-Racial Britain (London, New York: Routledge, ): . Fair Hearing and Fair Play in Multicultural Societies 77

ences,especially of colour,integration is difficult though, over aperiod, not impossible¹⁸ [My italics].

In both statements the bodybecomes the social marker of aculturalconstruction associated to avalue judgment, thatis, the superimposition of astriatedterritory which creates the opportunity for awar.Itisagood space for awar-machine, as Deleuze and Guattari would say. In such acontext,politics legitimately (even if unfairly,sometimes) makes territorial rights prevail, so to saythat if ordinary languageisflexible with respect to meaning,the languageoflaw tends to avoid ambiguities (inclusion, exclusion, estrangement),¹⁹ as the British laws of migration reveal. In the 1940s the formula “European workers” was much more appreciated than ‘foreign workers’ since migrants from the Commonwealth were regarded as foreigners, being most of them coloured and so lesseligible as Britons (BritishNationality Act, 1948); in the 1960s the Commonwealth ImmigrantsAct explicitlytalks about “coloured colonial workers” since whitemigrants wereconsidered more suitable candi- dates for assimilation; in 1971 the Race Relations Actstated thatimmigration was forbidden for “black people” enforced by patriotic rhetoric based on traditional values.²⁰ While the narration of one’sidentity is culturallyand psycholog- icallydetermined by the observerand the social context,the lawinsistsonits truth. In postcolonial literature,manycharacters make experience of the dispossession of theircoloured bodyinfavour of the white-body, as the onlypure and authentic one, which is followed by the re-territorialization or re-location of the black bodyinanew social and geographical territory.Wecan generally recognize different attitudes, which create adialogical barrier and reveal the ambiguity of anyrepresentational system, that is, the provisional truth of anycul- tural construction. In London in the mid-fifties,the Caribbean protagonist of Naipaul’s TheMimic Man,Ralph Singh, says:

In the great city,sothree-dimensional, so rooted in its soil, drawingcolour from such depths,onlythe city was real. Those of us who came to it lost some of our solidity;we weretrapped intofixed, flat postures. And, in this growing dissociation between ourselves

 Enoch Powell, “Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech,” ( November, ), TheTele- graph (acc.  March, ).  See Cavalla, “Retorica giudiziale, logica everità,” .  See Linda McDowell, “On the SignificanceofBeing White: European Migrant Workers in the British Economyinthe  sand  s,” in New Geographies of Race and Racism,(Farnham: AshgatePublishing, ): –, –. 78 Paola Carbone

and the city in which we walked, scores of separate meetings, not linked even by ourselves, whobecame nothingmorethan perceivers: everyone reduced, reciprocally, to asuccession of such meetings, so that first experienceand then the personality divided bewilderingly into compartments.Each person concealed his own darkness.²¹

The figure of the mimic man pervades all postcolonial literature, since it ideolog- icallyimpliesanassimilation to asupposedlymore valuable civilization and seducingmores.Inthis case the interculturaldialogue is denied from the beginning in view of the fact that the diasporic individual aspires to cancel differences:conformity to asituated bodyrather than confrontation. But it can also happen that the concealment of the bodyorthe denial of its narration might be a matter of life-and-death struggle. In My Place by the Australian writer Sally Morgan, the grandmother of the narrator hides her aboriginal origin from her nieces and neighboursbecause she is scaredofgovernment officers and worried about social discrimination. Her attitude comes from the trauma for being victim of abuse in her earlyyears, like anyother Australian ‘blackfella’ (see the stolen generation, transportation and the outback movement):

‘Hmmph, youthink youknow everything, don’tyou?’ she replied bitterly. ‘Youdonot know nothin’,girl’.You don’tknow what it is like for people likeus. We arelike those Jews, we got to look out for ourselves’ […] ‘In this world there is no justice, people likeus’dall be dead and gone now if it was up to this country.’ […] ‘Nan’,Isaid carefully. ‘What people arewe?’ She was immediatelyonthe defensive.She lookedsharplyatmewith the lookofarab- bit sensingdanger. ‘You’re tryin’ to trick me again. Aaah, youcan’tbetrusted. I’mnot stupid, youknow.I’mnot sayingnothing. Nothing, do youhear.’²²

Metaphorically, we might state that she denies herself the right to afair hearing and along with it also her right to be freetoshow what she is: a ‘blackfella’ not ablack Indian migrant,asshe lets people think. Albeit indigenous, she can be considered adiasporic subjectivity as aconsequence of the peculiarBritishoc- cupation of Australia. The woman narratesherself in relation to the danger she had experienced for being Aboriginal. Because of the violence she went through, the grandmother accepts to be narrated by the whiteAustralians or, metaphoricallyspeaking,bythe counterparty:asSalmanRushdie states in TheSatanic Verses “They describe us, […]That’sall. They have the power of de-

 V.S. Naipaul, TheMimic Men (Harmondsworth: Penguin, ): .  SallyMorgan, My Place (Fremantle: Fremantle Arts CentreP,): . Fair Hearing and Fair Play in Multicultural Societies 79 scription,and we succumb to the pictures they construct.”²³ But this kind of description is amonologue, not adialogical praxis which could promise truth and equity with respect to the concept of humanitas. We might observe that abal- anced right or duty of description or self-narration is often undermined. Litera- ture shows that aco-existenceofasubjectivity which belongstoatradition and asubjectivity defined by social membership is the resultofamature collaboration between will, actionand consciousness. It is worthwhile remembering what in the late sixties Wole Soyingasaid about Leopold Senghor’sNégritude Move- ment: “Atiger does not shout its tigritude, it acts”:representationisthe line of action of asubjectivity within the community.AsIhave tried to point out, the praxis of representation makesthe ‘rule’ emerge. Literaturehighlights the nuances of characters and thematic significances hard to discern in reality:the more the detailedcharting of the self is defined, the more the perception of the other is refined. Acareful logical argumentation makes similarities rather thanmore obvious culturaldifferencescome to the fore so that anarration of co-existenceturnsinto knowledge for the entire readership. The ‘race’ becomesthought-in-action workingonhegemonic attitudes, that is stereotypes and mainstream. In amulticultural context,citizenship relies on the agency the members of the community exercise in order to be ‘visible,’ that is ‘audible,’ in theirstatements. As Ihavealready said about West is West, visibility andaudibilityare assumptionsofresponsibility whichimply theright todignity andfreedom. Similarly,stereotypes might make the confrontation difficult and turn into silence but also violence: from the forum to the battlefield. Awork which exemplifies this last approach is the short story and movie by Hanif Kureishi, My Son the Fanatic,²⁴ whereagroup of second-generation Muslims engages in an identitarian struggle mediated by their ‘fashionable’ and highlyvisible bodies as a form of “resistance to the whitemen, the dismissal of Christian meekness” as Kureishi himself maintains in his essay “The Rainbow Sign.”²⁵ In My Son the Fa- natic Kureishi thematizes this process as an initiation to tradition which leads second-generation migrants to fanaticism and fundamentalism. The story highlights the hyper-visualization of the identitarian body: Farid dresses in awhite suit with aMuslim cap, lets his beard grow,and speaks Arabic or some Pakistani language. At the beginning,Farid is very well integratedinBritish society and

 Salman Rushdie, Satanic Verses (London:Viking, ): .  Hanif Kureishi, TheBlack Album /MySon the Fanatic:ANovel and aShort Story (London: Scribner, ).  Hanif Kureishi, “The Rainbow Sign,” in My Beautiful Laundrette and TheRainbow Sign (Lon- don: Faber and Faber, ), . 80 Paola Carbone his father is proud of it,but then he decides to take up his Muslim culture, so that he becomes an integralist.The boy is actuallylooking for an ideological, an- cestralpureness,which is quite far from his culturaland socio-political surrounding(bothBritish and Pakistani). Religion becomes atransnationalidentity, and its hyper-visualization leads to the detachment from aterritorial identity. Likewise, in TheBlackAlbum Chad takes on his religious transnationalidentity to avoid being considered aforeigner.Hehides himself behindhis Muslim clothes, so as to be the ‘Islamic brother’ and no longer the ‘Paki.’ He prefers being considered athreatening harm rather than engagingindialogue, but in this wayhemisrepresents himself. Still Kureishi writes:

Isaw the takingupofIslam as an aberration, adesperatefantasy of world-wide black brotherhood; it was asymptom of extreme alienation. It was also an inability to seek a wider political view or cooperation with other oppressed groups – or with the working class as awhole – since alliancewith whitegroups was necessarilyout of the question.²⁶

As amatter of facts, Chad/Farid is unable to represent himself, so he plays the newcomer who puts on stagehis own conquest of England. Louise Bennett, the Caribbeanpoet,talks about a “Colonization in Reverse”:while youmake yourself extensivelyvisible, youare colonizingacultural as well as aphysical space. It is my opinion that the Britishdid the sameinIndia, when they imposed their civilisation through their political and visual behaviour,that is, by keeping Indians at adistance. But we must point out that in My Son the Fanatic we are far from those counter-narrations²⁷ Homi Bhabha talks about as the onlydiscourse able to break the ruling ideology. Indeed, Farid deliberatelyand ostensibly hyper-visualizes himself to createavisual lexicon of difference,inopposition to the phenomenon of mimicry or even to (his previous) social assimilation. In so doing,heopens himself to scrutiny, misrecognition, dissonance: contra not versus. If in open court the evidence is the resultofadialectical argumentation of opposing positions regulated by the fair play, Farid puts himself contra – against – rather than versus – towards – opening the wayfor intolerance and violence since he denies anykind of dialogue and shared knowledge of the cultural hiatus. First of all, fair playmeans respect for the fair hearing,since only the right method provides the right evidence for alegal truth. By accepting the fair play, the parties accept also to hearacounter-evidence in order to attain

 Kureishi, “The Rainbow Sign,” .  See Homi Bhabha, “DissemiNation. Time, narrative,and the margins of the modern nation,” in Nation and Narration,ed. Homi Bhabha (London: Routledge, ): –. Fair Hearing and Fair Play in Multicultural Societies 81 the knowledge requiredbythe court to come to asentence(not to averdict!). Farid cannot break out of his ownculturaland linguistic constructions,and that is the ideological boundary of his discourse on diaspora. Once again Kur- eishi writes: “the debasement of one race and the glorification of another in this wayinevitablyleadstomurder.”²⁸

3. Diasporic Identities in the CourtofLaw

Iwould consider the relationship between diasporastudies and lawwith respect to what happens in the Court when adiasporic subjectivity is one of the opposing parties.²⁹ So far we have talked about fair hearing as ametaphor,but it might also be worthwhile considering the role playedbythe independent judge,who is responsible for an equitable sentenceaswell as for the implementation of the lawinamulticultural case. Naively, we might believethe court to be the place wheretruth³⁰ and the values of ademocratic society (that is to say humanitas and equity) are protected, and with them also the dignity of the migrant once he claims his fundamental right to be heard. But the practice of lawcan be full of shadows sometimes. What does the principle of ‘equality before the law’ or ‘under the law’ mean in amulticultural context?Ifweaccept the idea that the lawcan resolve conflicts onlywhen the judicial process is rooted in the history and moralprinciples of a culture, a ‘multicultural judicial’ might present acognitive and juridical bewil- derment: there is no fair hearing unless the parties and the judge share the same assumptions and acknowledgment of the legal rule.³¹ As James Boyd White maintains, “astatute is not to be read as an order or acommand, as a rule, but as atext that is to be harmonized to the extent possiblewith the entire culturaland political inheritance that is the law,”³² which is comparable to what Celsus meantbyius est arsboni et aequi in the second century A.D.³³ During the proceedings this prospective harmonymust be put into effect in collaboration

 Kureishi, “The Rainbow Sign,” .  In my reading of Where the Green Ants Dream and APassage to India,Iwill consider both Aborigines and Indians as ‘diasporicsubjectivities’ at their own home since, although British subjects,they arenot utterlyperceivedasBritish.  See also Michael Lynch, True to Life. WhyTruth Matters (Cambridge,MA: MITP,).  See Rossi, “Contraddittorio processuale eformazione della regola di diritto,” .  White, Living Speech, Resisting the EmpireofForce, .  See D..., (acc.  Dec ). 82 Paola Carbone with the judge who is involved in understanding the legal reasoning of the lawyers. Such reasoning is made within the lawand it shapes the law.³⁴ Aclear example of aculturalclash in aHighCourt is narrated in the well- known movie Wherethe Green Ants Dream (1984, Wo die grünen Ameisenträu- men)byWerner Herzog.³⁵ The film, set in Australia, is about an action which Aboriginesbring against amining companyclaiming that an areathe mining companywishes to work on is the place wheretheir green ants ancestors dream, which means asacredsite. At the beginning of the judicial hearing, the Judge states:

Ithink it is importanttosay at the outset that this case beforethis HighCourt is not merely run by Aborigines dispossessed of their Ancestral land by the white man findinginthe activity of the Ayers MiningCompanyafinal assault in their believes. It is also acase that traces fundamental,moral questions of great complexity.Wemust here discover whether the Aboriginal plaintiffs hold in fact in common law aland rights title validbefore1788tu- telaries enacts by Governor Phillips, whobyhoistingthe flagclaimed all of this vast continent for the British Crown.³⁶

Firstly, the speaker underlines aculturaldifference between the parties, which are identifiedas‘the Aborigines’ (the plaintiffs) and ‘the whiteman’ (the defendant along with the Commonwealth of Australia), but he lets the parties believea fair hearing is possible even when members of asociety have different amounts of wealth, prestige,and power,but even more when some of the citizens are openlyperceivedasdistinct from the otherones and theirGovernment.Second- ly,hepoints out that the economic reasons of the defendant collide with the deepestreligious beliefs of the plaintiffs, which means thatheisaware of disparate social,religious and moral values in play. The judge is maintaining that ius can mediate between religion and economy, and that is possible because the sentencewillconform to common law, that is not in the light of Aboriginal law, which is inherentlyconnected to the sacredness of the songlines, but ac-

 SeeRossi, “Contraddittorio processuale eformazione della regola di diritto,” .  The movie is very politicallyoriented and therefore caused considerable controversy.Itis about the Milirrpum decision, of ,bythe Supreme Court of the Northern Territory.AnAbo- riginal community livinginthe Govepeninsula, claimed property rights,based on continuous occupation of aportion of land, in order to prevent miningactivities.Justice Blackburn dis- missed the claim, holdingthat,though the Aboriginal community certainlyhad avery strict sys- temofrules, mostlyofaspiritual nature, which might well be called ‘laws,’ the relationship between people, or individuals,and land, governed by such very detailed rules, maynot be treated as ‘property,’ in anysense.  Wherethe GreenAnts Dream,dir.Werner Herzog,  (United States: Infinity Media Hold- ingsLTD: TangoEntertainment, ). Fair Hearing and Fair Play in Multicultural Societies 83 cording to aWestern idea of property as apower de facto over material goods. It is in the customary lawthat equity must be looked for,but,asweall know,during the colonization of the Australian continent the British have interrupted the symbiotic physical relationship Aboriginal peoples had with the land (that is the songlines). As aconsequence, the hearing is represented as culturallydefined and the rule is fixed since the beginning:nocultural mediation is foreseen but onlythe enforcement of ajuridical system. At first,experts testify for the defending party by explaining Aboriginalculture, that is to saythe Dreamtime and the clan relationships,sotomake the reasons of the native people clear to the ‘white’ (or non-Aboriginal) court.But the Solicitor General, who represents Aus- tralia and the mining company, wants “proofs and facts” instead of “presump- tions and theories.” As asort of counterbalance, Aborigines always (self‐)translate from their lan- guageinto English whatever they say – despite the fact that they all know Eng- lish – with the purpose of asserting their culturaldifferenceand identity in the (theoretically) neutralspace of the court.³⁷ In order to establish agood communication among the partiesand the judge,aforeigner usually has the right to either an interpreter or atranslator,although aculturalhiatus might persist when the two cultures are deeplydifferent from each other.Infact,Herzog highlights how even bodily languageispart of the Natives’ idiom,but for the Solicitor Gen- eral –“Can youtranslate agesture in English?”–they are so vagueand even disrespectful of the court,thatthe judge fairlydecides that the transcript should include indication of the descriptive gestures of the plaintiffs. Here the judge seems to defend the actors’ rights: in the scene aculturalmediator is missing, but more thanonce the judge statesthat he is the warrantor of afair hearing and impartiality: “this court will decide in this case and in all others before it what is and what is not admissible evidence.” Accordingtowhat we have previ- ouslysaid about the structure of the fair hearing as the structure of reality,itis evident,onthe one hand, that Australian society is not socially equal and,on the otherone, thatonlyan“independent” third party can provide justice. But we need to verify if this is reallythe case. Even if the proceedingsseem to be formallyrespected, meaningand negotiation are not.Apositive disposition of the judge to understand the parties does not always suffice: when an inconsistent debate takes place, the judgment cannot take into consideration the legal reasoning suggested by the parties. More than aquestion of visibility or audibility,this is aproblem of non-recognition. All

 Traditionally, the songlines arealso called the “wayofthe law” because it is on the dreaming tracks that the lawisimplemented. 84 Paola Carbone that becomes clear when, in the attempt to reach alegal solution, the Aborigi- nals accept to provetheir bond to the land by bringinginfront of the High Court of Australia their tjuringa,their laworthe sacred text of theirtradition, the most important thing for their life and theirfeelings,asone of the plaintiff says.The actors (naively)seem to be aware of the common lawcountries’ rule iuraaliena non novit curia,i.e., judge maynot rely on his own knowledge of foreign law, but the party who relies on it must give “judicial notice of foreign country law,” with expertsgivingwitness of its consistency under examination and cross-examination. Aborigines fail in theirattempt because theircultural roots go unheeded since the Aboriginal lawand the Commonwealth Laware incompatible for this Court.The judge is merelyable to describetothe court reporter the external appearance of the ‘object’ shown, without making anarrative synthesis between what he sees and what he hears: “The markingsindecipherable. The significance of the markingsnot plain to this Court.”³⁸ The sacred tjuringa is not an evidence because trans-jurisdictionallyworthless. The judge dismisses the claim of the plaintiffs since it is in contrast both to the Commonwealth Law, which is the only ‘official’ lawofthe nation, and to the culturallyand legallycompromised concept of property.Onthe one hand, Herzogtells us the Nativesaccepted to be judgedaccordingtocommon law, which means that they could not changethe rule underway; on the other one, the tjuringa is not an evidence of the existenceofaproperty right.Inlegal truth terms,Aboriginals could not provetheir ‘possession’ of the land according to the Western idea of property as aright,because for them ‘possession’ refers to the duty aman has to keep the earth and the environment in good repair,asit has been passed down as Lawfrom the Dreamtime. This case is utterlyset into a social-cultural context,but it is difficult to saythat the sentenceisnot law-abiding,atleast it is neglectful of aculturaldimension: the culturalrelations of the Aboriginals with theirland is not lawfullyrelevant for Commonwealth Law.³⁹ Before sentencing, the judge thanks the parties for their civil behaviour: both partieshavetalked, both parties have been heard,sothat the trial could formally come to life with fair play, but the sentencewill evaluatemorethe legal authority than the legal reasoning advanced by the parties.We must admitthatinthis case Aboriginals are not able to conform their languagetothe Court’s. As Cavalla would say,⁴⁰ they chose the wrong commonplacetoclaim their rights. It is onlythe judge who decides the legal rule, even if it might implyadebasement

 Wherethe Green Ants Dream,dir.Werner Herzog.  In ,the sentencewill be overturned by the Mabo vQueensland sentence,where the plaintiff asked to have his ‘native title’ recognized instead of his ‘property right.’  See Cavalla, “Retorica giudiziale, logica everità,” . Fair Hearing and Fair Play in Multicultural Societies 85 of the legal dialectics. Obviously, this is avery politically oriented movie, but it represents how afair hearing can be undermined by adifferent conception of Right.What makes this position hard to accept is the fact that we are not dealing with across-border legal relationship, because Aborigines are the native peoples of the Continent. The creation of arule might seem neutral, but it is the outcome of apolitical agency.Inorder to understand the difficult relationship between lawand cultural integration, it might be important to bear in mind the waythe British had administered justicethroughout the Empire. As for example, in India the Hindu Gains of Learning Act of 1930 was meant to help “English-educated males to safeguard theirindividual earningsout of the realm of the joint-familypool. The act stipulated that all gains of learning (income earned through professional quali- fications)would be the exclusive and separated property of aHindu male even if he had been supported from the fundsofthe joint-familyproperty.The other members of the jointfamily could have no access to these earnings. So the ben- efits of the maintenancefrom the earningsofjoint-familyproperty,upon which a woman could stake aclaim by wayofacharge on the property,⁴¹became diminished in this process and women, once abandoned by their husband or in wid- owhood, would be left with no economic protection. The British did not take into consideration the cultural tradition of the complex Indian family. Herethe legislator betraysthe ideal of alaw as aliving speech, since in so doing he imposes silence to agreat part of the (female) population. Aliterary example of aculturalconflict in acriminalcourt is the proceedings described by E.M. Forster in APassage to India,⁴² whereDrAziz is chargedwith rape against Miss Quested, before Mr Das, the Indian magistrate. Ignoring all the verbaland satirical implications, we must point out that the author calls the attention of the reader to the correct procedureofthe hearing,although it is an open interculturalconflict that is taking place. The accused and the victim em- bodytwo different culturaland political powers,sothat anyaction duringthe debate is conceivedasculturallycompromised. At first the judge denies the Brit- ish to sit on aplatform since, as the pleader Amritrao objects, it would spectacu- larize their authority with the effect of intimidating the Indian witnesses. Then we are told that the Judge “continued to listen to the evidence, and tried to forget that lateronheshould have to pronounceaverdict in accordancewith it”

 Flavia Agnes, “Women, Marriage,and the Subordination of Rights,” in Community,Gender and Violence: Subaltern Lies,ed. Partha Chatterjee, Pradeep Jeganathan (London: Hurst &Com- pany, ): –, .  E.M. Forster, APassage to India (London: Penguin Books, ). Further references in the text,abbreviated as “PI”. 86 Paola Carbone

(PI,216); besides, he remembers thatonlyevidence emerging from the debate could be considered for asentence, thereforesince neither sidecalled for Mrs Moore neither could quote her as evidence (PI,218); moreover,heexpects Mr Mahmoud Ali,one of the Pleaders,toapologize for his intemperance. But he feels hard pressed when Mrs Quested withdrawsthe charge and the audience re- acts so loudlythat he is obliged to takethe debate to an end. AfterDrAziz is released, we read: “Mr Das rose,nearlydead with the strain, he had controlled the case, just controlled it.Hehad shown thatanIndian can preside” (PI,224). The Britishdecided Mr Das was the right judgebecause they thought an Indian magistrate would have unequivocallydisplayedimpartiality, but they weresure of the guilty verdict. Can atrulyindependent judge have aracial and national identity?MrDas is aware of the original prejudice in the charge of a civis Britannicus – Dr Aziz, the Indian defendant – but he also knows the trial would continue out of the courtroom in the streets.Thisisapolitical and social event.Merelythe conformity to the procedureand the truth told by the accuser make the judge pass an impartial judgment against unequal interculturalpremises.But for Miss Quested’schange of mind, the sentencewould have been influenced by prejudice. The presenceof ajudge guarantees asentence, but onlyanimpartial judge should be able to recognize the cliché and the commonplaces. James Boyd White says thatwecannot talk about the languageused by lawyer and judge in terms of analytic acuteness, skill in presentation, and intellectual coherence, but in terms of openness to other ways of thinking,responsiveness to questions, honesty in facing difficulties, sensitivity to historical and social context,understanding of the situations and motivesofothers; awareness of the real costs and dangers of aparticular decision, the capacities to make sense of the caseasawhole, both standing alone and in connection with othercases.⁴³

5. Conclusion

In the final analysis,the fair hearing,conceivedasaright,amethod,aprinciple, but also as anarrative process and an epistemological category,can be apowerful tool for the interpretation of amulti-ethnic society and a ‘diasporic citizenship.’ Adiasporic identity challenges the assumption that there is a ‘simple’ direct relationship between ethnicity and territory,since it is a ‘variable’ of that complex unity we call human being.Self representation and amultiplicity of

 White, Living Speech, Resisting the EmpireofForce, –. Fair Hearing and Fair Play in Multicultural Societies 87 viewpoints make the vulnera of human interactions emerge.The lawprovides the rules for acivil co-existence,aswellasthe rules for a ‘fair dialogue.’ Fair hearing and fair playwalk side by side.Whereas fair playpromote a dynamic understanding of multicultural relationships,ajudicial proceeding conducted with fair play should conform to fundamental concepts of justiceand equality. It is my opinion that rather than amulticultural or interculturallogic, nowadays we should concentrate on adeeper knowledge of single cultures. No form of culturalsynthesis is allowed unless there is an honestknowledge of the living speech of the Other.Instead of a ‘contradictory third space’ Iwish for athird space emerging from afair right to hearing.

Peter Schneck Critical Subjects of Belonging

Diaspora,Indigenism and Human Rights

1. ConceptualConundrums and Critical Intersectionality

The following remarks are concernedwith some conceptual and methodological challenges presented by the divergent conceptualization of the diasporic and the indigenous subject, respectively, both in lawand in literature. On the one hand, diasporaand indigenismmay largely appear as two rather distinct,evencon- trasting conceptual categorieswithin the largerfield of post-colonial literary and legal studies in general; on the other hand both mayalso stand for rather distinct interests, approaches and debates from the perspective of the specific theoretical and methodological concerns at the center of lawand literature studies. The most fruitfulchallengefor the latter,Ithink, presides preciselyinthe dialectical relation – the conceptual complicity,even – between the diasporic and the indigenous subjects as critical subjects of belonging. The discussion to follow willthus be basedontwo basic assumptions. One is that thereisanimplicit conceptual relation or even mutual dependency which links the diasporic and the indigenous subjectasdistinct and central notions in legal and literarynegotiations of postcolonial personhood and subjectivity. Another assumption is that the challenges brought about by criticallyaddressing this vastlyunacknowledgedconceptual complicity can help to expand and en- rich our readings of literary and legal texts in the contemporary critical study of the complex relation between law, literature and culture.¹ As bothdiasporaand indigenismare based on contemporarycritical and analytical conceptualizations of postcolonial subjects,the problem Iwant to ad-

 To saythat the complicity is ‘vastly’ unacknowledgedshould not implythat it is completely unacknowledged – in fact,thereare obvious attempts to address and discuss the complex relation and potential conceptualmutuality of the two terms in current critical work, some of which will consequentlybereferredtointhe course of the argument.However,thereisstill a strong (and mainlyunreflected) resistance against such intersectionalapproaches or theoretical syntheseswhich illustrates the lack of acknowledgement still dominant both in diaspora studies and indigenous studies. 90 Peter Schneck dress could be described as the challengeofcritical intersectionality,asitwere, since the focus of the interdisciplinary perspective Itry to project involves both the contrasts and the intersection between twospecific theoretical conceptualizations; i.e. the diasporic and indigenous subject, respectively. On the one hand, critical intersectionality,asIunderstand it in the following remarks,thus means to acknowledge the vast bodyofscholarship and critical work which has evolvedinconnection both to the concept of diaspora and the concept of indigenismoverthe last decades in all its diverse and divergent aspects, and yettoapproach thatworkinterms of its critical synergies and overlaps,rather thaninterms of the implicit or even explicit differences between the central concepts. On the other hand, the particular interest in and insistence on the inherent critical complicity of contemporary conceptualizationsofpost-colonial and post- modernsubjectivities in lawand literature is also drivenbythe acknowledgement of the crucial ways in which the indigenous and the diasporic subject have evolvedasanalytical and critical categories to conceptualize collective subjects of human rights bothinlaw and in literature. This acknowledgment regards the more or less obvious ways in which both conceptualizationshavecontributed to and, at the sametime, have been shaped by,the emergence and increasingsignificanceofthe discourse on human rights in global contexts in general, but alsomore specificallyinthe interdisciplinary scholarship concerned with the relation between law, literatureand culture.² In otherwords, the following discussion rests on the basic hypothesis that the critical investment over the past decades in concepts like diasporaand indigenism, despite their avowed differences, converges in principle, if not in practice, on the implicit dialectic which aligns these concepts in relation to amore general and more universal conceptualization of human rights and the human rights subject.Once this convergence is acknowledged, and the implicit dialectic between the two conceptsismade explicit,the acknowledgement of this critical intersectionality mayhelp identify and develop more suitable and appropriate ways to connect literaryand legal negotiations from different cultural contexts and historicalbackgrounds.Thiswill also helps to formulate and sketch out a more integratedliterary history which traverses and transcends national identity

 This includes not onlywork in legal, literary,and cultural studies per se, but also and more importantlythe salient contributions in established fields likelegal anthropology or in morere- cent emergent fields,e.g.cultural legal studies.See Cultureand Rights. AnthropologicalPerspec- tives, ed. Jane K. Cowan, Marie-BénédicteDembour,Richard. A. Wilson (New York: Cambridge UP, ); Rosemary J. Coombe, “HoningaCritical Cultural StudyofHuman Rights,” Commu- nication and Critical/Cultural Studies . (): –. CriticalSubjects of Belonging 91 discourses,their thematic restrictions as well as their formal predilections in favorofatransnationalhistory of literary forms and expressionsconcerned with the defenseand negotiation of rights, especiallyhuman rights in reference to national and international literarycanons and existing bodies of law. As aconsequence, my remarks will also contain astrong element of speculation,partlyout of necessity,but partlyfor strategic reasons as well. To discuss the potential conceptual complicity between the diasporic and the indigenous subjectasthey exist as analytical tools and critical abstractions must entail are- flectionontheir strategic position in the interdisciplinary correlation or rather couplingoflegal and literary studies. This seems especiallysignificant in regard to the subjectofhuman rights – asubject which arguablycould be said to have emergedasacommon project of literature and the law, or more precisely, as a shared projection of the literary and the legal imagination. From this perspective,both the indigenous and the diasporic subjectofbelongingmust be seen as emerging from the gradual conceptual but also disciplinary differentiation or separation of the legal and the literary projection of the human rights subject from the eighteenth century onward. Yetthey also alreadycontain acritique of that projection as they specificallyaddress and question the human rights subject as it has been conceived, say, by classicalpolitical philosophy, as asubject in crisisand thus as acritical subject.This is obvious, for instance, in the wayin which both indigenism and diaspora center on questions of collective rights, cultural identity and the survivalofgroups in general and,more specifically, on the protection of collective rights as anecessary element for the preservation of collective culturalidentity.

2. Challenging Subjectivities

From the point of view of literary and legal studies, the diasporic subjectmay appear at first sight as the more ‘post’-colonial and more ‘literary’ subject,i.e. ambivalent and hybrid, dynamic and full of ambivalence and potentiallycon- flicting meanings.Incontrast, the indigenous subject is likelytoappear more authentic and original, somehow more ‘pre’-colonial, possiblyevenarchaic, still linked to aspecific geographical point of origin (whether through physical attachment or by narrative association)but potentiallyalso threatened by displacement,dislocation and extinction. To call the indigenous subjectamore ‘legal’ subjectisofcourse not meant to denythe obvious literarypresence and negotiation of native subjectivities throughout the modernhistory of human rights, but rather to recognize and emphasize the fact thatthe attempt to conceive the indigenous subject as alegal subject – more precisely, acollec- 92 Peter Schneck tive legal subject – has resulted in specific legal instruments and human rights declarations, most obviously, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoplesfrom 2007.³ As Ronald Niezen has argued, the struggle of indigenous peoples all over the world for the recognition of their precarious conditions of existenceand survival and their tenuous status as legal subjects and bearerof human rights has resulted from successfullyintroducing and subsequentlyes- tablishingindigenism as a “legal category that is now the focus of numerous human rights, health and development initiativesinthe UN system.”⁴ In face of the fact that the “use of the term ‘indigenous’ in reference to adistinct human group or community with rights of self-determination” is only “fairlyre- cent,” as Niezen concludes, the ascendancyofthe indigenous as alegal category and as auniversalterm for acollective identity “providingacommon collective rubric for asignificant number of people from manyparts of the world who saw it as descriptive of themselvesand theircommunities” must appear astounding. The 2007 UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is thus onlythe last and most recent illustration of the increasing “legal concretization” of the term ‘indigenous’ over the last 50 years.⁵

 See e.g James S. Anaya, Indigenous Peoples in International Law (Oxford: OxfordUP, ); Ronald Niezen, TheOrigins of Indigenism. Human Rights and the Politics of Identity (Berkeley: UofCalifornia P, ); BenjaminRichardson et al. eds. Indigenous Peoples and the Law (Port- land: Hart, ). As Anaya,amongothers,has argued, indigeneity must be regarded as an inherent aspect of the emergenceand subsequent development of modern internationallaw since the fifteenth century.Moreover,asthe example of FranciscodeVitoria’streatise on the Indians clearlyshows,the question of the rights of indigenous subjects as acollective was clearlyatthe center of this development, the ‘Indians’ wereboth literary and legal subjects fromthe begin- ningofmoderninternational lawwhich precedes, but also preforms the legal and literary imagination of the human rights subject in the eighteenth century.  Ronald Niezen, TheRediscoveredSelf.Indigenous Identity and Cultural Justice (Montreal: McGill-Queens UP, ), .  Niezen, RediscoveredSelf, , –.Karen Engle has pointed out the important fact that post-WWII developments in international human rights and international indigenous rights movements have different trajectories and despitetheir obvious similarities also divergeoncen- tral issues such as the status of individual rights versus collective or grouprights (especiallycul- tural rights). Sincethe issue of collective rights almost inevitablyturns on the question of (group) identity,there is an implicit and continuingtension between the (individual) subject of human rights and the (collective)subjectofindigenous rights.See KarenEngle, “On Fragile Architecture:The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the Context of Human Rights,” EJIL : (): –.Onthe status of indigenous rights as collective human rights,see CindyHolder, “Self-determination as aBasic Human Right: The Draft UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” in Minoritieswithin Minorities: Equality,Rights and Diver- sity, ed. A. Eisenberg, J. Haalev-Spinner (Cambridge:Cambridge UP, ): –. Critical Subjects of Belonging 93

No similar form of ‘legal concretization’ can be observed in regardtothe concept of diasporaorthe diasporic subjectoverthe last decades. Thus, as Anu- pam Chander has stated, in contrast to the stronginterest in diasporainthe humanities in general and literarystudies in particularsince the 1990s, and the enormoustheoretical potential and critical influenceofthe concept across a rangeofother disciplinesincluding sociologyand political science, legal scholarship for along time remained rather reluctant to respond to the concept and the phenomenon of transnationaldiasporic communities:

The legalliterature treats diaspora as ahistorical or perhaps acultural phenomenon, but ignoresits political and legal relevance. […]Little attention is paid to the transnational ties of diasporas, especiallytheir concern for their homeland. In fact,the concepts of the homeland and the transnational community builtbyadiaspora […]makeonlyrareappearance in legal scholarship.⁶

Writing in 2001, Chander observed: “Where lawhas faltered, the humanities have forgedahead” by establishing “diaspora as acentral focus of inquiry in un- derstandingour time” and investigating in particular “the impact of diasporas on fundamental legal concepts such as immigrant,citizen and nation.”⁷ If we follow Chander then, the humanities mayhavediscovered and pushed the legal potential of the diasporaconcept waybefore the laworlegal studies did – yetthe legal acknowledgment of the conceptual weight and charge of the concept of diasporaobviouslystilllagsbehind the universal acceptance of ‘indigeneity’ as alegal and aconceptual category.Itmight getthere eventually, but it does not have the samecredentials. This comparison between the two conceptsinregardtotheir respective purchase in legal and literary discourse seems at first abit far-fetched and beside the point.The contrast is far from accidental, however.Infact,one could arguethatthe reason for the very success of ‘indigenism’ as a legal category is preciselywhat makes it difficult to accept and integrate it into the framework of diasporaasaliterary category.The resistance, furthermore, is mutual: What makes the concept of diasporaessentiallyinacceptable within the framework of indigenismisits inherent critical antagonism to some of the central aspects that allowed for the translation of the indigenous into apotential legal subjectivity in the first place.

 Anupam Chander, “Diaspora Bonds,” New York University Law Review  (): – , –.  Chander, “Diaspora Bonds,” . 94 Peter Schneck

In one of the most influential and substantial contributions to the continuing metacritical debates on the conceptual foundations of diasporastudies, JamesClifford argued as earlyas1994,thatthe conceptual claims of diaspora discourses as “political struggles to define the local, as distinctive community, in historical contexts of displacements” are at odds with similar claims for distinctive communities brought forward by tribal communities,despite the fact that theremay be “significant areas of overlap.” Clifford writes:

[T]he specific cosmopolitanisms articulated by diaspora discourses areinconstitutive tension […]with indigenous,and especiallyautochthonous,claims.These challenge the he- gemonyofmodernnation-states in adifferent way. Tribal or ‘Fourth World’ assertions of sovereignty and ‘first nationhood’ do not featurehistories of traveland settlement,though these maybepart of the indigenous historical experience. They stress continuity of habitation, aboriginality,and often a ‘natural’ connection to the land. […]Tribal cultures arenot diasporas; their sense of rootedness in the land is preciselywhatdiasporic people have lost.⁸

The tension between diasporic and indigenous conceptualizations of legal and literarysubjectivities is deeplypolitical; once one realizes the strategic and pragmatic orientation of the essentialaspectsofthe respectivenotions, the diasporic and the indigenous appear more and more mutuallyexclusive.For the Canadian scholarofglobalcultureDiana Brydon, for instance, “the conceptsofdiaspora reach theirlimits in the claims to indigeneity”⁹ pointingtoanunresolvedand potentiallyirreconcilable antagonism between the strategic objectivesand political pragmatics of the two concepts. This antagonism is felt most poignantlyin cultures and societies that are as much shaped by postcolonial diasporacom- munitiesasthey are by the resistant remnants of indigenous communities strug- glingfor their rights. As Sophie McCall comments on the Canadiansituation:

Forthe past several years [McCall is writingin2012; P.Sch.], agrowing split has become increasinglyevident in critical studies of diasporicand Aboriginal literatures in North America: while most critics of diasporic literatures engagewith questions of migrancyin an era of transnational corporatization, the majority of critics of Aboriginal literatures have turned to the languageofsovereignty and nationhood in an eraofland claims, self-government agreements,and modern days treaties.¹⁰

 James Clifford, “Diasporas,” Cultural Anthropology : (): –, –, .  Diana Brydon, “It’sTimefor aNew Set of Questions,” EssaysonCanadian Writing  (): –, .  Sophie McCall, “Diaspora and Nation in Métis Writing,” in Cultural Grammars of Nation, Diaspora, and Indigeneity in Canada, ed. Christine Kim, Sophie McCall, Melina Baum Singer(Wa- terloo: Wilfried Laurier UP, ): –, . CriticalSubjects of Belonging 95

As these and other similar remarks make clear,there is an inherent tension between concepts of diasporaand conceptsofindigeneity;atension, in fact,which turns each one of the terms into the conceptual ‘inversion’ or even negation of the other.This becomes rather clear in Clifford’sseminal discussion, when earlyonherejects the attempt to define diasporainits various forms according to aset of inherent characteristics or features,proposinginsteadto“specify the discursive field diacritically”:

Rather than locatingessential features, we might focus on diaspora’sborders,onwhatit defines itself against.And, we might ask, what articulations of identity arecurrently beingdisplaced by diaspora claims. It is important to stress that the relational positioning at issue here is not aprocess of absolute othering,but rather of entangled tension. Diasporas arecaught up with and defined against (1) the norms of nation-states and (2)indigenous, and especiallyautochthonous,claims by “tribal” people.¹¹

Despite Clifford’sproviso thatthe correlation between diasporaand indigeneity should best be conceivedofasone of ‘entanglement’ and critical ‘tension’ rather than mutual exclusion and opposition, the conceptual antagonism between the terms has playedout much more effectively than the critical acknowledgment of their troublesome kinship. Foronce, the claims of indigenous or “tribal” people (Clifford’sskeptical use of the quotation marks is rather tellinghere) have been almostcompletelyignored throughout the increasing ‘globalization’ of diaspora as acritical discourse. Rather tellingly, the series on Global Diasporas,published by University CollegeLondon since 1997, which opened with an eponymous volume Global Diasporas. An Introduction, describing and discussingthe widespread contemporary globalphenomenon of diasporic identitiesand communities within abroad historical perspective did not includeany discussion in referencetothe particular historical fate and current situation of indigenous peoples. Despite its obvious interest in the historicalanalogies and dynamics which link diasporic communities over historicaltimes and across geographical spaces,the volume proceeded as if the history of ancient and modern daydia- sporas could be discussed without anyacknowledgement of the conceptual complicity – to saynothing about the historical links – which have tied and still tie the diasporic to the indigenous. It is as if the two terms have come to designate two forms of postcolonial subjectivities that are separated by theirshared historical experience. This radical oppositionhas alsobeen emphasized from the perspective of indigenous or native studies, and especiallysowherethe political and concep-

 Clifford, “Diasporas,” ;myemphases. 96 Peter Schneck tual claims towards legal and cultural identity have come to be based on forms of alternative and resistant nationalism. The developmentofAmerican Indian Lit- eraryNationalism, for instance, is aclear indicator of the particularcritical way in which the relation between the ‘norms of the nation state’ and ‘the claims by tribal people’ are interpreted and transformed into activism by native writer and scholars. In this respect,Tom King’sstrongreaction to the category of the postcolonial in his famous1990 essay “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial” can be read as an early, but clearlyradical opposition against the claims of ‘hybridity’ and ‘diaspora’ in the context of the historical struggle of native literature for an alternative subjectivity which always had sustained(and still sustains)itself in opposition to the abstract norms of the nation state.¹² All these critical statements,aswell as manyother similar comparative as- sessments of diasporaand indigenism, strongly suggest that the two concepts are not simplyincompatible because they stand for distinct and basically incom- parable conditions and constellations and thus refer to different – legal and literary – subjectivities. Moreimportantly,the indigenous and the diasporic are seen as mutuallyexclusive in essentialways, i.e. they cancel each otherout, as it were, as critical and analytical tools.Commenting on William Safran’s earlyattempt to establish amorerefined definitionofdiasporainthe introductory programmatic volume of Diaspora,Renate Eigenbrodobserves that Safran’s “comparative discussion of various diasporas […]does not include Indigenous communities,” and concludes:

This not surprisingasindigeneity and diaspora are, or should be,seen as oppositesides of apeople’sexpressions of belongingand home since ‘Indigenous’ connotesasense of home as livingonthe land youwere born into, i.e. not displaced from, while notions of diaspora originates in the description of the Jewish dispersion … and means ascattering, an exile […].¹³

The inserted conditional ‘should be’ points at the conceptual function of the differencebetween diaspora and indigeneity,meaning thattheirrespective analytical value comes to depend on their implicit – or in this case explicit – opposition. The particularopposition which Eigenbrod emphasizes is that between geographical dispersaland displacement on the one hand and continuity of ge-

 TomKing, “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial,” in WorldLiteratureWritten in English . (): –.  RenateEigenbrod, “DiasporicLongings, (Re) Figurations of Home and Homelessness in Ri- chardWagamese’sWork,” in Cultural Grammars of Nation, Diaspora, and Indigeneity in Canada, ed. Christine Kim, Sophie McCall, Melina Baum Singer(Waterloo:Wilfried Laurier UP, ): –, –;myemphases. CriticalSubjects of Belonging 97 nealogical and historical habitation in one place on the other.Yet this opposition is hardlyasobvious as it appears to be on first sight,since it would mean that the second generation of adiasporic community,for instance, maybecome ‘indigenous’ over time as long as it remains within the same geographical space. On the other hand, it also hints at the possibility thatthe diasporic identity of a community could be sustainedbythe historical and genealogical transference or tradition of exile as aform of (be‐)longing from one generation to the next. In other words, both concepts refer to aspecific relation or better calibration of two forms of identity formation and sustenance – one of which refers to a sense of historicalcontinuity in relation to collective dislocation from one specific place and another one which refers (in ways that are comparable yetalso somehow inverted) to the sense or claim of agenealogical continuity in regard to aspecific location. This particular internal tension has also been noticed and commented upon by more recent critics who have attempted to negotiate the conceptual framework of diasporatheories in relation to the framework of neighbouring theories of transnational cultural and social studies. “Classic definitions of diaspora,” Russel King and Anastasia Christou, for instance,haveargued in reference to (among others)Clifford and Safran’searlier attempts to come up with general analytical categories of diaspora, that these very categories “tend to portray a rather staticentity” or,moreprecisely,

ahistorical process of spreadingand scatteringtoproduce aparticular ‘ethnic’ population distribution and a ‘stateofbeing’ or ‘diasporic consciousness’ that likewise does not stress further movement,exceptperhapsinterms of a ‘floating’ liminality and hybridity.[…]This mayindeed have been the case in the past,and maystill be so in some diasporas for whom the point of origin no longer exists or cannot be identified. It is almost as though the very definitionofdiaspora assumes that diasporic populations aspirebut cannot return. […]

In contrasttothese earlier concepts which emphasized diasporaasastate (of homelessness or dislocation) and thus defined the diasporic subject in sharp dis- tinctiontothe indigenous subject,King and Christou point out that

[i]ncreasingly[…]acombination of the diasporic ethnic (or other)identity and improved means of long-distancetravelenables areturntothe land of parents and ancestors to be- comeareality.¹⁴

 Russell King,Anastasia Christou, “Diaspora, Migration and Transnationalism: Insights from the StudyofSecond-generation ‘Returnees’,” in Diasporaand Transnationalism. Concepts, The- 98 Peter Schneck

There is an unsettling quality in these observations,ifnot alreadyinthe devel- opmentsobserved; unsettling preciselyinregardtothe conceptual and critical distinction and purchase we mayinvest in and assign to terms like diaspora and belonging,onthe one hand, and notions like homeland and indigeneity, on the other.Itmust also be unsettling,and maybe even more so, in light of the most recent wavesofrefugees and migrantsthroughout the world since in obvious and tragic ways the possibilities of long-distance travel and transportation also produce new forms of displacement,dislocationand diasporic com- munitiesworld-wide. Thus, if the more recent definitions of diasporic and migrant subjectivities appear to be more flexible and less static and better attuned to the global dynamics of an unprecedented and ever increasingmobilityofcapital, goods, and people, this conceptual attunement comes with the price of an inevitable tendencytowards abstraction. Themore encompassing the concept of diaspora becomes as acentral analytical tool to tackle the contemporary complexities of migrationand dislocation on aglobal scale, the less it maybeable to conveya specific sense of belongingand adistinct form of imaginary attachment to alost home, which over time have come to be inscribed in, and expressed through, rather specific narrativesand histories about the collective experience of dislocation,persecution, and continuing exclusion, resulting in an identity built on collective remembrance rather thanindividual experience. As aconsequence, the figure of the migrant has become the most obvious contemporary representation of postmodern and postcolonial subjectivity.Asmigrant subjects, contemporary diasporic subjects have become global subjects, and especiallyinlitera- ture, these new diasporic subjects observedbyKing and Christou have almost acquired the status of ‘default’ subjects in fictional narratives, especiallyin the field criticallyclaimedas‘new literatures in English’ since the 1980s. Ironi- cally(or quite consequentially, depending on one’spoint of view) this is the same field which has also rather consistentlyand emphaticallymade the case for the global reach,but alsolocal and even native character of these new ‘glo- cal’ literatureswhich of course are anything but English in aconventional restricted sense of a ‘national’ literature,and rather constitutes an expanding international or transnationalliterary field of its own.¹⁵

ories and Methods,ed. Reiner Bauböck, Thomas Faist (Amsterdam:Amsterdam UP: ): – , .  Atellingexample for the global reach of the ‘default’ subjectivity of the New Literatures in English – including agood description of the German development of the field as well – can be found in Maria Teresa Bindella and Geoffrey V. Davis, ed., Imagination and Creative Impulse in the New Literatures in English (Amsterdam: Rodopi, ). The point to note is not that thereare Critical Subjects of Belonging 99

In regardtoour more immediate concern with the potential critical intersectionality between concepts of diasporaand of indigeneity in the context of law and literature, one could arguethat their “entangled tension” (Clifford) has grown into afullyformedconceptual dialectics. The emergence and successful establishment of indigeneity as agloballyrepresentative and thus universallyac- ceptable ‘legal’ subjectivity for ‘tribal people’ and their common claims for the protection of theirrights, resonates in dialectic fashion with the equallysuccess- ful development and acceptance of ‘diasporic’ subjectivities as the most dominant and representative literary representation of agloballyuniversal experience of dispersion, dislocationand displacement.The issue of (human) rights throws this dialectic into most obvious relief and it is here, in the triangulation of diaspora, indigeneity and human rights that the critical intersectionality,i.e.the entangled tension between the two basic concepts maybecome most challenging, but also most fruitful and productive. Thus, for instance,itwould appear difficult to discuss anovel likeMichael Ondaatje’s Anil’sGhost (2000) and its specific concerns with human rights without referencing the particularway in which the narrative unfolds in various layers and strandsbyestablishing and contrasting two distinct,yet alsoclearly complementary perspectivesonthe horrific effects of the civil war in Sri Lanka, especiallyduringthe 1990 s. The perspective of the major protagonist Anil is obviouslydiasporic, i.e. it represents an outside-in perspective that is somewhat alienated from its point of (cultural) origin and appears ‘westernized’ in its initial patterns of observation and assessment.Incontrast,the perspective of the second major character,Sarath, clearlypresents amore complex and complicated ‘inside-out’ vision which appears more ‘native’,closer and more attuned to the culturaltraditions and knowledge of the island and its tormented history. What becomes increasinglyclear over the course of the narrative is boththe inherent conflictual tension between the twoperspectives, but also their implicit interdependence – which also demands aconstant negotiation of bothview- points by the reader.Iwill return to the novel at the end of my discussion, for now,the specific constellation between the diasporic and the native perspective suggested by Ondaatje’snovel was meant to stresswhat Icalled the potential di- alecticbetween the twopoints of view,especiallyinregard to the question of the

no distinct histories or narrativestobefound here – the collection is full of rather individual and specific literary examples – rather,that all of these stand for amoregeneral and abstract postcolonial subjectivity in reference to which they become moreorless exchangeable representa- tivesofasubject that is neither national, nor local, nor native to begin with, but always already dislocated and shiftingbetween these (or anyother)conventionalpositions,and thus characterized exactlybya“‘floating’ liminality and hybridity” (King, Christiou). 100 Peter Schneck diasporic and the indigenous as critical post-colonial subjectivities. More precisely, the second part of my discussion seeks to address the ways in which the twoallegedlyoppositional or even mutuallyexclusive subjectivities can be brought into aform of critical and productive dialogue, both in lawand in literature. My examples and arguments for this dialogue will thereforebetaken from the context of legal conflict and struggle as well as literaryrepresentation and criticism, respectively.

3. (Re‐)Claiming Narratives: Resistance and Reconciliation

In order to understand the conceptual complicity between diasporaand indigeneity as critical, i.e. abstract and analytical categories or subject positions, one has to dispense with them as stable definitions of asubstantial identity – collective or individual – and look at them rather as strategic, i.e. pragmatic or practical categories in the sense of positions within astruggle (for justice, for resti- tution)that can be or must be taken for aspecific purpose or aproject.This reconceptualization appears not onlyuseful but even necessary in light of the increasingbreadth the concept could acquireintheoretical debates about transnationalism, postcolonialism and globalization over the last four decades. In his critical assessment of the emergenceand subsequent development of the diasporaconcept since the 1980s in general, and specificallyits radical expansion since the late 1990s, the sociologist Rogers Brubaker observed in 2005 that “the application of the term diasporatoanever-broadeningset of cases: essentiallyto anyand every nameable population category that is to some extent dispersed in space [has stretched] the category […]tothe point of uselessness.”:

If everyone is diasporic,then no one is distinctively so. The term loses its discriminatory power – its ability to pick out phenomena, to makedistinctions.The universalization of diaspora, paradoxically, means the disappearance of diaspora.¹⁶

To defy the increasinguselessness of the category,Brubakerproposes to take a look beyond its continuing “dispersion in semanticand conceptual space” in

 Rogers Brubaker, “The ‘Diaspora’ Diaspora,” Ethnic and Racial Studies . (): – , . CriticalSubjects of Belonging 101 order to “identify three coreelements that remaintobeunderstood to be constitutive of diaspora.”¹⁷ Even though this radical conceptual extension of the termdiasporadoes not touch upon the concept of indigenism(whose conceptual reachduring the same time was similarlyincreasing,orbetter,becomingmore concrete as alegal concept), the central criteria which Brubaker subsequentlyisolates as the universal ‘coreelements’ which constitute the notion of diasporaalso can be recognizedin their bearing on the (ever more) universal definition of indigenism developed in the wake of ILO activism and UN declarations.¹⁸ On the face of it,the three es- sentialconstitutive aspects named by Brubaker look rather straightforward. What defines anydiasporic identity/subjectivity on the most general or abstract level is a) (spatial) dispersion resulting in asense of ‘dislocation’ and ‘alienation’ or distance; b) astrongand lasting orientation towards a ‘homeland’,real or imaginary,and c) aform of persistent ‘boundary-maintenance’ as the most indispensable form of claiming and maintaining asense of a “distinctive community.”¹⁹ Yet, even on this most general and abstract level, these essentialterms are rather ambivalent as to how they are more concretelydetermined. Thus, dispersion also has a “metaphorical” dimension (Brubaker) which suspendsits straightforward relation to national space or territory;insimilar fashion the homelandorientation can be real but alsopurelyimaginary;and finallyeven the most indispensable category of boundary-maintenance is threatened by its inherent drift towards hybridity and heterogeneity.ReferringtoStuart Hall’sassertion about the inherent hybridity of diasporic experience,Brubaker concludes:

Although boundary-maintenanceand the preservation of identity are ordinarilyempha- sized, astrongcounter-current emphasizes hybridity,fluidity,creolization and syncretism. In an oft-quoted remark by Stuart Hall, the ‘diaspora experience[…]isdefined, not by es- senceorpurity,but by the recognition of anecessary heterogeneity and diversity;byacon- ception of ‘identity’ which liveswith and through, not despite, difference, by hybridity.’ […] There is thus atension in the literaturebetween boundary-maintenance and boundary- erosion.²⁰

 Brubaker, “Diaspora,” .  See ClaireCharters, “Indigenous Peoples and International Lawand Policy” in Indigenous Peoples and the Law,ed. B. R. Richardson, S. Imai, K. McNeil (Portland: Hart, ): –.  Brubaker, “Diaspora,” –.  Brubaker, “Diaspora,” , ;emphases in the original. See Stuart Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” in Identity:Community,Culture, Difference,ed. Jonathan Rutherford(London: Law- rence and Wishart, ): –, . 102 Peter Schneck

Even when reducedtothe three coreelements of dispersion, homeland orientation and boundary-maintenance,diasporaunfolds as an inherentlyambiguous and ambivalent concept.Itdoes so precisely, because it implicitlyrefers to or even explicitlyinsists upon essentialist notionsofidentity – in order to identify adiasporic group or community (which obviously includes the attempt to identify with such agroup or community as well), there must be an exclusive set of features (what Brubaker calls “strong definitions”)which can be taken as the sign for adistinctiveidentity.Itiseasy to see how such forms of identification, no matter whether they are due to self-ascriptions or rather the result of processes of external stereotyping, actuallyproduce the ‘entity’ they are meant to describeand thus boundary-maintenance can be achievedbyidentifying adia- sporawhich can be bothastrategyofinclusion and of exclusion.²¹ As Brubaker comments succinctly:

Whereboundary maintenanceand distinctive identity areemphasized, as they areinmost discussions,familiar problems of ‘groupism’ arise. The metaphysics of the nation-stateasa bounded territorial community mayhavebeen overcome; but the metaphysicsof‘community’ and ‘identity’ remain. Diaspora can be seen as an alternative to the essentialization of belonging; but it can also represent anon-territorial form of essentializedbelonging. Talk of de-territorialization of identity is all well and good; but it still presupposes that thereis‘an identity’ that is reconfigured, stretched in spacetocross stateboundaries, but on some level fundamentally the same.²²

There are threepointshere that deservespecial notice in the context of our discussion of the conceptual complicity of diasporaand indigeneity.Onthe one hand, the ostensible conceptual distinction between diasporic and indigenous (group‐)identities in terms of spatial displacement and temporalcontinuity appears increasinglydifficult to uphold since spatial displacement is no longer adefining condition for diasporic subjectivities and temporal continuity (maintaining identity as agroup) defines both diasporic and indigenous subjectivities. On the other hand, neither homelandorientation nor boundary maintenanceare exclusive traits of adiasporic identity;infact,one could arguethat these two ‘coreelements’ that are ‘constitutive’ of diasporaarguably are constitutive for indigeneity as well.

 The German debateabout ‘Leitkultur’ and ‘Parallelgesellschaften’ is amorerecent example for the strategic use of such definitions of boundary-maintenance. In this case, Muslim communities werecast as one large ‘diasporic’ collective which resists culturalassimilation by strong forms of boundary-maintenance – at the same time, however,the specific cultural ‘identity’ of the Muslim diaspora which the political discussionprojected (and stronglyrejected)was clearlymeant to strengthen the boundaries of aGerman ‘Leitkultur’-identity.  Brubaker, “Diaspora,” –. CriticalSubjects of Belonging 103

Again, this does certainlynot mean that there are no differencesatallbe- tween diasporic and indigenous identities, but simplythat there are no categorical differences strong enough to retain the analytical antagonism between the two concepts. Lastly, the collapse of categorical antagonism, i.e. difference in kind, into acaserelated differenceindegree should make us aware that the central motivation of both diasporic and indigenous discourses and the struggles which are expressed and negotiated through these discourses are in strikingly similar ways caused and sustainedbythe ongoing attempt to resist the external subjection and reformation of one’sown collective identity.Fromthis perspective,atleast,the discourse on diasporaand indigenism, respectively, are but two expressions of the same resistant impulse. Consequently, one should think of diasporaorindigeneity “not in substantialist terms as bounded entit[ies],” Brubaker argues, “but rather as an idiom, astance, aclaim.” As he explains:

We should think of diaspora in the first instanceasacategory of practice, and onlythen ask whether,and how,itcan fruitfullybeused as acategory of analysis.Asacategory of practice, ‘diaspora’ is used to makeclaims, to articulateprojects,toformulateexpecta- tions,tomobilize energies,toappeal to loyalties. It is often acategory with astrong normative change.Itdoes not so much describe the world as seek to remake it.²³

The last point is amost relevant one: Both ‘diaspora’ and ‘indigeneity’ are strategic concepts – in the sense that they are used to make claims and realize political and cultural projects.But in doing so they also engageinacts of imaginary revision and projection and thus they are in fact essential conceptsfor the critical re-imagination of the historical formationofpost-colonial identities. In other words, the alternative and resistant histories of diasporic and indigenous identities (in literature,incriticism, in theory)may be understood as aresponsetothe historical formation of diasporic and indigenous subjectivities (in legal and political discourse). This becomes more obvious by looking at particularexamples where ‘diasporic’ and ‘indigenous’ positions come into conflict – specificallyinterms of legal claims. In these situations, both the historical and the strategic dimension of the concepts are revealed, as well as their similar potential to negotiate their positions with the help of narratives and imaginary projections. Thus, for instance, in cases of conflicts over land rights between ‘local’ and ‘diaspora’ peoples in Australia (more specifically: Cape York Peninsula), different claims to ‘kin’ (genealogical continuity) and ‘country’ (spatial and geographical continuity) come into conflict and have to be negotiated. The possibilityof

 Brubaker, “Diaspora,” ;emphases in the original. 104 Peter Schneck return to the homelandgenerates aparticularlycomplex confrontation of diasporic and indigenous identities. Especiallywhen we consider the numerous cases of what Frederick Hoxie has termed “indigenous diasporas.”²⁴ The history of conquest and colonization is also the history of removal, displacement and relocation of indigenous peoples all over the world – who thus must be seen as both indigenous and diasporic. In some areas – especiallythe area of contested land claims and property litigations – such adouble position creates complex constellations, which pitches the diasporic against the indigenous subject,asit were. After the acknowledgment of native title (in land) by Australian common lawin1992(by the Australian High Court’sfamousMabo decision) and in 1993 by the Native Title Act, aboriginal groups,which had been removed from their original homelandsbythe government,moved back to reclaim their ancestral land. Thisreturn led to legal conflicts with other indigenous groups who had re- mainedinthe area. Anthropological research and counsel was offered to support the claims on either side, and to mediate the conflict.Whatwas remarkable about the process was how the concepts of diasporic and indigenous became at- tachedtoparticularstrategic positions and informed the mutual perception and self-perception of the various groups.Whereas the returninggroups sawthem- selvesasindigenous – despite the fact thattheir removal had disrupted their direct relationship to their ancestral ‘country’ and theirkin (the two essential conditions which wereatthe heart of the dispute) – they wereclearlyregarded as ‘historical’ or ‘diasporic’ by the tribal groups thathad stayedintheir homelands and who considered themselvesas‘local’ in contrast to the diasporic ‘strangers.’²⁵ Initially, the distinction between the two groups – indigenous and diasporic – had been made on the ground of their distinct knowledge,calling the first ‘traditional’ and the second ‘historical.’ The latter was seen as more removed or less attachedtothe land,since they were “not in command of such systematic traditional knowledge which associates people with land.”²⁶ Thisdistinction, howev-

 Frederick E. Hoxie, “Retrievingthe Red Continent: Settler Colonialism and the History of American Indians in the US,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, . (): –, .  The terms ‘diasporic’ and ‘local’ areused in the critical scholarlyliteratureand by anthropologists rather than by the Aborginal peoples themselves, whereas ‘historical’ and ‘stranger’ areused by Aborignal peoples as well – see BenjaminR.Smith, “‘Local’ and ‘Diaspora’ Connec- tions to Country and Kin in Central CapeYork Peninsula,” Land, Rights, Laws: Issues of Native Title . (): –,footnote .  Triggerqtd.inSmith, “Connections,” ;cf. D. S. Trigger, “Land Rights Legislation in Queens- land: The Issue of Historical Association,” in Aborigines, Land and Land Rights, ed. N. Peterson, M. Langton (Canberra: Australian InstituteofAboriginal Studies, ). Critical Subjects of Belonging 105 er,became contested both by diasporic groups and by some resident traditional owners of the land in question. Nevertheless,the distinction between local connection and diasporic connection remains to be basedonspecific knowledge about particular places: “this bodyofknowledge is seen as inseparable from a direct geographical understanding of place – to know about a ‘Story (Dreaming) Place’ means nothing if youdon’tknow the place itself. Diasporapeople’s knowledge tends to be more limited and abstracted from any ‘on the ground’ knowledge of place.”²⁷ Moreover,the perspective of diasporapeople in these cases both on the land and on the relation to kin, appeared to be much more tribal thanthatoflocal peoples – which is to say, thatthe diasporic perspective appeared to be more ‘indigenous’ in terms of land claims thanthe understanding of those claims from alocal perspective.Itthus made it problematic to “enforcea homogenous tribalmodel at odds with local perspectives.”²⁸ The onlyway to resolve these legal disputes through mediation was by way of sharing and exchanginginformation about kin relationship and genealogical lineages between the two groups (sometimes with the help of anthropologists). This process, as anthropologist Benjamin Smith observed, “tendedtorelyonthe recall of diasporaforebears,assisted by access to earlier anthropological data, by older local people.”²⁹ By connectingthe ‘stories’ and the memories of diasporaand indigenous peoples, it became “possiblefor local people to recognize diasporapeople as kin,” as Smith concludes:

Local people – especiallywherethey aretreated with adegree of respect mirroring their expectations – will begin to reveal knowledge about kin relation and country,including morespecific local-level distinctions, intowhich the diaspora people begin to be figured. As this process occurs,diaspora people begin to revise their understanding of kin relationship and relationships between people and country.Overtime, the relatively distinct groups, and their understandings, reconfigure each other.[…]Diaspora is made local, and local is extended to encompass the wider group of descendants of commonforebears within acontinuinglocal descent group and adevelopingbodyofAboriginal customary knowledge,law and practice.³⁰

The Queensland example shows how conceptsofdiasporaand indigeneity may be mutuallynegotiated and reconfigured while being contested in alegal conflict about land claims – which basically presents aconflictoverclaims about the nature and degreeofbelonging. This negotiation of belonging, Iwould argue, is

 Smith, “Connections,” .  Smith, “Connections,” .  Smith, “Connections,” .  Smith, “Connections,” –. 106 Peter Schneck informed by and, at the same time, engages both legal and literary formations of subjectivity:Onthe one hand,itwas through the sharing and the exchangeof local and historical knowledge in the form of stories and narrativesabout country and kin that the legal questions could be managed and eventuallybesettled. This process of negotiation alsohad an impact on the anthropological re-conceptualization of the indigenous and the diasporic perspective,respectively. On the other hand,the production and exchangeofnarrativesinsuch cases has been and remains clearlymotivated and also shaped by certain expectations in relation to the legal acknowledgment of the claims’ eligibility.Withoutthe revised legal framework in regard to nativetitle established since the early1990s by Australian courts and the legislative, these particularnarrativesand stories would not have been composed and discussed between the Aboriginal groups who also presented legal parties. The particular situation created by the revision of legal conceptsand new statutes and actsalsohas some important bearingsonthe conceptual relation between diasporic and indigenous subjectivities, most obviouslyinregard to their complex mutuality,but alsoinregard to the similar wayinwhich both concepts implicitly relyonand resultfrom the samehistorico-political formation, the modern nation state and the colonial expansion of state sovereignty. It is therefore no accident that in avery different context,Native American historian Frederick Hoxie has demanded areconceptualization of tribaland indigenous perspectiveswith explicit references to the revisionary scholarship of Australian and New Zealand anthropologists on the one hand, and adiaspora studies framework on the other hand. PointingtoPaulGilroy’sseminal The Black Atlantic, Hoxie argues that the history of America as the “Red Continent” (his term) presents a

landscape of struggle and ‘restless discontinuity’ where the encounters between native and settler colonial society occurred. […]Just as the African diaspora alteredthe cultures that remained in Africa while it scatteredpeople across the western hemisphereand Europe, the expansion of settler states on the Red Continent changedthe livesofIndians whore- mained in their homelands while triggeringinternal diasporas of indigenous peoples.³¹

Even though these “indigenous diasporas,” as Hoxie readilyacknowledges, “dif- fered in manywaysfrom the process Gilroy describes in the Atlantic,” all diaspo- rasnevertheless share “the common elements of widespread disruption, unanti-

 Hoxie, “Red Continent,” –. CriticalSubjects of Belonging 107 cipated inventions, and timing.Both processes occurred as ‘modernity’ took hold of the globe.”³² Within Hoxie’shistorical perspective,the indigenous subject cannot be divorced from the diasporic subject, since both positions are fundamentallysignif- icant for the experience of Native Americans duringsettler colonialism, and even until today. ManyNative American communities who were forced to migrate or forcefullyremoved from their original homelands(sometimes more than once across the continent), found new forms of attachment to the land they live on, thus renewingand reviving forms of attachmentwhich are characteristic for indigenous connections to both ‘country’ and ‘kin.’ At the same time, memories of removal and dislocation still figure as central elements in the narrativesofmost tribal histories; the ‘indigenous diasporas’ in the Americas, as well as elsewhere, thus have produced amost essential modern hybrid identity shaped bothbythe historical experience of removal and diasporaand by the continuityofresistant indigenous memories.³³

4. Remembering Identity,Identifying Memory

Instead of insisting on the conceptual tension and antagonismbetween diaspora and indigeneity,these examples suggest that the two conceptsmay be better con- ceivedofasstrategic positions (or positionings) thatare moreover contingent on specific historical situations. Thus they are less useful as stable definitions of substantial entities but should rather be understood as ‘categoriesofpractice’ used to “make claims, to articulate projects,toformulate expectations, to mobilize energies, to appeal to loyalties.”³⁴ More importantly,the acknowledgement of the inherent critical complicity or ‘intersectionality’ of the two concepts also challenges the interdisciplinary (critical and cultural) studyoflaw,literature and human rights to become more attentive to the specific historical conditions and developments which have informed (and still inform) the production of diasporic and indigenous subjectivitiestobegin with. In other words, acknowledging the conceptual complicity between diasporaand indigeneity opens new venuesfor critically exploring the historical connection, convergence and com-

 Hoxie, “Red Continent,” .  Sophie McCall emphasizes the convergenceevenmore: “Diasporic and Indigenous communities sharecommon experiences of loss,uprooting, and adaptation; they emphasize in acompa- rablemanner the importance of maintaining the homeland and dreamingofone day ‘returning’ to the homeland.” Sophie McCall, “Diaspora and Nation,” .  Brubaker, “Diaspora,” . 108 Peter Schneck plementarity of diasporic and indigenous practices of subject formation, as well as the practices of resistance to this formation: The diasporic and the indigenous subjectare thus revealedastwo closelyrelated, even mutuallydependent forms of post-colonial subjectivities who share the nation state as acentral point of reference, as Christine Kim and Sophie McCall argue:

[…]theories of diaspora and indigeneity,while often critical of the discourses associated with modern, industrialized nation-states, silentlyre[ly] on nation-basedimaginings of collectivities.[…][D]iaspora and nation areinterdependent and mutuallyconstituting, just as indigeneity and nation arereciprocallycontingent and responsive.³⁵

Nowhereare these interdependencies and reciprocitiesmore articulate today and alsomore complex than in the contemporary negotiations and tensions between national and international (civil and human) rights regimes and the subjectivities they project and proclaim. In atime when human rights “have become amajor strategyfor resistingpublic and privatedomination and exploitation” and are seen as “central to along history of rebellion, resistance, new articulations of injustice, and new understandingsoffreedom,”³⁶ the diasporic subject, as well as its inverse mirror image, the indigenous subject,havebecome central concepts to critically question and undermine the nation-state’sconceptual mo- nopolyinregard to citizenship, legal personhood and the subject of (humanand civil) rights. Throughout the history of modern rights, literaturehas continuouslyreacted and responded most emphaticallyand poignantlytothealleged privilegeofthe state to define and project legal and political subjectivities in terms of their eligibility within the framework of civil society.Myconcluding remarks are thus dedicated to literature,more specificallytoanunderstanding of literature within the largercontext of human rights, culturalidentity and the relation between diasporaand indigenism as competing concepts of post-colonial subjectivities. Most readerswill understand Michael Ondaatje’snovel Anil’sGhost (2000) as adiasporic text in more thanone sense – on the one hand obviouslybecause of its author’sbiography, but on the other also because of the particularposition of the novel’scentral protagonist as aSri Lanka immigrant to America,aposition which is described earlyoninthe narrative as aconfusingmixture of familiarity and estrangement at Anil’sfirst return to her ‘homeland’:

 Christine Kim, Sophie McCall, “Introduction,” in Cultural Grammars of Nation, Diaspora, and Indigeneity in Canada, ed. Christine Kim, Sophie McCall, Melina Baum Singer(Waterloo:Wilfried Laurier UP, ): –, .  Coombe, “Honing,” –. Critical Subjects of Belonging 109

The island no longer held her by her past […]she had now livedabroad long enough to interpret Sri Lankawith along-distance gaze. But here it was amorecomplicated world morally. The streets werestill streets, the citizens remained citizens.They shopped, changed jobs, laughed. Yetthe darkest Greek tragedies were innocent compared with what was hap- peninghere. Heads on stakes. Skeletons dugout of acocoa pit in Matale. At university Anil had translated lines from Archilocus – In the hospitality of war we left them their dead to remember us by. But heretherewas no such gesture to the families of the dead, not even the informationofwho the enemywas.³⁷

The imageofacivil society whereall civility has fallenprey to the war – even the civility of war – is carefullyconstructed right at the beginning of the novel and mediated through the point of view of Anil, who works as aforensic for the UN to investigate human rights violations which had been perpetrated by the various fighting partiesduringthe civil war in Sri Lanka – including the State itself. The initial observation of the shopping,laughingcitizens which contrasts sharp- ly with Anil’sknowledge about the atrocities and inhumanities of the civil war creates acognitive dissonance which increases Anil’ssense of (inner)distance. The imagealso stands at the beginning of the two major contrasting and conflicting movementsortendencies which dominate the various strands of the narrative.One trajectory clearlymoves towards dissolution and absolutedestruction and it ends in another imageatthe closing of the novel with the assassination of the head of state, President Katugala,byasuicide bomber,inascene which realizes the devastating potential alreadyalluded to in Anil’sfirst impressions.³⁸ Herethe public sphere of the civil state turns into the murderous space whereacitizen kills another citizen by killing himself, aviolent symbol of the utter self-destruction of civil society and its ethos of civility:

R— [the assassin] had been waitingfor this day, when he was surehewould be able to get Katulaga on the street […]therewas no wayR—could have entered the presidential grounds [so he] had to approach him in apublic place, with all the paraphernalia of dev- astation sewn onto himself. He was not just the weapon but the aimer of it.The bomb would destroy whoever he was facing. His own eyes and frame were the cross-hairs.[…] At four p.m. on National Heroes Day, morethan fifty people werekilled instantly, including the president.The cuttingaction of the explosion shredded Katalugainto pieces. […]The body, what remained of it,was not found for along time. (AG290 –291, 292)

 Michael Ondaatje, Anil’sGhost (London: Vintage:[] ): ,emphasis in the original. Further references to this novel as “AG”.  The name of the president is fictional, the scene refers to the actual assassination of then President Premadasa in ,cf. http://www.nytimes.com////world/suicide-bomb er-kills-president-of-sri-lanka.html; (acc.  Jan ). 110 Peter Schneck

The forceofthis devastatingtrajectory is historicalinmost fundamental ways and the scene, while alludingtoaparticularhorrific event in the long history of civil warviolence in Sri Lanka, nevertheless unfolds an almostuncannyfamil- iarity for contemporaryreaders,less as ahistorical fiction than as apresent day reality,apotential violence which afflicts the modernstate, challengingits sovereignty,but most disturbingly,potentiallyerodingthe foundations of the ethos of civility. The most important and poignant aspect for Ondaatje, however,isthat this destructive violence of history – the violence of the process of modernity – ob- literates and eradicates all other forms of human history by making humans disappear.The completedisappearance of humans, the radical effacement of their identity,their memory,their culture and all other traces of their existence is the central concern of the novel, and thus the second trajectory of the narrative is marked by an ethosofreconstruction,anongoing act of resistance to annihilation, aconsistent effort to retrieve and revive an identity that is not merelyhis- torical but aligned with livedmemory.This effort obviously drivesAnil’sand her collaborators’ attempts to recover the identity of the unknown victim, called ‘Sai- lor’ whose skeleton they savedfrom aburial ground. With the help of an artist, Ananda, they attempt to reconstruct Sailor’sface in aprocessof‘headcomposi- tion’,carefullyreconstructing the layers of facial muscles to bring out the resem- blance that would allow living people to recognize and remember the unknown dead. Even though this forensic reconstruction does not bring about the desired identification –“it was unlikelythat identification would occur.There had been so manydisappearances”–the figureofAnanda, who calls himself an artificer, is at the center of the closing scene of the novel which must be read as adelib- erate contrast to the preceding assassination scene, indeedthe two passages form the two alternative endingsofthe narrative. The last part is titled “Dis- tance” which resonates with and at the sametime revises Anil’s “long-distance gaze” at the beginning of the novel. The closing act of reconstruction takes place in asacred space, close to the famousBuduruvagala rock statues, a “regionof desperate farming” wherethe “stone bodies rising out of the earth […]often werethe onlyhuman aspect afarmer would witness in his landscape during the day. They brought permanence to brief lives.” (AG295) The sanctity and the permanence of the site, however,havebeen violated and disturbed, the Bud- dha figure destroyed: “this was the place wheretrucks came to burn and hide victims who had been picked up. These were the fieldswhereBuddhism and its values met the harsh political events of the twentieth century.” (AG296) Ananda’sreconstructive task is two-fold;hehas been asked “to attempt a reconstruction of the [original] Buddha statue,” but he also has been asked to perform an ancient ritual of dedicating anew statue which is being built simul- Critical Subjects of Belonging 111 taneously “to replace the destroyed god.” This ritual, known as the NêtraMan- gala ceremony, is meant to conclude and at the same time to transformthe statue into the figure of the Buddha by painting the god’seyes. This is being done by looking into amirror at the face of the statue while painting the eyes: “The boy held up the metal mirror so thatitreflected the blankstare of the statue. The eyes unformed, unable to see. Anduntil he had eyes – always the last thing painted or sculpted – he was no Buddha.” (AG302)Both acts of reconstruction are crucial, they do not competewith but rather completeeach other.The reconstruction of the original statue which Ananda finallyachieves, recovers the past of acultureinform of aface which reflectsand documents the violence of human war and conflict in its scarred and battered look: “Up close the face looked quilted. They had plannedtohomogenize the stone […]but […]Ananda decided to leave it as it was. He worked instead on the composure and the qualities of the face. […]Now sunlight hit the seams of its face, as if it weresewn roughly together.Hewouldn’thide that […]torn look in its great acceptance.” (AG298, 300) The final eyeceremonyincomparison is in asense alsoabout the recovery of an identity,albeit through the re-enactment of aritual and the renewal of faith which for Ananda includes the memory of his adducted disappeared wife, another victim of the civil war.While painting the eyeofthe statue the artificer regains for amoment afuller,moreintegratedform of vision:

And now with human sight he was seeingall the fibresofnatural historyaround him. He could witness the smallest approach of abird every flick of its wing. […]Ananda brieflysaw this angle of the world. There was aseduction for him there.The eyes he had cut with his father’schisel showed him this. The birds dovetowards gaps within the trees! […]The tini- est of hearts in them beatingexhausted and fast,the waySirissa had died in the story he inventedfor her in the vacuum of her disappearance. Asmall braveheart.Inthe heights she loved and the dark she feared. He felt the boy’sconcerned hand on his. This sweet touch from the world. (AG303)

It is significant to note thatthe novel starts out with adiasporic perspective but ends with aform of vision thatisdeeplyinformed by atraditional ‘indigenous’ ritual practice and the re-enactment of faith. Thesetwo forms do not in anyway cancel each other out; Anil’sand Ananda’sattemptsinreconstructing identity are at the same time indebted to ahistorical forensics as they are informed by acts of faith in the transformative potential of justice.

Florian Kläger Theorizing Reflexivity in Literature, Law and Diaspora

Phenomena of reflexivity are encountered across the three domains of law, literature, and diaspora, and they have been addressed by literarystudies, legal studies and diasporastudies in various ways.This chapter proposes to examine the extent to which these discipline-specific treatments are commensurable, and how insight from each field might be usefullyapplied to the other two and to an intersection of the three. Askingthe reader’sforbearance for afocus on literature, my primary field of expertise, Ibegin with three theses on reflexivity in the respective domains, taking ‘reflexivity’ in its literal sense of something being directed upon itself to refer to the relation that “always holds between a term and itself.”¹ In literarystudies, (self‐)reflexivity – variouslydubbed ‘metafiction,’‘auto- criticism,’‘immanent poetics,’‘romantic irony,’‘surfiction,’ etc. – has been identified as ahallmark of literary writing at large,and an essentialconstituent of the novel’sgeneric identityinparticular. The novel is less of agenre than a meta-genre, it “crystallizes genreness” by “self-consciouslyincorporating, as part of its ownform, the problem of its own categorial status”: “What makes the novel adifferent sortofgenre maythereforebenot in its ‘nature’ but in its tendencytoreflect on its nature – which of course alters its nature in the process.”² Clearly, this characteristic recursiveness makes it difficult to define the form further. Reflexivity is central to an understanding of art, literature, and specifically to novelistic genreidentity. Just as the novel genre resists ‘external’ definition by literaryscholars, critics and readers,sothe lawcannot,bysome accounts, ultimatelyground its identity on an Archimedean point outside itself: “Onlythe lawitself can saywhat lawis,” and the fundamental code’sbinary distinction between ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ cannot itself be legitimized by the system. Just as anynew novel adds to the corpus of existing novels, thus re-defining it, “law-related communications” also “have, as operations of the legal system, always adouble function as factors for produc-

 “Reflexive,adj.and n.” (A.)(), OED Online (acc.  July, ).  Michael McKeon, ed., “GenreTheory,” in Theoryofthe Novel. AHistorical Approach (Balti- more: Johns Hopkins UP, ): . 114 Florian Kläger tion and as preservers of structure.”³ Thelaw’sidentity as asocial system is pre- dicatedonits self-reference and self-description. Diasporic identity as theobjectofdiasporastudies,finally,issimilarlypre- sented by scholars as reflexivelyconstituted:the term ‘diaspora’ describesaphe- nomenon by whichacommunityismadeaware,byitselforothers, in amanner that is productive of itsgroup identity,ofits difference from othercollectives in the ‘diaspora space.’⁴ Thus,Kim Butler assertsthatinorderfor adiasporatoconstitute itself, “theremustbeself-awarenessofthe group’sidentity.Diasporan com- munitiesare consciously part of an ethnonational group; this consciousness bindsthe dispersedpeoples notonlytothe homeland buttoeachother as well.”⁵ Diasporicidentityisthe productofreflexive communityformation processes. These observations are not readilycompatible. Among the difficulties con- cerningtheir relationship are differences in the scholarlyterminology (‘metafiction’ et al. in the novel; ‘self-reference’/‘self-description’/‘autopoiesis’ in law; ‘diasporaconsciousness’ in diaspora); the categorial commensurability of the domains (novel as genre; lawassocial system; diasporaasprocess of collective identification); and the heuristic value of cross-domain correlations of phenomena of reflexivity.Ishalladdress these issues in their turn, and conclude by considering how,inall three domains, concepts of reflexivity have helped scholars to think about the identity and nature of their subjectasaculturalpractice.

1. Reflexivity,Mind, and Identity: The Examined Lifeand Art

By wayofapproaching the subject,itbears consideration whyphenomena of self-reference and (self‐)reflexivity should relevant in the first place. One reason is that indeed, they appear oftenand in sometimes surprising places.Another is that when and wherethey appear,they tend to cause no end of trouble. We are aware thatKurt Gödel broughtdown the elaborate edifice of Russell and White- head’s Principia Mathematica by showing that their formal system could not ac- commodatestatements about itself and maintain internal consistency,and we

 Niklas Luhmann, Law as aSocial System [], trans. Klaus D. Ziegert (Oxford: OxfordUP, ): –,see also –.  Cp. KhachigTölölyan, “The Contemporary Discourse of Diaspora Studies,” ComparativeStud- ies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East . (): –, –.  Kim D. Butler, “Defining Diaspora, RefiningaDiscourse,” Diaspora.AJournal of Transnational Studies . (): –, . Theorizing Reflexivity in Literature, Law and Diaspora 115 are familiar also with the sense of vertigoinduced by M.C. Escher’s Drawing Hands. In relatingphenomena of reflexivity to the mechanisms and structure of human cognition and of products of culture, Douglas Hofstadterhas offered highlystimulating and complex observations in his 1979 Pulitzer Prize winning book Gödel, Escher, Bach. An Eternal Golden Braid and the more recentlypublish- ed re-statement of its main argument, IAmaStrange Loop. Hofstadterpresents self-reflexivity of the Gödelian type as a “loop” that allows asystem “to ‘perceive itself’,totalk about itself, to become ‘self-aware’,” and he argues that “in asense it would not be going too far to saythat by virtue of having such aloop, aformal system acquiresaself.”⁶ He likens these loops to an abstract Mobius strip “in which, in the series of stages that constitutethe cycling-around, thereisa shift from one level of abstraction (or structure) to another,which feels likean upwards movement in ahierarchy, and yetsomehowthe successive ‘upward’ shifts turn out to give rise to aclosed cycle.”⁷ Such recursion is acrucial aspect of the wayour mind works:

Consciousness […]isaninevitable emergent consequenceofthe fact that the system has a sufficientlysophisticated repertoire of categories.LikeGödel’sstrangeloop, which arises automatically in anysufficientlypowerful formal systemofnumber theory,the strange loop of selfhood will automaticallyarise in anysufficientlysophisticated repertoireofcat- egories,and once you’ve gotself, you’ve gotconsciousness.⁸

The idea thatcomplexity producesself-sustaining systems thatwillalso become aware of themselvesisdevelopedbyHofstadteratgreat length, and there is no space to discuss this nexus here in detail. Ernst Cassirer notes thatinWestern culturalhistory,self-knowledge is widelyacknowledgedas“the highestaim of philosophical inquiry” and that man, indeed, “maybedescribed and defined onlyinterms of his consciousness.” From Plato onwards,the fundamental an- thropologicalquestion, “What is man?”,has been answered: “Man is declared to be that creature who is constantlyinsearch of himself – acreature who in every moment of his existencemust examine and scrutinize the conditions of his existence.Inthis scrutiny, in this critical attitude towardhuman life, consists the real value of human life.”⁹

 Douglas R. Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher,Bach. An Eternal Golden Braid [](New York: Vintage Books, ): .  Douglas R. Hofstadter, IAmaStrangeLoop (New York: Basic Books, ): ‒.  Hofstadter, IAmaStrangeLoop, .  Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man. An IntroductiontoaPhilosophy of Human Culture [] (New Haven, CT:Yale UP, ): –. 116 Florian Kläger

It is the ubiquity and the apparent centrality of reflexivity for human nature that makes it aworthwhile subject of inquiry on principle. There is, however,a more specific relevance of the subject to the topic of this volume. In aesthetics, reflexivity has proven avery stimulating subject of scholarlyinquiry.From the most general and fundamental perspective,reflexivity is afeature of anywork of art.The idea behind this claim is that art must signal its own ‘artificiality’ in order to facilitate its actualization as art in the first place. If it fails to do so, it is treated as ‘not-art’ and thereforenot actualized – in acase such as Beuys’sfamous Fettecke,with the direst consequences. Art is seen as self-reflex- iveinthat it reflects the circumstances of its own production (in terms of the contingent historical context as well as thoseauthorial intentions that went into it), although this mode of reflection notoriouslyinvolvessignificant ambiguity and requires the hermeneutic engagement with the artifact.Totreat an object as art is to consider it as amedium in acommunicative exchangebetween ‘proffered meaning’ and ‘meaning-seeking’;and the precarious outcome of this exchange is predicatedonthe reflexive entry into this art-specific mode of meaning- seeking.¹⁰ Adifferent kind of self-reflexivity is also involved when works of art signal their relation to other existing works of art,thus commentingontheir status as part of an existing ‘system’ or tradition of art,either approvinglyorcriti- cally. Genres,for instance, are commonlyconceivedofasmeans for the classification of works of art that signal certain communicative properties associated with theirspecific form, and in the case of literature, they delineate agiven text as ‘literary,’ as Derrida argues in “The LawofGenre.”¹¹ Finally(although the list could be much extended), artisalso sometimes said to cause self-reflexion on the part of its recipient and will tend to further self-knowledge.AsRichard Posnerputs it, “[i]f youdon’talreadysense that love is the most important thing in the world, you’re not likelytobepersuadedthat it is by readingDonne’slove

 Reinold Schmücker, “Ist Kunst reflexiv?,” in Die Sinnlichkeit der Künste. Beiträge zur ästhe- tischen Reflexivität,ed. GeorgW.Bertram, Daniel Martin Feige, Frank Ruda (Zurich: Diaphanes, ): –, .  See Stefan Schenk-Haupt, “Die Einteilung der literarischen Gattungenund die Problematik der Lyrik,” in Gattungstheorie und Gattungsgeschichte,ed. Marion Gymnich, Birgit Neumann, Ansgar Nünning(Trier: WVT, ): –, .Derrida says that genre marks atext, and by reflexively ‘re-marking’ on its own genre-markedness,the text signals its nature as ‘literature’: “this re-mark – ever possible for every text, for every corpusoftraces – is absolutely necessary for and constitutive of what we call art,poetry,orliterature.” See Jacques Derrida, “The LawofGenre,” CriticalInquiry . (): –, –. Theorizing ReflexivityinLiterature, Law and Diaspora 117 poems, or Stendhal, or Galsworthy. But readingthem maymake yourealize that this is what youthink, and so mayservetoclarify yourself to yourself.”¹²

2. Reflexivity in Literature

The kinds of reflexivity that appear specific to literature have been extensively theorized.The most obvious case is ‘intra-compositional’ instances,¹³ thatis, simple formal devices such as rhyme or meter,which use self-reference to highlight the ‘poetic’ function that languageassumes in their context and thus, to prompt reflexion about their own status as verballyconstituted works of art.¹⁴ This movementfrom self-reference to self-reflexion appliestoother forms of self-reference as well – as readers are alerted to atext doing something ‘poetic’ (in whatever way), they will self-consciouslybegin to treat the text ‘as literature,’ engagingwith it in amanner thatdifferentiates literary texts from newspapers, grocery lists, and instruction manuals. The same is true, for example, of ‘extra- compositional’ references to traditional literary genres,characters or motifs, which are often subsumedunder the rubric of ‘intertextuality’ but have the same effect,again highlighting that the giventext partakes of thosefeatures and functions – whatever they are – thatcharacterize the system of literature at the specific time of its production, thus reflectingabout its ontological status in the sense described by Derrida.¹⁵ As with artingeneral, recipients must ‘actualize’ the work of literature as they read it,relate it to those extra-compositional frames that feed the implicit levels of meaning,and integrate their realization of meta-literary references into their actualization.¹⁶

 RichardA.Posner, “Against Ethical Criticism,” Philosophyand Literature . (): –, .  The terminology is Werner Wolf’s, see Werner Wolf, “Metareference across Media. The Con- cept,its Transmedial Potentials and Problems,Main Forms and Functions,” in Metareference AcrossMedia. Theoryand Case Studies Dedicated to Walter Bernhart on the Occasion of his Re- tirement,ed.Werner Wolf, Katharina Bantleon, Jeff Thoss (Amsterdam [et al.]: Rodopi, ): – , .Wolf uses the term to describe acertain kind of ‘meta-reference,’ aconcept he distinguishes from ‘mere’ self-reference.  Roman Jakobson, “ClosingStatement: Linguistics and Poetics,” in Style in Language,ed. Thomas A. Sebeok (New York, London: John Wiley &Sons;Technology Pofthe MIT, ): ‒.  Clearly, this presupposes the existenceofaninstitutionalised systemofliterature.  On these and further dimensions of reflexivity,see GeorgW.Bertram, “Selbstbezüglichkeit und Reflexion in und durch Literatur,” in Der Begriff der Literatur.Transdisziplinäre Perspektiv- en,ed. Alexander Löck, JanUrbich (Berlin, New York: De Gruyter, ): –. 118 Florian Kläger

Peter Lamarque says little about reflexivity explicitly, but nevertheless seems to base his very definition of ‘literature’ on it.¹⁷ By his understanding,literature comes into being onlyinthe double embeddedness of agiven work in the context of its origin that marks the work’sidentity on the one hand, and its additional situation vis-à-vis conventional frameworks establishing what ‘literature’ at large actually is:

There is the historical embeddedness which finds an essential connection between the identity of awork and its origins in ahistorical act of creation. And thereisthe additional institutional embeddedness according to which awork onlycounts as literaturewithin a culturalpractice of intention, expectation, and reception. In fact these are closelyinter- twined. The historical context of origin determines the particular identity of awork – that which makesthis work distinct from anyother – and the institutional contextdeter- mines the work’sidentity as of one kind rather than another.Noworkwould be aunique work of literature if it were not grounded in both kinds of context.¹⁸

Literature, then, emergesfrom the consciouslyrealized referencetoits own specific origins and to the structures that determine its place in the literarysystem. Since Lamarque talks about identity,one might saythatheattends to the combination of the work’sindividual features and those of the ‘collective’ of which it forms apart.Both of these aspectsofidentity are reflected upon in the actualization of literature. Note the nexus between specimen (or token) and kind (or type), as well as the curious natureofliterary production between unique inven- tion and institutional determination. Concerningthe relationship between the two, Iwant to emphasize that individual works of literature are onlyactualized as such within theirinstitutional frame, but through their actualization, they also perpetuate that frame, if onlyintransformation. Not even Ulysses,touted as ‘the novel to end all novels,’ succeeded in killing off its genre, nor did the anti-novels of the mid-twentieth century or indeed, DonQuixote. In his definition, Lamarque does not account for Jakobson’s ‘poetic function,’ by which the code drawsattention to its ownfunctioning.Heignores it for good reasons – not all textsweconsider to be literature seem to abide by Pope’srule of “good expression,” let alone expression that self-reflexively drawsattention to itself.¹⁹ Critics since Käte Hamburgerhavedebated the ‘poetic

 “Agood readerattends not to some content beyond or behind the mode of presentation but to the mode of presentationitself, to the fact that what is beingsaid is beingsaid in this way” (PeterLamarque, “The Elusiveness of Poetic Meaning,” in Philosophy of Literature,ed. Severin Schroeder [Chichester,West Sussex, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, ]: –, ).  Peter Lamarque, ThePhilosophy of Literature (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, ): .  On the problem of aesthetics for the definition of art,see Arthur C. Danto, What Art Is (New Haven, London: Yale UP, ): esp. –. Theorizing Reflexivity in Literature, Law and Diaspora 119 function’ of certain narrative tenses,²⁰ Jakobson himself famouslycommented on rhyme in advertisements, and even formidable figures like I. A. Richards and William Empson ultimatelyfailed to establish the centrality of non-propositional expression through metaphor for literary language. It would seem that while the reflexive process induced by the ‘poetic function’²¹ is todayanecessary constit- uent of literature,itisnot asufficient one. However,Ibelievethat relatively speaking, the given-ness of Lamarque’stwo necessary conditions of historical and institutional embeddedness will tend to elicit awarenessinthe audience, at least at present,ofthe heightened potential for the poetic function of language. That is to say, we will be relatively more attentive to verbal artifice and mimetic comprehensiveness when readinganovel as comparedtoatelephone directory.Thus, literatureasacultural practice loops back onto itself and indu- ces reflexivity:toread atext ‘as literature’ makesusreflect about literariness.²² The same effect can also be observedwhenthe ‘literary gaze’ is turned on non- literarytexts:Terry Eagleton’smemorable example of this process is asign found in the London underground, “Dogsmust be carried on the escalator,” with the potentially “rich allusiveness of ‘carried’” and the “suggestive resonan- ces of helping lame dogsthrough life.” To read this sign ‘as literature’ renders us aware of the reader’sinvolvement in the production of literariness: Eagleton concludes that “‘literature’ maybeatleast as much aquestion of what people do to writing as of what writing does to them.”²³ It is the procedural nature of this reciprocity that Iwould like to stress here – not onlydopeople do thingstotexts in order to produce literature;textsthatare actualized as literature also potentially make readers aware of the practices that informthis activity.Thesepractices, again, are both individual and collective – my readingofUlysses is genuinely my own, but onlysowithin the intersubjective conventions that govern my whitemale Western response to novels, and Joyce, and literature – that is, within what Lamarque calls the institutionalaspect of literary production.²⁴

 Käte Hamburger, Die Logik der Dichtung [], fourth ed. (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, ). For an illuminatingpersonal account fromthe perspective of one protagonist,see Franz K. Stanzel, Welt als Text (Würzburg: Königshausen &Neumann, ): –.  Iuse this in abroad and ‘doublyembedded’ sense to include not onlystrictlylinguistic functions,but also paratextualmarkers indicatinggenre;the culturalreputation of author and/or work createdthrougheducational systems,marketing, or personal communications within are- ception community;orthe social conventions governingthe recognition and treatment of fiction.  See Peter Widdowson, Literature.The New Critical Idiom (London: Routledge, ): .  Terry Eagleton, LiteraryTheory. An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, ): .  Therewould be little use for me to view (i.e., receive,actualize, define) as ‘comedy’ what everybodyelse agrees is ‘tragedy’–if Idid so, Iwould quicklyrealize that all communication through and about literaturebreaks down. My fatewould be that of the sad old man in Peter 120 Florian Kläger

As readers develop ‘their’ readings in the interplaybetween the individual and collective dimensions, they come to reflect not onlyabout literature, but also about the more general hermeneutic activity that informs this process. As Iread Ulysses,and as Ireflect about this text’sontological relationship to the world, and to truth, and about its mode of verbal signification of these things to me as the reader,Ican alsoabstract from this to think about the similarities between my hermeneutic activity of readingand the ways in which Itry to make sense of the world outside the text.That is especiallytrue of the novel, which is often said to differ from other genres in its ambition “not merelytorepresent objects of the world, or even to imitate the world, but to actualize a world. A world – nothing less – is the theme and postulate of the novel.”²⁵ Hans Blumen- bergargues that owing to this outrageous claim for Welthaftigkeit and Welthaltig- keit,the novel is the genuinelymodern literarygenre. Michael McKeon concurs, and he believes that the novel emergesatatimewhen the truth value of verbal representation had become deeplyproblematic. Troubledbythe apparent division between ‘questions of truth’ and ‘questions of virtue,’ the novel self-con- sciouslyreflects about its own attempts at reconciling the two. This renders it ameta-genre that “self-consciouslyincorporate[s], as part of its ownform, the problem of its own categorial status.”²⁶ Hence, this genre is particularlybound to two modes of reflexivity:onthe one hand,since it undertakes to constitute atextual world of its own, it relates to the institutional framework that makes this project possible in the first place (the novel self-consciouslyexplores its own nature as the ‘world-making genre’); and since it appeals to the intersubjective criterion of world consistency(‘what does it taketomake aworld seem plausible’), it relates to the specific historicalcontext that produced it.Thus, the novel both evinces and reflects upon Lamarque’s ‘double embeddedness.’ Where the novel foregrounds the generic conventions, forms, and expectations, it raises in the reader,itnot onlycreates awareness of the role of genre

Bichsel’sstory, “Ein Tisch ist ein Tisch” (PeterBichsel, Kindergeschichten [Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, ]: –).  Hans Blumenberg, “The Concept of Reality and the Possibility of the Novel” [], in New Perspectives in German LiteraryCriticism. ACollection of Essays,ed. RichardE.Amacher,Victor Lange (Princeton,NJ: Princeton UP, ): –, .  McKeon, “GenreTheory,” .Patricia Waughagrees: self-reflexivity (or in her term, metafiction) “is atendency or function inherent in all novels,” and “[t]his form of fiction is worth studying not onlybecause of its contemporary emergencebut also because of the insights it offers into both the representational nature of all fiction and the literary history of the novel as genre.Bystudyingmetafiction, one is, in effect,studyingthat which givesthe novel its identity” (Patricia Waugh, Metafiction.The Theoryand Practice of Self-conscious Fiction [London: Me- thuen, ]: ). Theorizing Reflexivity in Literature, Law and Diaspora 121 for the production of meaning,²⁷ but alsofor its own specific relationship to processes of signification and intelligibility,and for its mode of being. In this way, it prompts reflections not onlyabout its ontological statusasart and literature, but also about the verbal mode of relatingtothingsotherthanart.The novel is a medium for the reflection, through language, about language, verbal signification, and those symbolic ways of worldmakingthat Gadamer is thinking of when he writes that “[b]eing that can be understood is language” or even more poignantly, “that being is language – i.e., self-presentation.”²⁸ The foregoing deliberations have highlighted four categoricallydifferent kinds of reflexivity which are stressed in the self-conscious actualization of literary works of art: 1. in the relation of the text to itself; 2. in the relation of the text to the contingent circumstances that procuded it and of which it forms, willy-nilly, asymptom; 3. in the relation of the text to the historicallyinstituted framework of ‘literature’; 4. in the relation of the text to the ways in which humans produce (conceptions of)themselves through languageand relatehermeneuticallytothe world.

The first threekinds are subject to ahermeneutics of the text,the fourth might be called meta-hermeneutic. This list is far from exhaustive,but these are the reflex- iveaspects of the identity of ‘the literary’ that, for the present purpose, Iwant to comparetothe ways in which self-reflexivity appears in the context of the law and of diasporic identity.

3. Reflexivity in Law

Reflexivity and its attendant dilemmas, as Douglas Hofstadterhas pointed out, “crop up with astonishingregularity in the down-to-earth discipline of the

 See Julijana Nadj, “Formen und Funktionengattungsspezifischer Selbstreflexivität in der fik- tionalen Metabiographie am Beispiel vonCarol Shields‘ Swann,” in Metaisierung in Literatur und anderen Medien. Theoretische Grundlagen, historische Perspektiven, Metagattungen, Funktionen, ed. Janine Hauthal et al. (Berlin: De Gruyter, ): –, .  Hans-GeorgGadamer, Truth and Method [/], trans. Joel Weinsheimer,Donald G. Marshall, second ed. (London, New York: Continuum, ): , . Cp. Nelson Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking (Indianapolis:Hackett, ). 122 Florian Kläger law.”²⁹ Recent legal theory has identifiedanumber of the most fundamental dilemmas in “the law’sbeing put out of forcebythe right of resistance and by raison d’état; the paradoxical creation of lawbythe violence of revolution […;the] paradoxofthe tangled hierarchyofnorms; the Münchhausentrilemma of rule- justification: infinite regress,circularity or arbitrary cessation;” as well as “more concrete phenomena of legal self-reference leadingtoparadox” such as

‘Who watches the watchmen’ as aproblem of constitutional law, the change of constitutional norms via constitutional norms and the paradoxofself‐amendment; ‘tu quoque’ or ‘equity must come with clean hands’;renvoiinlaw of conflicts; ‘ignorance is no excuse’; the prohibition on bigamy; alterations of legal rulings that have future effects: ‘prospective overruling’;orthe fiction theory of the legal person, according to which the Stateaslegal person has likeMünchhausen to pull itself out of the swamp by its own topknot by fiction- allyfabricatingitself.³⁰

These phenomena of reflexivity are prominentlydiscussed by Niklas Luhmann in his theory of the lawasasocial system. As Thomas Weitinnotes,Luhmann would probablyhavesubscribed to the classicaldictum that “nothing is just per se,justicebeing acreation of custom and law.”³¹ The system of the lawis closed,and its code of ‘legal/illegal’ cannot be applied to itself:itmakes no sense to ask whether it is legal or illegal to make that distinction. “Whenever there is areference to laworinjustice, such acommunication attributes itself to the legal system.”³² Within the system of the law, it is enough to give reasons from within that system: finding relevant passages for the case at hand takes pragmatic precedence over the question of what legitimates these passages. In this way, the system becomes self-producing and self-perpetuating or,inLuh- mann’sterminology, autopoietic.³³ Luhmann insists that “[l]aw-related communications have,asoperations of the legal system, always adouble function as factors for production and as preservers of structure.”³⁴ The lawdefines and gen-

 Douglas R. Hofstadter, Metamagical Themas.Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern (New York: Basic Books, ): .  Gunther Teubner, “‘And God Laughed …:’ Indeterminacy, Self-Referenceand Paradoxin Law,” German Law Journal  (), –, .  Thomas Weitin, Recht und Literatur (Münster: Aschendorff, ): .See Michel de Mon- taigne, “On Experience,” in TheComplete Essays [], trans.M.A.Screech (London: Penguin, ): .  Luhmann, Law as aSocial System, .  Luhmann, Law as aSocial System, .  Luhmann, Law as aSocial System, –. Theorizing ReflexivityinLiterature, Law and Diaspora 123 eratesthe law, constituting and perpetuating itself. In this respect,itisremark- ablysimilar to the ways in which literary genres are constituted, and to the way in which literature itself is ‘doublyembedded’ in historicaland institutional contexts:legal communication is rooted in its immediate material context and in the abstract institutionalframework that enables it in the first place. Thissystem relies for its identity and integrity on the fact that it is conventionallyrecognized as such by all agents – aclosed system operating on the code of legal vs. illegal. As one consequence, if the system is to be internallycoherent, “[r]eflexivity – law ruling those who rule with lawand in its name – is the rule of law’s sine qua non.”³⁵ Owing to this predicament,there is no Archimedean point outside the law that would provide amooring for its identity: “Onlythe lawitself can say what lawis,” Luhmann states,and he explains: “This process of the production of structures is designed in acircular fashion because the operations require structures in order to define themselvesbyreferringrecursively to other operations.”³⁶ This recursive mode of existencecontributes to the law’sresil- ience, as Marie Theres Fögen pointsout in her discussion of Cicero’s ‘legal fiction’ of the carmen necessarium: “the canon’sself-referential nature does not onlyrender it eternal, but also fullyautonomous.”³⁷ As asocial system, the lawisnecessarilyself-referential and self-descriptive,but it has historically soughtsystem-external legitimation – for instance, in the will of God or the max- imization of welfare.³⁸ Indeed, Luhmann explains this mechanism by reference to Gödel’sproof, emphasizing that “asystem of logic is unable to explain its status of being without contradictions (as asymbol of its unity) by reference to itself and must find the conditions for that outside and apart from itself.”³⁹ If the law as asystem is commensurable to systems of logic such as thoseofthe Principia Mathematica,itcannot provide its ownontologicalfoundation or justification.

 Gerald J. Postema, “Law’sRule: Reflexivity,Mutual Accountability,and the Rule of Law,” in Bentham’sTheoryofLaw and Public Opinion,ed. Xiaobo Zhai, Michael Quinn (Cambridge:Cam- bridge UP, ): ‒, .  Luhmann, Law as aSocial System, .  Marie Theres Fögen, Das Lied vom Gesetz. Themen  (Munich: Carl Friedrich vonSiemens Stiftung, ):  [mytransl.].  See Michael Stolleis, “The Legitimation of Lawthrough God, Tradition,Will, Natureand Con- stitution,” in Natural Law and Laws of NatureinEarly Modern Europe. Jurisprudence, Theology, Moraland Natural Philosophy,ed. Lorraine Daston, Michael Stolleis (Farnham: Ashgate, ): –.  Luhmann, Law as aSocial System, . 124 Florian Kläger

Gunther Teubner has mapped the types of responses thatthis reflexive predicament of the lawhas elicited: They rangefrom confidence that self-reference will “lead ultimatelytostable solutions,bythe emergence, from the continual recursive application of an operation, of ‘eigenvalues,’ stable in themselves”;⁴⁰ via the gambit, “inspired by poets who ‘overcome the anxiety of influenceby misreading(or distorting) poetic reality’,[of]interpret[ing] lawasacontinuous ‘misreadingofreality’”;to“seeking social solutions to self-referencebyconceal- ing paradox, belittling it,reinterpreting it as mere contradiction and by otherhis- toricallyidentifiable techniques of ‘deparadoxification’ . ” Concerning the last response, Teubner concludes: “The construction of the legal system on the basis of the legal code (right/wrong), which minimizes the paradoxofself-reference into a(prohibited) contradiction, and at the same time, keepsitlatent would then be amajor cultural achievement.”⁴¹ In asimilar assessment,Chris- toph Menkehas recentlypraised the self-reflexive integration of law’sopposition to the extra-legal (Nichtrecht)into the law. This integration, he argues, can serve to legitimize the lawinsofar as it explicitlyacknowledgesthe law’sfoundational violence, rather thanobfuscating it.⁴² As the ‘lawand literature’ movement has emphasized, and as Menke also implies, literature can serveasasite wherethis remarkable effort of ‘deparadoxification’ and the justification of lawisnegotiated, since it allows for the contemplation or observation of legal processes and issues ‘from outside.’ Andreas Fischer-Lescano has posited that the aesthetic reflexionofthe self-referentiality that constitutes law’s ‘blind spot’ can servetoexpose its contingencies and suggest alternatives.⁴³ From that perspective,literature is unconstrained in its eval- uation of the lawbythe legal system’sreflexivity.Itisnot,however,free from reflexivity at large – in fact,wehaveencountered areflexive disposition in literature that parallels the law’sinthat literature is autopoietic in terms of its institutional character but also requires an originary element in its historical embeddedness. Art is asystem, but works of art have an ontological status that rests on aground outside thatsystem. Indeed, as Reinold Schmücker speculates, works of literatureand legal norms mayshare an ontological foundation in sim-

 Teubner explains: “Aclassical example of an eigenvalue from auto‐logic is: ‘This sentence has ?? letters’.The number thirty‐one is one eigenvalue of this sentence” (Teubner, “And God Laughed,” ).  Teubner, “And God Laughed,” .  Christoph Menke, Rechtund Gewalt,second ed. (Berlin: August, ).  Andreas Fischer-Lescano, Rechtskraft (Berlin: August, ): . Theorizing Reflexivity in Literature, Law and Diaspora 125 ilar kinds of legitimising inter-subjective recognition thatare specific to both.⁴⁴ Just as literatureisactualizedbyindividuals who are familiar with conventions on how to ‘do’ literature, legal communication occurs within the framework of the legal system. In order to be recognised and actualized, however,bothsys- tems need to exist,and their existenceautopoieticallyensures their persistence. The law’sautonomyasasystem matches the basal relation of the literary text to itself. As NigelSimmonds argues, “[l]egal thought and practice exhibit reflexivity in so far as they explicitlyorimplicitly appeal to the idea of law. Forthe idea of lawisnot one that simplydescribes existing practices; rather,the idea of lawplays avital part within the practices that make up the existenceofalegal order.”⁴⁵ Further,just as the lawisinneed of historicization and adaptation, it also parallels the literary text’sreference to the contingent circumstances that produced it.Each act of legislature willthus be situated between “abodyofin- herited categories and principles” on the one hand, and, in terms of an institutional dimension on the other hand, “an ideal to be debated and constructed from thatinheritance,inthe light of current problems and values.”⁴⁶ Forthe fourth characteristic of literaryreflexivity identifiedabove, of the literary text’s meta-hermeneutic referencetothe ways in which humans articulate their self- conceptions and negotiate their relation to the world, the lawoffers no immediatelyevident equivalent.

4. Reflexivity in Diaspora

As indicated at the outset,inorder for adiasporatoconstitute itself,orbe constituted, the diasporic community must become aware of its difference from othercollectivesinthe ‘diasporaspace’.Thus, Khachig Tölölyan views diasporaas

aprocess of collective identification and form of identity,marked by ever-changingdiffer- ences that chart the shiftingboundariesofcertain communities hierarchicallyembedded as enclaveswith porous boundarieswithin other,largercommunities. […]The diasporiccom- munity sees itself as linked to but different fromthose among whom it has settled; even-

 Reinold Schmücker, “Versuch über die Bedeutungdes Nachdenkens über das Recht für die Theorie der Literatur,” in Wert und Wahrheit in der Rechtswissenschaft: Im Gedenken an Gerhard Sprenger,ed. AnnetteBrockmöller,Stephan Kirste, and Ulfrid Neumann (Stuttgart: Steiner, ): –.  NigelE.Simmonds, “Reflexivity and the IdeaofLaw,” Jurisprudence . (): –, .  Simmonds, “Reflexivity and the Ideaofthe Law,” . 126 Florian Kläger

tually, it also comestosee itself as powerfullylinked to,but in some ways different from, the people in the homeland as well.⁴⁷

This is true of personal identity no less than of collective identity: “Iamonlya person to the extent thatIknow myself to be one, and in exactlythe same way, agroup – whether it be atribe, race, or nation – can onlybeitself to the degree in which it understands, visualizes, and represents itself.”⁴⁸ Ernest Renan’sfamous description of the nation as “un plébiscite de tous les jours” seems pertinent,asdoes Hugh Seton Watson’sclassic resigned ‘definition’ that anation exists “when asignificant number of people in acommunity consider themselves to form anation, or behave as if they formedone.”⁴⁹ Stuart Hall, too, emphasises the self-reflexive element in the ‘procedural’ conception of diasporic identity: “Diasporaidentities are thosewhich are constantlyproducing and reproducing themselvesanew,through transformation and difference.”⁵⁰ All these definitions confront the reflexive paradoxofthe imagined community – they stress that it is acommunity thatimagines itself into existence.Jan Assmann has described collective identity as a “reflexive form of social belonging,” and he points out its constitutive relationship to culturalidentity,which “correspondingly entails conscious participation in or recognition of aspecific culture”: “By making people conscious of aparticular,shared situation, belongingcan be changed into homogeneity and the masscan be transformed into acollectively acting ‘subject’ whose capacity for actionwill be tied to its identity.”⁵¹ This applies beyond the tribal, ethnic, and national collectivesofantiquity thatAssmann discusses to the genesis of diasporic identity.Avtar Brah has stressed this reflexive nature of ‘diaspora’ concerning “the historicallyvariable formsofrelationality within and between diasporic formations”: “It is about relations of power that similar- ise and differentiatebetween and across changingdiasporic constellations. In other words, the concept of diaspora centres on the configurations of power

 Tölölyan, “Contemporary Discourse,” –.Cp. KhachigTölölyan, “Diaspora Studies. Past,Present and Promise,” International Migration Institute OxfordWorking Papers  (): .  JanAssmann, Cultural Memoryand Early Civilization.Writing,Remembrance, and Political Imagination (Cambridge,New York: Cambridge UP, ): .  Hugh Seton-Watson, Nations, States. An Enquiryintothe Origins of Nations and the Politics of Nationalism (London: Methuen, ): .  Stuart Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” in Theorizing Diaspora. AReader,ed. Jana EvansBraziel, Anita Mannur (Malden, MA, Oxfordetal.: Blackwell, ): –, .Sim- ilarly, Kim Butler considers diaspora “as aframework for the studyofaspecific process of community formation” (“DefiningDiaspora,” ).  Assmann, Cultural Memory, . Theorizing Reflexivity in Literature, Law and Diaspora 127 which differentiate diasporas internally as wellassituate them in relation to one another.”⁵² Diasporathus demands the reflexion on self, other,and the ‘diaspora space’ wherethese categories meet and trouble each other.The role of narratives in connection with such reflexive negotiations of identityiswell-known. Wolf- gangMüller-Funk explains:

[O]nlynarrativesare able to createcollective identities, which arebased on narratingcom- munities,ongroups of readers, whobecome storytellers at the same time. This kind of narrative always tells astory about whoweare and whoweare not.Onanindividual level, it creates anarrative unity of life. On acollective level, it suggests – in an act of abstraction and imagination – the ‘life’ of anation, the history of amovement,agroup etc.⁵³

This constitutes aparallel with the law, of course – as Robert Cover and others have argued, the wayinwhich we impose normative forceon“astate of affairs […]isthe act of creatingnarrative.”⁵⁴ Legal narrativesproject model states that provide orientation, and the sameistrue of those ideal statesprojected by the collective imaginingitself.But Müller-Funk, like Hall, includes in his definition not onlycollectives, but alsoindividuals,and Ibelieveitisvery important to attend to this dual dimension of ‘diasporic identity,’ which has acollective and a personal aspect,just as ‘adiaspora’ is acollective that is made up of individuals who, depending on contingent circumstances, maybemoreorlessfreetoper- ceive themselvesaspart of thatcollective.AsAvtar Brah has shown, moreover, diasporic identity intersects with other social and personal positioningssuch as gender,race, casteand class, all of which need to be interrogated and problematized in their relation to the idea of a “stable and essential[diasporic] identity.”⁵⁵ Personal identity,then, might be described with JürgenStraubas an individual’sparadoxicalambition for aunity or harmony of all of its differences,which can never be realised through synthesis of these differences.⁵⁶ On the in-achievability of this ambition for unity rests the character of “identity

 Avtar Brah, Cartographies of Diaspora.Contesting Identities (London, New York: Routledge, ): .  Wolfgang Müller-Funk, TheArchitectureofModern Culture (Berlin: De Gruyter, ): – .  Robert M. Cover, “The Supreme Court,  Term – Foreword: Nomos and Narrative,” Har- vard Law Review  (): –, .  Brah, Cartographies, .  JürgenStraub, “Identität,” in Handbuch der Kulturwissenschaften ,ed. Friedrich Jaeger, BurkhardLiebsch, Jörn Rüsen, JürgenStraub (Stuttgart, Weimar:J.B. Metzler, ): – , . 128 Florian Kläger as a ‘production’ which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within […]representation” which Stuart Hall speaks of.⁵⁷ The negotiation of diasporic identities is framed in what has been described as the ‘diasporic imaginary’ and occurs through the reflexive processes that are inherent in thosemodes of collective representation attachedtoit, which apart from art includesuch elements as historicalnarrativesabout groups and places, myths, symbols, iconographies,and other social practicesand behaviours.⁵⁸ However,diasporics do not onlyimagine ‘their’ diasporaemicallyorthrough self-study.Itisalso created by observers outside the community.These observers mayinclude other actors in the diasporaspace, both in the host and home countries and outside of both, including “those who are constructed and represented as indigenous”⁵⁹ as well as national and international policy-makers,media, and academics, among others. Khachig Tölölyan cautions that the academicobserv- er’spresencewillaffect the observedsystem, as it were:

theoretical conceptions,specialized terminologies,acknowledgedand unacknowledged disciplinary interests and intentions, awill to knowledge, and avariety of methodologies combine to reformulatediasporas. Livingdiasporas areobjectsofknowledge that can, however,react: they talk back, not onlytothe waythey arerepresented in media and the administrative-juridical languages of administration, but also to disciplinary, scholarlydis- courses.They become simultaneouslyobjects of knowledge and cosubjects.⁶⁰

In academic diasporastudies, reflexivity is thus central not onlythrough the common demand for methodological reflexion and through the personal trajectories thatfrequentlyinducescholars to engage with the topic of diasporainthe first place, but also through the interaction thatoccurs between scholars and their subjects. If Iassume,then, that diasporic identity is the productofreflexive community formation processes, Imean by this not onlythe collective’sself-reflexion in the Andersonian sense of its self-imagining, but also the individual’sself-conscious positioning vis-à-vis that collective and all the others that are available as potential sites of identification. Identity is sociogenic in the double sense described by JanAssmann in that it produces collectivesasmuch as it is produced

 Hall, “Cultural Identity,” .  VijayMishra, TheLiteratureofthe Indian Diaspora. Theorizing the Diasporic Imaginary (Lon- don, New York: Routledge, ); Nabeel Zuberi, “Diaspora,” in TheEncyclopediaofLiterary and Cultural Theory ,ed. Michael Ryan (Chichester:Wiley-Blackwell, ): –, .  Brah, Cartographies, .  Tölölyan, “Contemporary Discourse,” . Theorizing ReflexivityinLiterature, Law and Diaspora 129 by them.⁶¹ Such self-conscious positioning through representationtakes the shape of narratives, and these narrativesare precarious attempts at manifesting that ambition for unity.They feed into the narrator’sself-image: as Iimagine myself as this person or that,Inot onlybecome that person (if my attempt at auto- narration succeedsinconvincing myself), but Iwill then be the person who imagined themselvestobethat person and who then movedonand had to confirm or ‘live’ that identity.The collectivesvis-à-vis which Iimagined myself are simi- larlychanged in the process as Iposition myself in relation to them. Again, this is the process of the Hofstadterian, or Gödelian, strangeloopthat produces identity.This observation, Iconcede,isperhaps too general to be of great value in ‘defining’ diasporic identity – it applies to all collective identities, and perhaps the onlyspecificallydiasporic aspect to this is the relative importance of difference, since the diasporic subject and the diasporic collective willexperience an emphasis on differenceinthe construction of theiridentity,either voluntarily and actively or passivelybyimposition from outside. Adiasporic individual’s, and community’s, identity and autonomy as diasporic is reflexive in the same sense as literarytexts and the lawrelate to themselves. Like the lawand literature, diasporic identity, too, is representativeand reflective of the contingent historicalcircumstances that produce it.Areference to some ‘institutional’ framework of diasporicity mayexist: certainly, it is produced by theorists of diasporabothinacademia and among policy-makers. It can alsobeforegroundedindiasporans’,and diasporas’,solidarity for each other in the face of aperceivedcommon threat,e.g., by legislation. The fourth category of meta-hermeneutic reflexivity appears more pronounced in the dia- sporaimaginary than in the law, at least:diasporic identity can be conceived of as reflexive of human ‘being in the world’ by the metaphorical proposition that Ulysses so memorablymakes,ofman as the eternal wanderer and of life as ajourney:

The paradoxical combination of localism and transnationalism, the fierce aspiration to ach- ieveeconomic and social success and the willingness to sacrificefor the community and the homeland, indeed the oscillation between loyalty and skeptical detachment that characterizes the performance of diasporic lives, is […]anexample of the wayeveryone, including nationals,will have to live in an increasinglyheterogeneous and plural world.⁶²

 Assmann, Cultural Memory, .  Tölölyan, “Diaspora Studies,” . 130 Florian Kläger

In that sense, perhapsinformed by an ambition that,wereitnot for the negative connotations of the terms,might be called ‘humanist’ or ‘universalist,’ diaspora studies undertakes to be the studyofthe human predicament at large.

5. Conclusion, in WhichNothing is Concluded

In afinal step, Iwant to consider in how far the role of reflexive phenomena in the three domains might be commensurable. As Iindicated at the outset,there is ahost of problems with this kind of comparison: First,thereare wide differences in the scholarlyterminology, and if concepts are to travel from one domain to another,they will requirecareful translation. Thisproblem connects with the second point,that of the categorial commensurability of the domains: Ihavesug- gested that in acertain and,Irealize, not uncontroversial sense, literature, law and diasporic identity can be said to share the ontological feature of theirself- productiveness and self-perpetuation. What is more, all threeare also ‘open’ to external factors:literature, to the contingent historical and institutional circumstances that influenceits production and actualization; law, to the historical contexts that produce legislation and the legal system as such, including thoseex- ternal factors that maybefielded in order to justify it (such as God or the economy); and diasporic identity,both to the specific trajectories and position- alities of each individual diasporic and diaspora,aswell as to the host of other sites for collective and individual identification with which it intersects. Clearly, the question arises whether this shared characteristic of ‘doubly embedded’ autopoiesis harbours anyheuristic value for studying the ways in which the three fieldsinfluenceeach other.Ican onlyspeculate here that ‘doubly embedded’ autopoiesis maybeafeature of discursiveculturalpracticesatlarge.⁶³ Lit- erature, law, and diasporic identity are products of culture which are determined by,and interventions in, contingent material circumstances and institutional frameworks. As Klaus Stierstorfer has suggested, inquiries of this triple kind should ask “how literature, lawand the respective further field under discussion can come into productive correspondence,with the best tentative answer available

 As Foucaultsuggests in ‘The Discourse on Language’,discourse itself has autopoietic features – it creates its own rules,centres, and sources,and in studyingit, we must payattention both to the external and internal factors that shape it and to the shapes that it takesand through which it in turn shapes experience (MichelFoucault, “The Discourse on Language” [], in TheArchaeology of Knowledge and TheDiscourse on Language [New York: Vintage, ]: –). Theorizing Reflexivity in Literature, Law and Diaspora 131 at present in the form of the thesis that literature serves as afield of mediation between lawand its others.” Forthose attemptingtoconnect the field of lawand literaturetootherdomains, then, the agenda lies

in first re-assessingliterature’srelation to the respective domain or field of studyand then usingits well-established links with jurisprudencetodefine its roleasinterloper or medi- ator,with the modes of literary mediation dependingonperspectivesand preferences.⁶⁴

In this spirit,and on the basisofmybrief sketches of phenomenaofreflexivity in the preceding pages, Iwould offer the following hypotheses on the relations between literature and diasporic identity as compared to thosebetween literature and law: Similar phenomena of reflexivity occur between lawand literature in that both domains seem to generate their identity autopoietically. This suggests an ontological parallel between lawand literature in terms of the processes through which they come into being in theirdouble embeddedness. Autopoiesis is afeature alsoshared by literature and diasporic identity,likewise from adual perspective – in this case, from the point of view of the individual and the collective.Both individual and collective enter into the production of meaning as factors with variable importance: readers make sense of literary texts in the hermeneutic negotiation between individual text and genre, and between individual reader and collective audience; diasporic individuals produce their identity in the hermeneutic negotiation of individual experience with intersectingcollective models of explanation. Again, reflexivity inheres on both levels of embeddedness, and again it characterises the process by which ‘literature’ and ‘diaspora’ acquireidentity. The law, it emerged, does not readilyseem to accommodatethe kind of meta-hermeneutic reflexivity that characterizes both literatureand diaspora. Concerningthe pursuit of jurisprudence to elucidatesome essential or transhi- storical idea of the law, Simmonds observesthat “[i]n seeking aphilosophical understanding of the natureoflaw we simply take seriously,and extend, the jus- tificatory project that begins in the judicial judgment: for we endeavour to explain how law, by its very nature, provides ajustification that can be invoked by the judge.”⁶⁵ If this weretosuggest an agenda for literarystudies and diasporastudies, the theoretical challengeconsists in identifying analogous pairs of terms for law/justification: if the reflexive function of lawisto‘justify’ itself, what is the function of literature, and of diaspora? What values and processes

 Klaus Stierstorfer, “Lawand (which?) Literature: New Directions in Post-Theory?”, Law and Humanities . (): –, –.  Simmonds, “Reflexivity and the Ideaofthe Law,” . 132 Florian Kläger relatetoliterature and to diasporaas‘justice’ and ‘justification’ relatetolaw? The possible answers are legion, and the virtue of the question maysimply be to highlight afundamental differencebetween the ways in which some represen- tativesofthe three respective academicdisciplines conceive of their subjects. On the other hand, perhaps,the recursive effect by which ‘legitimacy’ and ‘legality’ (rather than ‘justice’!) are introduced as eigenvalues into lawmay be productive- ly matched by the eigenvalues of ‘literariness’ or ‘poeticity’ in literature and of ‘diasporicity’ in diaspora. To acknowledge the recursive constitution of these subjects is to recognize theirprocedural and contingent nature as objectsof study. Thus, Gunther Teubner,inhis discussion of reflexivity in the law, points out thatgiven the paradoxesraised by the various kinds of reflexivity thatob- tain, it is remarkable thatthe lawshould achieve anykind of stability at all: “Since indeterminacy of lawisthe ordinary rule, determinacy,order and system are the exceptions that requireexplanation.”⁶⁶ This point lends itself to application beyond the domain of lawtoliteratureand diaspora, as well, in thatithigh- lights the precarious constitution of literarinessand diasporicity.Asthe above discussion has shown, the processes by which these subjects are producedare highlycontingent,and scholars must be aware of this predicament and attend to it in theirstudies. The parallels between lawand literature and literature and diasporic identity seem to share one function in that theyare geared towards making sense of experience through areduction of complexity that takes the shape of narrative.They are frameworks for relating the particular to the general, for mitigating the differencebetween them with the aim of producing integration in full awareness of the transitory nature of such integration. Neither lawnor diasporic identity nor literature are ever ‘finished’ or complete – they are procedural by nature. To saythat this is the case does not,initself, delineate an agenda for scholarly inquiry.Itdoes, however,highlight acharacter of culturalpractices that the three domains could be said to share: They lack well-defined essences that would un- equivocallydifferentiatethem from their ‘outsides’ (the non-legal, non-literary, non-diasporic), but they produce these differentiations reflexively.Asweobserve these reflexive practices,that which we are studying producesitself, at least partly.⁶⁷ Essentialist pursuits in scholarship, such as the jurisprudential quest

 Teubner, “And God Laughed,” .  Reception theory and narratology have much to sayabout the ways in which individual texts produce not onlytheir notions of literariness and genres, but also their own readers and reception communities. This dimension has been neglectedherefor reasonsofspace, but it seems promisingtospeculateabout the commensurability between this literary mode of reflexivity and the ways in which laws produce legalcommunities and diasporicsproducediasporas. Theorizing Reflexivity in Literature, Law and Diaspora 133 for the ‘idea of law,’ are frustrated in translation to the domains of literature and diaspora. Most crucially, perhaps, by engagingmeta-hermeneuticallywith reflexive processes of world-making and sense-making,the novel genre and literature in general reflect the very process through which both lawand diasporic identity come into existence. In examining literary representations of bothfields, attendingtothatstructural analogymay assist us in understandingnot onlythe mechanics of literaryrepresentation of these subjects, but also their natureas products of culturethatreflect the strangeloops of human cognition and cohabitation.

Like anovel’s ‘implied readership,’ these latter communities become effective in the political and academicrealms, but they also sharean‘ideal,’ imagined character.

EmmaPatchett Overlapping Sovereignties

Legal Diaspora Studies and the LiteraryText

1. LegalDiasporaStudies: The Limits, Extent and Scope of Establishing Multiple Sovereignties

This paper attempts to outlinethree main approaches within legal diasporastudies, before consideringhow these maybeused to theorize the diasporic literary text as asiteofdecolonial transjurisdictionalism. Legal DiasporaStudies present anon-cohesive assemblageincontemporary legal scholarship, although this was not always the case.¹ Itsvarious forms are present in debates around legal pluralism, multiple nationalities, critical legal studies, comparativeinter- national law, and so on, but there is still relatively little written on particularleg- islative constructions and connotations pertainingspecificallytodiasporas – no- tablybecause international lawisterritoriallybound – although there has recentlybeen research on constructions of transnational citizenship.²

 Adeno Addis, “Imaginingthe Homeland from Afar:Community and Peoplehood in the Ageof the Diaspora,” Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law  (): –, : “Therewas atime when the relationship between homelands and diasporas was aconcern of the international community and even of international law-the interwar period (between the two World Wars). Duringthis period, and under the auspices of the League of Nations,the international community soughttoensurestability in Europe by providingfor the protection of religious, linguistic, and ethnic minorities through aseries of treaties and unilateral declarations.” Addis further traces the historical conditions of aform of diasporicjurisdictionalism when he writes that: “The members of the League viewed minorities as part of a “nation,” part of a “people,” outside the territorial unit in which they found themselves” ().  Except in inter-war minority treaties regime – see Hague Convention. Addis, “Imagine the Homeland”: “although internationallaw has expanded its subjects and the domain of its concern, it essentiallycontinues to adheretoastatist version of we the peoples that graces the UN Charter.International lawmay have pierced the statist veil to reach the individual under certain circumstances, but onlyinthe contextofaffirmingthe traditional narrative of how the people (personifiedbythe state) are constituted. That is, international lawimposes certain obligations on the state to treat members of its own people in aparticular way, but it does not open to question how the people areconstituted. Internationallaw seems to leave the question of membership to political communities themselves” (). 136 EmmaPatchett

2. Legal Diaspora Studies as an Emergent Approach

2.1 Dualism and the Diasporan Model

The first approach could be defined as dualistic: it is centred on the diasporic model, as proposed by Anupam Chander.Itis, perhaps, the most straight-forward means of conceptualizing diasporainlaw.This goes beyond dual citizenship, which reflects the dominant statist paradigm, to amore hybrid model which, as Chander writes, “seeks to enfranchise diasporas as recognized legal subjects in the transnational legal process” but still maintains the homeland- hostland dichotomy.³ Dual or “external” citizenship is,⁴ therefore, just one part of this model, which also suggests incorporatingachoice of law, so that the di- asporacould applyeither legislation from their homelandorfrom their adopted land in the private sphere, and advocates achoice of forafor dispute resolution, for example. This is alreadypracticed in certain minoritycommunities,wherethe development of hybrid adaptive strategies through, for example, the establishment of religious courts or self-regulating familylaw councils to account for legal acts or rituals of ethnic minorities, observing spiritual codes and canon lawoutside the state legal system, so that within adiasporic community,asPra- kash Shah notes, “multiple rule systems are complied with.”⁵ In addition, the di- asporicmodel would allow diasporic communities to have the right to political representation in the homeland, as well as maintaining liberal immigration and free movement policies to ensure permeable borders to diasporic citizens. Chan- der basesthis on the idea of DiasporaBonds, returnable investments into the In- dian economyfrom diasporic citizens, and suggeststhis concept could be broad- ened to includeadditional legislative and political entitlements: such as special visas; dual citizenship; and the right to vote. This can be observed in the case of the Indian diaspora,who have access to dual nationality through asystem which recognizes not onlyNRIs (Non-Resident Indians), but alsoPIOs(Persons of Indi-

 Anupam Chander, “Diaspora Bonds,” N.Y.ULaw Review  (): –, .  Kim Barry, “Homeand Away:The Construction of Citizenship in an Emigration Context,” N.Y.U. Law Review  (): –, : “Abroader conception of citizenship that is extraterritorial and non-residential is required. […]Althoughitistempting to describe evolvingemigrant citizenship as eliminating geographic borders in some postmodern sense, such aconception is not accurate. The society in which the emigrant participates is still territoriallybound.”  Prakash Shah, “Diasporas as legal actors:Implicationsfor established legal boundaries,” Non-State Actors and International Law  (): –, . Overlapping Sovereignties 137 an Origin) to consolidatebonds of solidarity with the diaspora, aprotection written into the Indian Constitution.⁶ The diasporic link is similarlyemphasized in the case of Israel’sLaw of Return (1950), which entitles thosefrom the diaspora to Israeli citizenship and the right of return and settlement. This approach reflects theargumentthateveninthe transnational legalfield, “thelogic of practicestill playsitselfout primarily on anationalplane.”⁷ Thus diasporas arestill considered “part of thepeopleofthe homeland,”⁸ whichisthe case formanystatesthathaveset up foreignministries preciselytodefine, strengthen andmanagethislink,⁹ with diasporiccommunities as legitimate stake- holders in thecommunity.¹⁰ An exampleofhow jurisdictionisdefined extraterri- torially – transplantedfromhomelandtohostland – is givenbyAdeno Addis, whorecountsthat “Israel’sdesiretoprotect theJewishdiaspora goes even further than anycountry hasgonebyasserting extraterritorialjurisdictiontocriminally sanction anyone whohas committedanoffense against “thelife, body,health, freedomorpropertyofaJew, as aJew,orthe property of aJewishinstitution.”¹¹ This form of diasporicjurisdictionestablishes aframework of protection fordia- sporas,yet clearlypresentsaproblemastothe limits of application. Addis sug- gestsitcould be “invokedonlyinrelationtoattacks on individuals[…]and only in relation to seriouscrimes[…]construed as thosegenerally regardedassub- ject to universaljurisdictionunder customaryinternational law-genocide,crimes againsthumanity,torture,war crimes,etc.,”¹² in otherwords,toavoid jurisdictional conflictsbyonlyoperatingfor casesinwhich victimizationhas occurred as a result of discrimination on thebasis of groupidentity.Althoughthere hasbeen considerableoverlap betweencriminaland immigration law, theneedtoestablish

 Article ;See also MinistryofOverseas Indian Affairs (MOIA), “Report of the High LevelCom- mittee on Indian Diaspora (HLCID)” ( December, )(acc.  Dec ) .  David Trubeck et al., “Global Restructuringand the Law: Studies of the Internationalization of Legal Fields and the Creation of Transnational Arenas,” Case Western Reserve Law Review  (): –, .  Addis, “Imagine the Homeland,” .  Addis, “Imagine the Homeland,” ,nt:“Forexample, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador,Ethiopia, Romania, and Uruguayhavediaspora or expatriateaffairs departments within their foreign affairs ministries”.See also Tanja Sejersen, “IVow to Thee My Countries:The Expansion of Dual Citizenship in the st Century,” International Migration Review  (): –.  In this sense, “Diasporas areoutside the statebut inside the people.” Yossi Shain “Kinship and Diasporas,” International Affairs . (): – quoted in Addis, “Imagine the Homeland,” .  Addis, “Imagine the Homeland,” ,quotingPenal Law, –,§(b)()() (Isr.).  Addis, “Imagine the Homeland,” . 138 EmmaPatchett aframework of applicabilitywithprecedencetodiasporic status couldpresent considerableproblemstostate jurisprudence. Thus asense of dualism is partiallyreinforced – even if that dualism is dynamic, and interactive, or dialogic and fluid – paying dueattention to the homeland-host land dichotomy. There is some agency for the diasporic subjectinse- lecting the choice-of-law, yetthey are split into abinary system. It could alsobe said to privilegeaconnection with ahomeland over that of negotiating an active legal subjectivity that is, itself, diasporic (rather than an extension of the entitlements resulting from an expansive definition of dual nationality). POIrecogni- tion and the right of return also do not give indication of how adiasporic subject must negotiate multiple systems of lawwhen in their adopted country,astheir focus is instead on strengthening the link to homeland,rather than the effect a diasporic status might have on nation-state legislative structures abroad. Rights within the homeland are protected by virtue of the diasporic link, but diasporais then conceptualized as aresult of ‘dispersalfrom’ rather than as an analytical condition constructingitself as ‘apart from’:the diasporaisdefined in opposition, as the shadowyotherofthe nation-state. The homeland is still central in this model of how to conceptualize dual loyalty,and thus the lawofthe state is key:itisaneither-orchoice (even if this diasporic model attempts to move away from the silence of the international lawframework on diasporic space as ambiguous, as it contrasts with the boundaries of the nation-state and the preference for asingular nationality).¹³ Chander suggests that moving away from astatist system, to amore cosmopolitan or universalist alternative,istoem- phasize asense of uprootedness thatignores the links one might have with anation-state homeland,asopposed to adopting atrans-territorial approach.

2.2 Transjurisdictionalism: De-centring Law from the State

If (territorial)jurisdiction is understood as a “set of social practices,”¹⁴ then transjurisdictionalism negotiates both the organic and synthetic,¹⁵ global and

 Shah, “Diasporas as legal actors,” ;Addis, “Imagine the Homeland,” .The preamble to the Hague Convention on Certain Questions Relating to the Conflict of Nationality Laws () holds: “it is in the interest of the international community to securethat all membersshould recognize that every person should have anationality and should have one nationality only.”  RichardThompson Ford, “Law’sTerritory (A HistoryofJurisdiction),” Michigan Law Review . (): –, . Overlapping Sovereignties 139 local normative conditions of legality:not onlythatwhich is enacted on diasporic individuals but constructingaspace which is diasporic (and herein lies the potential threat). If, as Richard Ford suggests, “[t]he jurisdictional boundary does more than separate territory;italsoseparatestypes of people,”¹⁶ then transjurisdictionalism is acritique of thathorizontal relationship, emphasizing its inherent authorship and lack of neutrality.Transjurisdictionalism reflects asocio-legal concern with legal adaptation and complex pluralities across borders.Prakash Shah and Derya Bayir looked at this area when considering the British diaspora in Turkey.¹⁷ Their research focused on the extent to which there was achoice of law,¹⁸ such as the use of non-official fora – in other words, aconcern with observing whether “trans-jurisdictional practices occur within awider habitus of “transnational social fields.”¹⁹ They write:

Indeed, the phenomenon of unofficial lawisnot confined to minority diaspora communities but can be seen as ageneral featureoccurringunder the shadow of strong state systems builtupinthe modern period. While manystates in Africa and Asiacontinue to officially acknowledge the existenceofnon-statelegal orders (Menski 2006), others, includingTur- key, have emulated the modern European systemofstrong states by officially ‘abolishing’ non-state legal orders.”²⁰ Shah and Bayir note that “British people appear to be developing adistinct legal presenceinTurkey in the regions they aresettlingwithin, influencingand changinglocal ways […]navigat[ing] through Turkey’slegal order,using some rules to their advantage, and also goingaround those rules which are not necessarilyconvenient for them.²¹

Oneexample of this is in relation to family lawindiaspora, where,asLordJustice Thorpe identifies,acomplexmeans of dealingwithcross-borderdisputesisnec-

 Ford defines the organic as authentic and national developments such as local government and nation-states, where synthetic derivations arethose which are moreinstitutional and bu- reaucratic (Ford, “Law’sTerritory,” ).  Ford, “Law’sTerritory,” .  Prakash Shah, and DeryaBayir, “The LegalAdaptation of British Settlers in Turkey,” Trans- cultural Studies  (): –.  “relianceonBritish laws in some instances whereprivate international lawrules might apply, for example,the makingofwills,indivorces, marriages, adoptionsetc.” Shah and Bayir, “Legal Adapation of British Settlers,” .  Shah and Bayir, “Legal Adapation of British Settlers,”  [quotingNinaGlick Schiller, “Transborder Citizenship:AnOutcome of LegalPluralism within Transnational Social Fields,” Mobile People, Mobile Law:Expanding Legal Relations In AContracting World, eds. Franz Benda-Beckmann, Keebet Benda-Beckmann, and Anne Griffiths (Aldershot and Burlington: Ash- gate, ): –, .]  Shah and Bayir, “Legal Adapation of British Settlers,” .  Shah and Bayir, “Legal Adapation of British Settlers,” . 140 EmmaPatchett essary becauseof“globalization, increasing movement of personsacross borders, andthe ever rising number of family unitswhich aretruly international.”²²

2.3 Legal Pluralism and Historical PlaceofOrigin

Shah and Bayir prefacetheir contemporary studywith areference to the fact that indeed, apluralistic system existed duringthe Ottoman erawhich authorized “European and American nationals to be judgedincourts institutedbytheir countries of origin as part of theirassertionofextra-territorial jurisdiction,”²³ asystem of legal concessions or capitulations abolishedin1923. Indeed, it has been argued that to conceive of globalization (and thus, diaspora) as acontemporary threat to the nation-state is to emphasize alinear narrative of lawbased on positivist and natural-rights assumptions which ignores historical evidence of legal pluralism, that,asPaulBerman writes, “legal norms have always migrated across territorial boundaries.”²⁴ Colonialism called for the development of a means of dealing with multiple jurisdictions across multiple spaces,necessitat- ing the recognition of alegallypluralistic system – whereadispute resolution process, for example, could operate locallyatametaphysical distance from a colonial courthouse hierarchy.²⁵ These “layered constructions of sovereignty” recognized the authority of religious and culturallydiverse communities as well as the reality that,asthe legal historian LauraBenton observes, “conflicts continuallyshifted jurisdictional boundaries.”²⁶ This complex arrangement also ensured that settlers moving to establish anew world abroad could make and remakelegal orders linking them to their place of origin. In this sense, diasporalawshavealong history of plurality and can be con- ceivedofasanetwork of jurisdictions and the negotiation of legal subjectivities linked to apoint of origin. On the one hand,this can perhaps be read as arei- fication of the centrist dogma which presents dispersal and diffusion as acon- cretization of nation-state legal practices, but if regarded from aconstructivist

 BBC, “Rapid rise in global familydisputes” ( May, ). (acc.  Dec, ).  Shah and Bayir, “Legal Adapation of British Settlers,” –.  Paul Schiff Berman, “Global Legal Pluralism,” Southern California Law Review  (): –, .  Peter Karsten, Between Law and Custom: “High” and “Low” Legal Cultures in the Lands of the BritishDiaspora (Cambridge:CUP, ). ##–##.  LaurenA.Benton, “Historical PerspectivesonLegalPluralism,” Hague Journal on the Rule of Law .(): –, ; . Overlapping Sovereignties 141 point of view,itisperhaps more interesting to consider the means in which diasporic communities negotiated (and contested) socio-legal constructions of their legal subjectivities. So, for Shah, diasporas are always “engaged in processesof code-switching and culturalnavigation,”²⁷ in other words, undertaking “hybrid adaptive strategies” by complying with “multiple-rule systems” in dispute resolution laycourts or through kinship resolution, for example²⁸.Diasporas are then not outside official/state law, but engageas, in the wayShah describes, “translocal actors” which do not simply demonstrate aweb of trans-legality but also force “arethink of established legal boundaries.”²⁹ Legal pluralism is then, not afacet of special treatment for diasporic communities but rather recognition of that “the constant making and re-making of [legal] boundaries”³⁰ exists in all societies at all times in a “rich textureoflegal systems.”³¹ Societies’ adaptations are the departure point,rather than anation-state as the central sourceoflegiti- macy.This can be seen as aform of globalized localism,ordiasporic localismin this caseperhaps. Such interlegality is areflectionofwhatDavid Delaneycalls the “verticalityof legalspace,”³² whichgoesagainst thelinearrouteofmigrationreciprocallylinked to originsand insteaddraws attentionto“questionsofscalesand perspective”– domestic,extraterritorial, international, transnational,global, local, customary, tribal,religious.³³ As Santos observes, “themodernstate is basedonthe assumption that lawoperates on asinglescale,”³⁴ when in fact thereare differentlegal orders operatingondifferent scales in differentlegal spaces,³⁵ “creat[ing] different

 Shah, “Diasporas as legal actors,” .  Shah, “Diasporas as legal actors,” .Shah notesthat most legal systems in the world, with the notable exception of the UK, “makeprovision for minorities under personallaw systems of one kind or another” (“Diasporas as legal actors,” ).  Shah, “Diasporas as legal actors,” .  Prakash Shah, “Socio-Legal PerspectivesonEthnic Diversity,” in In Law and Ethnic Plurality – Socio-Legal Perspectives,ed. P. Shah (Leidenand Boston: MartinusNiljhoff, ): .  Alison Harvey, “Rev.ofMigration, Diasporas and Legal Systems in Europe,ed. Shah and Men- ski, and TheChallengeofAsylum to Legal Systems Cavendish, by Shah,” European Journal of Mi- gration and Law  (): –, .  David Delaney, “Globalizationand Law: Introduction,” in TheLegal Geographies Reader: Law,Power and Space,ed. N. Blomley et al. (Oxford: OUP, ): –, .  Delaney, “Globalization and Law,” .  Boaventura de Sousa Santos, “Law: AMap of Misreading. TowardaPostmodern Conception of Law,” Journal of Law and Society . (): –, .  Santos defines local lawasalarge-scale legality,nation-statelaw as amedium-scale legality and world lawasasmall-scale legality (“Law: AMap of Misreading,” ). He writes: “Forthe local communities the customary lawwas the local law, alarge-scale legality well adaptedto prevent and settle local disputes” (“Law: AMap of Misreading,” )InToward aNew Legal 142 EmmaPatchett legalrealities.”³⁶ These “multiple networks of legalorders” canbeconceived of, again, as adaptive strategies.³⁷ Santos writes abouthis experienceslooking at thelaw of thefavelas in Brazil, exploring “thecreationofaninternallegality, par- allelto–andsometimes conflictingwith – stateofficiallegality.”³⁸ He looked at howdispute resolution wouldinvolve acommunity organization with legalre- sponsibility over civil(butnot criminal)jurisdiction, stateagencies, locallydrafted contracts, “selectiveborrowingsfromthe official legalsystem,”³⁹ andbothformal- ly trained andlay personsactingaslegaladjudicators: Santoscalls this theoper- ationofforms of lawin“constellations of legality.”⁴⁰ Twinings suggests legal pluralism forces us to ask how we can conceptualize law.⁴¹ The themeshere could be said to be “contradiction and fragmentation”:⁴² we are required to view lawdifferently, not as territorially bound but “emerging from aplethora of oftencompeting normative frameworks.”⁴³ Thus, both legal pluralism and transjurisdictionalism are de-centring law from the state,albeit in different ways.⁴⁴ Interlegality could be said to be a

Common Sense (London and Edinburgh: LexisNexis Butterworths Tolley, )hewrites: “laws use different criteria to determine the meaningful details” ().  Santos, “Law: AMap of Misreading,” .  Santos, “Law: AMap of Misreading,” .  Santos, TowardaNew Legal Common Sense, .  Santos, TowardaNew Legal Common Sense, .  Santos, TowardaNew Legal Common Sense, .  William Twining, “Normative and LegalPluralism: AGlobal Perspective,” Duke Journal of Comparative&International Law  (): –, : “it is worth asking: plurality of what exactly? Settingaside concernsabout ‘the legal’,one can roughlydifferentiatethreecate- gories that areexplicitlymentioned or implied: institutionalized normative orders (e.g., the WTO, the regime of internal governanceofalaw school or auniversity or large organization); asystem, or code or discrete set of norms (the U.S. Constitution, the rules of football); looser aggregations of norms (public lecturerituals,American spelling); and afew single norms which do not clearlybelongtoany one systemoragglomeration (is the smokingban part of the rules governingthe library,the lawschool, the university or somethingmoregeneral […] as we shall see, ‘legal pluralism’ is variouslyapplied to institutionalized legal orders, systems, codes or other bodies of rules,sourcesoflaw,and to single rules or principles(e.g., the rule in Rylands vFletcher, the principle that no person should profit fromher own wrong).”  Harvey, “Rev.ofMigration, Diasporas and Legal Systems in Europe and TheChallengeofAsy- lum to Legal Systems,” .  Ruth Buchanan, “ReconceptualizingLaw and Politics in the Transnational: Constitutional and LegalPluralist Approaches,” Socio-Legal Review  (): –, .  Twining, “Normative and Legal Pluralism,” : “social fact pluralism studies have focused on relatively small, face-to-face groups.  Second, the main emphasis has been on what in our legal tradition has been classified as private law- marriage,family, inheritance, land, and to a OverlappingSovereignties 143 focus on the contact zone, transjurisdictionalism on the operational process of adjudicatingacross boundaries and legal systems (wrenched free, in other words, from territory);⁴⁵ and legal pluralism as aconsideration of the network in which these systems interact.

3. Intothe Contact Zone: Postcolonial Legal Theory

The third analytical approach drawsonpostcolonial legal theory.Legal pluralism has formed alarge part of this particulartheoretical approach in the acknowledgement of silenced or marginalized legal systems.⁴⁶ This perspective can be considered an attempt to work against hierarchical comparative law which “tendedtosee the process patronizingly in terms of the exportation of legal concepts, rules and ways of thoughtfrom ‘parent’ modern state legal systems to ‘primitive,’‘traditional,’ underdeveloped, or adolescent state importers whether by wayofimposition, negotiationorvoluntary adoption;”⁴⁷ exposing not onlythe hegemonic Western structures on which these conceptswere based, but also the “artificial constructs” of colonial legal systems formed from colonial interactions, which established so-called lawwhich was both falselyasserted as customary and was in fact “far removed from the actual social practices of ordinary people.”⁴⁸ In otherwords, postcolonial legal theory examines, for example, the gaps in the space in-between imported colonial law, local customary lawand postcolonial deviations or appropriationsofanadaptive hybrid. Santos’ description of “contact zones” as “social fields in which different

lesser extent wrongsorobligations.Untilrecently, much less attention has been paid to commer- cial and economic law, migration, governancestructures, criminal law, and human rights.”  Jonathan Nash identifies transjurisdictionalism in relation to Federal and statelaw (US), as “the use of proceduraldevices that allow acourt in one systemtoanswerquestions of lawaris- ing under that system’slaw in cases that arependingbeforecourts in another system. Transjur- isdictionaladjudication and intersystemic adjudication constitute different approaches to ‘inter- systemicjudicial governance,’ that is, judicial adjudication of issues arisingunder morethan one systemoflaws.”“The Uneasy Case for Transjurisdictional Adjudication,” Vanderbilt Law Re- view  ():–, .  Twining, “Normative and LegalPluralism,” : “Insofar as Western academic lawtended to ignore or marginalize lawinnon-Western societies,the reverse was true of the literatureoflegal pluralism which was in large part stimulated by and focused on lawincolonial and post-colonial societies.”  Twining, “Normative and LegalPluralism,” .  Twining, “Normative and LegalPluralism,” . 144 EmmaPatchett normative life worlds meet and clash” is of relevancehere for the diasporic context,asherelates thatitisthese zones which give rise to legal hybrids.⁴⁹ Post- colonial (and then diaspora) legal theory would attribute great importance to his consideration of “who defines who or what belongstothe contact zone and what does not?Towhom belongsthe line that delimits the contact zone both externallyand internally?”⁵⁰ In this approach constructions and articulations of power are key,for as Fitzpatrick asserts,the intent of postcolonial legal theory is to “drasticallydisrupt legal academic renditions of [the West’s] relation [to its “other”].”⁵¹ Thisisparticularlypertinent to diasporastudies, where the diasporacan be considered at the shadowy ‘other’ of the nation-state, in which colonial/ hierarchical patterns identify not onlywhat counts as lawand what does not,but who counts as inside and outside the nation-state,and which legal identity they can be allotted. Diasporalegal theory takes this anti- hegemonicpotential even further,presentingachallengetosettled assumptions of how lawoperates and sources of legal authority,extendingbeyond the colonial binary but imagines asimilar ‘decolonizing’ effect.

3.1 Theorizing LiteratureBeyond Adaptation

Iwould arguethat literature is alreadyadecolonizingsite: diasporaliterature is transjurisdictionalism (or transjurisdictionalism in action), in the sense that it is atrans-territorially authoredpractice, or aset of practices, which crosses borders,buildsanenvironment which both has limits and yetisdiscursively constructed.⁵² This process of using legal diasporastudies to theorize literature will involvethinkingthrough transjurisdictionalism as constitutive of identity as applied to practicesofsovereignty,inthe reading of three literary texts as specific casestudies: the novel Carpentaria by Alexis Wright,anauthor from the In- digenous Australian diaspora;abiographyabout the life of the “Gypsy guitarist”

 Santos, TowardaNew Legal Common Sense, .  Santos, TowardaNew Legal Common Sense, .  Peter Fitzpatrick and EveDarian-Smith, “Laws of the Postcolonial: An Insistent Introduc- tion,” in Laws of the Postcolonial, ed. P. Fitzpatrick and E. Darian-Smith (Michigan: UofMich- igan P, ): –, .  Jurisdictiongenerallydescribesany authority over acertain area or certain persons. Richard Thompson Ford defines territorial jurisdiction as “simultaneouslyamaterial technology,abuilt environment and adiscursive intervention,” a “set of social practices [which] exist in the realm of discourse.”“Law’sTerritory (A History of Jurisdiction),” in TheLegal Geographies Reader: Law,Power and Space,ed. N. Blomley et al. (Oxford: OUP, ): –, –. OverlappingSovereignties 145

Django; and TheBuddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi, atext from the queer diaspora. All threeofthese texts are selected from diasporas which trouble the classicaldiasporaparadigm, because in thatway Ithink youtest the limits of this critical approach. These diasporas also challengethe territorial link which is at the heart of positivist legal identity,sothese texts can be read as exploring rootedness in adifferent way, examining what it means to be trans-territorial. Clearly, this is an important wayoflooking at literature because not onlydoes this bring out the anti-hegemonic, decolonizing potential of the literary text, but also because,asKim Barry argues, identity is “anchor[ed] in law. The very foundation of the waypeople think about themselvesand the country to which they are assigned is in large part legallydefined.”⁵³ So, in taking transjurisdictionalism as adeparture point,one can observe the conditions for diasporaasarecognition of apostmodern legal subjectivity: asubjectivity thatis, or has the potential to be, “law-inventing” rather than “law- abiding”⁵⁴ – it is in this waythat Imean Legal DiasporaStudies mayunleash this decolonizingpotential, as well as wrenchingsubjectivity from territorial definitions of identity.

3.2 Questioning the Spatiality of the Law

The first extract analysed using this approach is Django – TheLife and Timesofa Gypsy Musician,byMichael Dregni. It is abiographical account of afamous guitarist from the Roma diasporaasheplays across Europe and in the US.Dregni begins by recounting the earlyyears of Djangoasheroamed the outer-limits of Parisian nether-zones:

Paris was still protected by its ring of medieval ramparts,and it was hereonthe doorsteps of the city that Django’sfamilylived. Outside the fortifications, the city’sglory came to a dead end. Surrounding Paris was avast nether region known as la Zone. Here, outside the City of Light,was acity of blight: It was in la Zone that Paris’scesspool cleaners dump- ed their wasteeach night and hereaswellthat the human refuse of the city found refuge. This was not the Paris of broad boulevards, monuments, and cathedrals.Instead, whole cities of shantytowns crowdedthe fortification ports likebeggars holding out their hands for the smallest offering. The ramshackle hovels crafted from cast-off boards and stone rubble werehomes to the dispossessed. The inhabitants of la Zone were known derisively by Parisians as les zonards – and manyfearedthe Gypsies as the worst vermin amongthem.

 Barry, “Homeand Away,” .  Boaventura de Sousa Santos, “Three Metaphors for aNew Conception of Law: The Frontier, the Baroque, and the South,” Law and Society  (): –, . 146 EmmaPatchett

The Manouche and Gitans parkedtheir caravansinlaZone where they could find streamwateralongthe lost riverofParis, la Biévre, and it was herethat Négrosbrought Django and her other childrenand settled in among their clan. […] Négros and the other Gypsies favouredcampsites in la Zone near their livelihoods in the flea markets. They moved between encampments … Each weekend, Négros led her children to these markets blossomingout of the mud of la Zone and named in honour of the fleas that inhabitedthe upholstery of the old furnitureand rags for sale. She hawked her wares amid the glorious anarchyofthe markets. La Zone became Django’sworld. He led agangofGypsy boysthat proudlycalled themselvesles Foulardsrouges, or Red Scarves, asymbol of the Parisian workingclass. Django’sgangfearlessly stole pears fromthe walled orchard of the Saint-Hippolyte priory, sweet juice drippingdown their faces as they ate the forbidden fruit.⁵⁵

Through this nomadic excavation, scales of lawcan be identified – here working against the positivist assumption that “lawoperates on asingle scale, the scale of the state.”⁵⁶ What we can read instead is “acomplex and internallydiversified legal landscape, consistingofaplurality of legal orders.”⁵⁷ It is not onlythat Djangoand his “clan” are living in the boundaries of Paris. The “vast netherre- gions” of la Zone have their ownlaw;indeed theyare their own “world.” It is not merelythe shadow of Paris, the other of the city,asthe wayinwhich they negotiate this “dispossession” is acomplex negotiation of territorialized survival, in which theirlocation by “the lost river” concretizes theirarrival and formalizes their connection to the space. Here the city is enclosed within “aring of medieval ramparts”:the city is one legal space, and this is another thatisnot quiteother. Djangohas his own, larger-scale legality,inwhich stealingfruit from inside another set of walls is legitimate yettransgressive. The interaction between these scales reflects bothadaptation and achallengetosources of legal authority:embodying this space at the margins is to embrace asiteof“glorious anarchy,” and yetDjango’sleadership of his gang “les Foulardsrouges” aname defiantlysym- bolizing “the Parisian workingclass,” is both stronglyrooted in place and simultaneously to adapt the codes of legitimacy to suit arebellious inter-communal identity which, being bothdiasporic and traditionallynomadic, is outside the national scale.

 Michael Dregni, Django – The Life and Music of aGypsy Legend (Oxford: OUP, ): –.  Santos, TowardaNew Legal Common Sense, .  Santos, TowardaNew Legal Common Sense, . Overlapping Sovereignties 147

3.3 The Buddha of Suburbia: At the Boundaries of Heteronormativity

The second extract is from TheBuddha of Suburbia,byHanif Kureishi. The novel details the experiences of the central character,Karim, growingupinthe sub- urbs as agay British-Asian and dreamingofescapingtoLondon. Kureishi writes:

It turned out that on stage Iwould wear aloin-cloth and brownmake-up, so that Iresem- bled aturd in abikini-bottom. Iundressed. “Please don’tput this on me,” Isaid, shivering. “Got to,” she said. “Be abig boy.” As she covered me from toetohead in the brownmuck IthoughtofJulien Sorel in TheRed and the Black,dissimulating and silent for the sake of ambition, his pride often shattered, but beneath it all solid in his superiority.SoIkept my mouth shut even as her hands lathered me in the colour of dirt.Afew days later Idid question Shadwellabout the possibilityofnot beingcoveredinshit for my début as aprofes- sional actor. Shadwell was concise for once. “That’sthe fuckingcostume! When yousoeagerlyaccepted your first-everpart did you think Mowgli would be wearing akaftan?ASaint-Laurent suit?” “But Mr Shadwell – Jeremy – Ifeel wrong in it.Ifeel that together we’re makingthe world uglier.” “You’ll survive.”⁵⁸

It is worth analysingthis text within the critical context of arecent article by Sonia Katyal, focusing on the intersection between law, diasporaand sexuality in away which emphasizes the uniquelydisconcerting and yetcriticallycontin- gent emplacement of anecessary intersectionality prominent to anyanalysis of the queer diaspora.⁵⁹ Katyal explores the intersection between the activities of the South Asian Lesbian GayAssociation (SALGA) and the India Dayparade in New York, and the landmark judgment thatsame summer, namely “the overturn- ing of sodomylawsbythe Delhi High Court,four days later, in asoaring,com- prehensive declaration of equalityinacase called Naz Foundation v. Govern- ment of NCT.”⁶⁰ She writes that despite this judicial decision, the “SALGAand its members had, for at least the fifth time in adecade, been formallydenied entry to the parade celebratingthe origin of the same nation that had given birth to so manyofthem.”⁶¹ She drawsacomparison between this caseand that of the “Irish LGBTorganizations in the United States,which are precluded from marchingevery Saint Patrick’sDay in Boston,”⁶² who lost their civil rights

 Hanif Kureishi, TheBuddha of Suburbia (London: Faber and Faber, ): .  Sonia K. Katyal, “The Dissident Citizen,” UCLA Law Review  (): –.  Katyal, “The Dissident Citizen,” .  Katyal, “The Dissident Citizen,” –.  Katyal, “The Dissident Citizen,” . 148 EmmaPatchett case in the Supreme Court,thereby drawing links between sexuality,diaspora and dissidence,⁶³ in effect transforming the “[b]orders of national, cultural, and juridicalidentity”⁶⁴ in which “the very space of a[queer] diaspora is marked by adynamic hybridity between nations, sexualities, and loyalties that often elides simple classifications”,highlightingasense of location somewhere “between the globaland the local.”⁶⁵ The “constitutional borrowing” she emphasizes in the Nazopinion, givesrise to “multiple doctrinal hybridities” and demands an analysis of jurisdictional boundaries.⁶⁶ The NazFoundation judgment de- monstratedasuccessful “integration of non-Western comparative constitutionalism,”⁶⁷ as well as turning back to the inclusiveness guaranteed by the founders of the Indian constitution for guidance.⁶⁸ Importantly, Naz “ushered in an important integration of culturaland legal regionalism with Indian originalism, transforming disenfranchised sexual minorities into recognized legal subjects deserving of formal protectionand equality,”⁶⁹ recoding citizenship both culturallyand legally. She suggests the twoshould be dialogicallyre- lated but considered as separate diasporas,and it is with this suggestion and

 Katyla also drawslinks between these transnational activities and “the same configuration of themes-crossing over,goingback and forth between the domestic and the diasporic-in the spheres of gender,sexuality,and nation was also at work in the national upheaval following Deepa Mehta’sfilm Fire (,Trial by FireFilms Inc./Kaleidoscope Entertainment) which de- pictedtwo Indian sisters-in-law in aromantic relationship. Yetwhile the film marked amilestone for beingone of the first depictions of aromantic same-sex relationship in Indian cinema, it also marked amilestone in terms of how the diaspora-specificallythe queer diaspora embraced both the film and the underlyingcontroversy that ensued” in India and across the diaspora, with pro- tests of embassiesinthe US,for example (Katyal, “The Dissident Citizen,” ).  Katyal, “The Dissident Citizen,” .  Katyal, “The Dissident Citizen,” .  Katyal, “The Dissident Citizen,” .  Katyal, “The Dissident Citizen,” .She writes: “the Naz Foundation opinion can be read as auniquelypowerful example of cosmopolitanconstitutional borrowing,balanced with a deep attention to Indian originalism. Not onlydid the Naz Foundation court relyonU.S. jurisprudence, but it drew on decisions fromCanada, Fiji, Hong Kong,Nepal, and South Africa. It paid particular attention to Nepal, which enacted constitutional protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity,and which in  actuallyset up agovernmentpanel to study same-sex marriage laws in order to reform its own laws”(“The Dissident Citizen,” ).  Katyal, “The Dissident Citizen,” : “The opinion’spenultimateparagraphsquoted an in- imitablylofty passagefromNehru, whoopined the followingonthe notion of equality that stem- med from the ‘city of words’: ‘Wordsare magicthingsoften enough,but even the magic of words sometimes cannot conveythe magic of the human spirit and of aNation’spassion […][The Res- olution of Equality] seeks very feeblytotell the world of what we have thoughtordreamtofso long,and what we now hope to achieveinthe near future.’”  Katyal, “The Dissident Citizen”, . Overlapping Sovereignties 149 what she has highlighted about the intersections between diaspora, legality,cultural identityand legal pluralism thatIturn back to the text. The queer diasporaisperhaps the most decoupled from territory,and yet this is not destabilizing – indeed, for Rebecca Romanow Karim is corporeally resistant to binarist discourse, “never really ‘here’ and certainlynolonger ‘there,’”⁷⁰ yetrefusing atransient subjectivity.Indeed, he maps his own “postcolonial geography.” Karim’sperformance of Mowgli, and his arguments over the costume he is expected to wear,can be seen as the threat of differencetoasin- gular identity,which is ahallmark of the positivist legal system in which your identity is separatelycultural(where youcan slip into various forms of identity) but in terms of alegal identity,you are linked to one nation-state (or your nationality and citizenship maybemultiple, but are hierarchicallyorganized at the level of operation). Difference, as Dianne Otto establishes, is thus potentiallya threat: “differenceinthe modern frame is recognizable onlyifitiscommensu- rate with the European imagination. All other difference is relegated to a clamor.”⁷¹ So Karim must “wear aloin-cloth and brown make-up”,be“lathered […]inthe color of dirt.” Otto writes that to qualifyasalegal state within the international legal framework, apostcolonial state had to satisfy the territorial and population requirementsby“maintaining […]coloniallydetermined subdivi- sions […]through the legal principle of uti possidetis juris (unalterability of colonial frontiers)” just as, as she writes “self-determination was deniedtopeoples who livedinareas within or straddlingcolonial borders.”⁷² Drawing on Santos, this theatrical space of hyper-performativity could be read as a “contact zone […]inwhich different normative life worlds meet and clash,”⁷³ begging the question: “who defines who or what belongstothe contact zone and what does not?”⁷⁴ Crucially, for Santos, “the inequality of exchanges are traceable”⁷⁵ through these interactions. He highlights the contact zone of culturalcitizenship, wheredifferent “legal strategies have been fiercelydisputing the terms of conflict

 Rebecca Fine Romanow, “The refusal of Migrant subjectivity:Queer Times and Spaces in Hanif Kureishi’sThe Buddha of Suburbia,” in Indiscretions – At the Intersection of Queer and Postcolonial Theory,ed. Murat Aydemir (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, ): –, –.  Dianne Otto, “Subalternity and International Law: The Problems of Global Community and the Incommensurability of Difference,” in Laws of the Postcolonial, ed. P. Fitzpatrick and E. Da- rian-Smith (Michigan:Uof Michigan P, ): –, .  Otto, “Subalternity and International Law,” .  Santos, TowardaNew Legal Common Sense, .  Santos, TowardaNew Legal Common Sense, .  Santos, TowardaNew Legal Common Sense, . 150 EmmaPatchett and negotiation between principles of citizenshipand principles of difference.”⁷⁶ This is much more complex for Karim,through the ways in which, as Rabanow asserts, he “utilizes his body, particularlyhis sexual functions, as asiteofresist- ance to neo-colonization […]contest[ing] thosevery positions of normativity to which he has been allocated”:⁷⁷ he is trying on new identities, as in the queer diasporasingular identitiesdonot quite fit.Karim’sbodyismore than just acon- tinuation of postcolonial, or even diasporic, legacies;heactively embodies aset of dissident practices that are adaptive and transformative,forming acosmopolitan subaltern identity which demands anew kind of legal recognition. Here, then, Karim moves away from the claustrophobic heteronormativity of the sub- urbs in aspatialization of displaced identity-making practices, performed and re-performedhere in multiple configurations.⁷⁸

3.4 Carpentaria: Dispossession, Territory and Legal Identity

The third extract Iwant to consider is from Carpentaria,byAlexis Wright,a novel about life in the town of Desperance in Queensland, by an author from the indigenous diaspora.⁷⁹ It is in this text that dimensions of sovereignty,the foundation of legal authority,are criticallyinterrogated, through Wright’snarrative excavation of an alternative to the order of man:

The longer he lookeddown in the waters the morehefelt likelettinggo; to fall intoits universe. He was surethat at anymoment he would see the movement in the racingwaters of

 Santos, Toward aNew Legal Common Sense, :This is particularlynotable for migrants and their descendants as playedout in legal struggles around immigration, languageand citizenship. Santos relates this to the case of Latinos and Mexicans in the US, “in their struggle to claim belongingwithout surrenderingculturalidentity.”  Romanow, “The refusal of Migrant subjectivity,”  (as heterosexual man, son, and worker, etc.).  Ford writes: “jurisdiction is afunction of its graphicaland verbal descriptions; it is aset of practices that areperformed by individuals and groups wholearn to ‘dance the jurisdiction’ by reading descriptions of jurisdictions and be lookingatmaps. This does not mean that jurisdiction is ‘mere ideology’,that the lines between various nations,cities and districts ‘aren’treal’.Of course the lines arereal because they areconstantlybeing made real, by county assessors levy- ing property taxes, by police poundingthe beat (and stoppingatthe city limits), by registrars of voters checkingidentificationfor proofofresidence.Without these practicesthe lines would not be real – the lines don’tpre-exist the practices” (Ford, “Law’sTerritory”, ).  Although some critics have problematized this definition, it can be argued that by focusing on diasporic conditions of identity it is possible to politicise the issue of disenfranchisement to the extent that it becomes apowerful statement of resistancetoanongoingform of colonialism. OverlappingSovereignties 151

some livingcreature,someone alive,and he almost allowedhimself to fall. So convincedhe would find his destinyinthe floodwaters, as though the waters were beckoninghim, urging him to believehecould simplydrift along in the direction of where the waters weremoving, until he sawNorm’sgreen boat. And Will Phantom was right to think he was lucky, leaninghis skinnybodyout of the building, barelyholdingontothe doorway, and not caringifhefell, because anysecondhe knew he could simplylet go,with full certainty of falling straight into the destinyhehad prescribed for himself. He had not figuredfate, when the topfloor under his feet suddenly moved. The floorboards had been shaken so violently, he was sent flyinginto the floodwaters. He hit the water hard, went under into the billowingyellow waters,whereherolled blindlyinvacuo with the dead of the deep, beforebeingreturned in afrenzy of breathless- ness to the surface. Somewhere, in all of that water sweepinghim towards the sea, he was able to turn to see what had happened to his little oasis. He sawnot ahotel left far behind but asmall castle for the recreation of spirits.This new reality had nothingtodowith the order of man. There was no town of Desperance.It was gone. Amonster followed him instead.⁸⁰

The constructive narrativity of sovereignty is akey theme running through this text,reflecting, as Honni van Risjwijk writes, “how the lawhas imagined Australian sovereignties – both the sovereignty of the white state and indigenous sovereignties.”⁸¹ Wright challenges the hierarchical assumptions of these legal frameworks as the novel moves away from the confiningofindigenous sovereignties as apast and static origin narrative, afinite narrative that was seen to have ended with Native Title recognition.⁸² In other words, “sovereignty”,Risj- wijk argues, “is central to the question of how the lawnarrates the role of the past in the present”:⁸³ demonstrating the need to rethink overlappingsovereignties as a “radical critique of the nation state”⁸⁴ and necessities adifferent conceptualization of the link between self-determination and sovereignty.⁸⁵

 Alexis Wright, Carpentaria (Sydney:Giramondo, ): .  Honni van Risjwijk, “Stories of the Nation’sContinuingPast: Responsibility for Historical In- juries in Australian Lawand Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria,” University of New South Wales Law Journal .  (): –, .  Risjwijk, “Stories of the Nation’sContinuing Past,” : “This forgetting[post-Mabo] occurs through the re-narration of the originary moment of settlement,and produces atacit (unsought-for)bargain between the lawand indigenous rights:the law’srecognition of native title comesatahigh price,the ‘exculpation’ of the lawfromresponsibility for dispossession, as wellasthe end to claims for Indigenous sovereignty.”  Risjwijk, “Stories of the Nation’sContinuingPast,” .  Santos, TowardaNew Legal Common Sense, .  The “UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples /” ()emphasizes the rights to self-determination in Articles ,  and emphasizes the right to distinct legal institutions in Article  but does not mention sovereignty. (acc.  July, ). Similarly, the “InternationalCovenant on Civil and 152 EmmaPatchett

It is highlyterritorialized, and yetakey theme here is dispossession. Collec- tive rights are viewed as athreat to the principle of sovereignty,⁸⁶ and are, for Santos,part of “acritical legal plurality,”⁸⁷ which represent “the most far-reach- ing challengetothe modernequation among nation, state and law” which are territoriallybased:⁸⁸.How can, in the international legal system, multiple sovereignties occupy the same space? The foundations Will is standing on collapse into the swirlingwaters, and when he finallyemergeshesees that something new is left behind, a “new reality [which] had nothing to do with the order of man. There wasnotown of Desperance. It was gone. Amonsterfollowed him instead.” Thisalternative sovereignty,then, deceptively (and somewhat anarchi- cally) territorialized – evidenced by the apocalyptic scene in which the town of Desperance is destroyed – represents the return or the resurfacingofaform of adjudication that is “continuing, universal and richlyflourishing” rather than belongingtothe past.⁸⁹ ForWright,Indigenous lawisasourceofauthority rather thanculturalmyth, one that is serpentine, living,breathing, and “holds adifferent relationship to representation compared to Western law.”⁹⁰ As Will Phan- tom gazes into the “racing waters” below he imagines “some living creature” swimmingbeneath him, just as the destructive sea “beckon[s] him [in], urging him to believehecould simplydrift along in the direction of wherethe waters weremoving.” This can be seen as interlegality in action, where “deep-rooted legal traditions and cultures” interact with international, national, regional and local legality operative in formal and informal resources and mechanisms,⁹¹ adynamic “intersection of different legal orders,”⁹² which require “complex analytical tools”⁹³ in order to allow us to do as Will does, and “fall into its universe.”

Political Rights” (ICCPR) Art.  also protects the rights of minorities “to enjoy their own culture.” (acc.  July, ).  Santos, TowardaNew Legal Common Sense, .  Santos, TowardaNew Legal Common Sense, .  Santos, TowardaNew Legal Common Sense, .  Risjwijk, “Stories of the Nation’sContinuingPast,” .  Risjwijk, “Stories of the Nation’sContinuingPast,” .  Santos, TowardaNew Legal Common Sense, .  Santos, TowardaNew Legal Common Sense, .  Santos, TowardaNew Legal Common Sense, . OverlappingSovereignties 153

4. Beyond Adaptation: LegalDiasporaStudies and the LiteraryImperative

In conclusion, it can be argued that one of the keyaims of Legal DiasporaStud- ies must be to expand apluralistic approach to lawbeyond arecognition of adaptation, aperspective which becomes highlyrelevant in an eraofhighmo- bility and transnational politics whereidentity is subject to transjurisdictional practices operatingacross multiple networks of power.The broadeningofsuch an approach would not focus on displacement,but rather on the prevalence of overlappingsovereignties as layers of legalities which construct our world(s). In this way, Legal DiasporaStudies provides ameansofreadingliterature as a wayofsimultaneouslyrefracting and decolonizing narrativesoflegal identity, which are configured along territorial lines and limited to the boundaries of the modern-nation state. The inherent transjurisdictionalism of literaturepro- vides the ideal siteinwhich to witness the emergence of diaspora as an engaging critique of bordered doctrines of sovereignty.

Fabian Wittreck The Old Armenian Lawcode of Lemberg

The Law of Diaspora Communities as Literature?

1. Introducing the Source: TheArmenian Lawcode of Lemberg(1518/1519)

In 1857 the Austrianlegal historian FerdinandBischoff wasthe first to publish a note on amostintriguing sourcefrom the municipal archive of Lemberg/Lwow/ Lwiv (in modern Ukraine)which mayshedlight on an interesting intersection of law, literature, and diasporastudies. Bischoff described (and shortlyafterwards published) aLatin translation of an older Armenian lawcode done by command of the Polish king Sigismund/Zygmunt I. (†1548) and dated by him to the year 1523¹.The text pretends to be an amended translation intended to make the opa- que Armenian lawcode accessibleaswellastoameliorate it in the face of ongoing conflicts between the Armenian community of Lembergand the city’soffi- cials. Itstextual base is an older translation from the Armenian done by the

 Ferdinand Bischoff, “Das alte Recht der Armenier in Polen. AusUrkunden des Lemberger Stadtarchivs,” Oesterreichische Blätter fürLiteratur und Kunst  ( July ): –;  ( August ): –;  ( September ): –;  ( September ): –;Ferdinand Bischoff, “Das alte Recht der Armenier in Lemberg,” Sitzungsberichte der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse  (): – (Latin edition: –). – The literatureisrather scarce; see J[oseph] Kohler, “Das Recht der Armenier,” Zeitschrift fürvergleichende Rechtswissenschaft  (): –;Josef Karst, “Grundriß der Geschichtedes armenischen Rechts,” Zeitschrift fürvergleichende Rechts- wissenschaft  (): –;Marian Oleś,The Armenian Law in the PolishKingdom (–). AJuridical and Historical Study (Rome ): –;Marian Oleś, “Casimir the Great and the Armenian Privileges –,” Études SlavesetEst-Européennes/Slavic and East-European Studies  (/): –;Greg[or] Petrowicz, “L’Organisation juridique des Arménienssous le monarques polonais,” Revue des études arméeniennes,Nouvelle série  (): –;Heidemarie Petersen, Judengemeinde und Stadtgemeinde in Polen (Wiesbaden ): –;exhaustive list (including Polish, Russian and Armenian sources) by Ludwig Burgmann, Hubert Kaufhold,Bibliographie zur Rezeption des byzantinischen Rechts im alten Rußland sowie zurGeschichte des armenischenund georgischen Rechts (Frankfurt/Main ): –,n.–. 156 Fabian Wittreck community itself (arguably1518 or 1519)²;itcomprises tenchapters lacking numbers and 124 chapters with subtitles.Accordingtothe number of extant copies and further translations, this lawcode was avery popularone³.Atfirst glance, the sourcesimplyseems to be apiece of legislation governing the affairs of adiasporacommunity.Atsecond sight,itturns out to be averitable piece of fiction essentiallyderivedfrom amedieval Armenian lawbook which reveals signs of a fictitious character itself,asBischoff’s Rechtsbuch is clearlybasedonthe much better known Datastanagirk of Mxit’ar Goš from the twelfth century (besidea couple of other sources)⁴.While both claim to reproducelaw being in force, they ultimatelyemerge as products of literaryfantasy. The following paper will unfold the double context of the LawbookofLem- berg by describingthe tense situation of the Armenian community and its legal status (2.) as well as the background of older Armenian sources (3.). Building on these two steps, the sourcecan be read from the lawand literature-perspective (4.). Finally, the merits of such aform of ‘invented law’ for adiaspora community maybecome clear (5.).

2. Historical Context (1): LegalPluralism in Lemberg?

The earlymodern city of Lemberghas to be understood as amulti-religious and multi-ethnic municipality with citizens of Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, German, and Armenian ancestry and religious affiliations to Roman Catholic, Protestant and Orthodoxcreed (as well as sizeable Jewishand Muslim communities). While this hints in the direction of the existenceofsome kind of legal pluralism

 The exact date is contested, but without relevance for the focus of this study. See for example Oswald Balzer, “Das LembergerarmenischeRechtsbuch, bestätigt vonSigismund I. im Jahre ,” in: Bulletin de la Societé polonaise pour l’avancement des sciences  (/): –,who proposes to datethe first part of the text to  and the second to – ;concurringopinion of Oleś, “Casimir the Great,” .  See Bischoff, “Recht der ArmenierinLemberg”: ;Kohler,  seq.  Earlyidentification: S. Kutrzeba, “Datastangirk Mechitara Goszaistatut ormiański z. r. ,” Kwartalnik historyczny  (): –.The main source is easilyaccessible in English translation by Robert W. Thomson,The Lawcode [Datastanagirk‘]ofMxit’ar Goš (Amsterdam/At- lanta ); cf. his introduction:  seqq. Forafirst overview concerning other sourcesutilized see Oleś,Armenian Law, –. The Old Armenian Lawcode of Lemberg 157

(as first described by EugenEhrlich in nearby Bucovina⁵ and later summarized by John Griffith et al,⁶ the self-government of the communities was not uncon- tested. Indeed, the Armenian community of Lembergwas facing at least twocon- troversies: The first originated from the clashofinterests of the Polish monarchy and the City of Lemberg(2.1). The second was mainlylocal and arose from disputes between the city authorities and influential members of the Armenian community (2.2). It is highlyprobable that both controversies led to internal Ar- menianstrife in the end, which mayhavebeen the triggerfor the collection or translation of the document in question⁷.

2.1 Contested Commune: The Municipality and the Polish Kings

Lembergwas onlythe token remnant of the proud claim of the Polish king to be dominus ac heres Russiæ⁸. After the Mongol conquest of the Russianprincipali- ties, Hungary,Lithuania, Poland and the Khanate of the GoldenHorde struggled for control of the region, the Polish princesbeing onlyable to secure asmall part of the bootycomprisingthe city of Lemberg(1352).Since then, the municipality became part of the power contest between the Polish monarchyand the centri- fugal forces of the kingdom, namelythe nobility and the cities⁹.

2.2. Contested Community: The Armeniansand the “Law of Magdeburg”

The Armenian people is one of the prototypical diaspora communities.With their ancestral Caucasian homeland harassedbyArab, Persian, Byzantine, Mon- goland Turkish conquerors and overlords,sizeable groups migrated to eastern

 EugenEhrlich, “Das lebende Recht der Völkerder Bukowina,” Recht und Wirtschaft  (): –, –;see Klaus F. Röhl, Stefan Machura, “ Jahre Rechtssoziologie: Eugen Ehrlichs Rechtspluralismus heute,” Juristenzeitung (): –;Franz vonBenda-Beck- mann, Keebet vonBenda-Beckmann, “‘LivingLaw’ as aPolitical and Analytical Concept,” in Knut Papendorf, Stefan Machura, Anne Hellum, ed., Eugen Ehrlich‘sSociology of Law (Berlin ): –.  See John Griffith, “What is LegalPluralism?” Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law  (): –.  According to Bischoff, “ Recht der Armenier in Polen,” : .  See Oleś, “Casimir the Great,” .  See once moreOleś, “Casimir the Great,” –. 158 FabianWittreck

Anatolia, Cilicia, the Levant,and further on into Southern Russia, Ukraine, and Poland¹⁰.EspeciallyinLemberg(Leopolis), an Armenian community can be dated backtothe highmiddle ages. The Armenian cathedral (built since the fourteenth century) testifies to its wealth¹¹.Itisprobable that thereweretwo main Armenian migration movements to Eastern Europe in the eleventh and thirteenth century,triggered by the Turkish conquest of Ani (1064) and the Mongol invasion of the Caucasus respectively¹². While details are again open to debate, the Polish king Casimir I. (†1370) tried to integrate his new-won city into his realm by atwo-prongedstrategy. As in the Polish mainland, he granted the “LawofMagdeburg” to the city as awhole. To pacify the minoritycommunities,headded an opt-out clause allowing these groups to cling to their own statutes or iura¹³:

Et licet toti civitati predicteetomnibus habitantibus et communicantibusineatribuimus IusMadeburgense supradictum tamen ex speciali nostrofavores alys gentibus habitantibus in eadem civitate, videlicet Ormenis,Iudeis,Saracenis, Ruthenis et alys gentibus,cuius- cumque condicionis velstatus existant,tribuentes graciam specialem, volumus eos iuxta ritus eorum in ipsorum Iure illibatesconservare, dantes tamen facultatem eis,utpro quibuscumque causis velcriminibusinter ipsos autintereos velalias quibuscumque super causis velarticulis emergentibus,habuerint questionem, licitum sit eis predictoIure Made- burgense uti coramadvocato et perfrui iuxta eorum peticionem petitam ne oblatam. Sin autemrefutaverint predictum IusMadeburgense, quo debeat civitas antedicta, tunc dicte naciones Ormenorum, Iudeorum, Saracenorum, Thartharorum, Ruthenorumetaliarum quarumcumque nacionem, que ibidem congregate et adinvente fuerint,quilibet sue nacio- nis Iure,tamen presidenteAdvocato civitatis eidem iudicio, ipsorum quelibet questio debe- bit terminari et deffiniri.

 See ManoushagBoyadjian, “The Rise of the Eastern Churches and Their Heritage:The Arme- nian Church: Cultural Role and Heritage,” Habib Badr,ed., Christianity.AHistoryinthe Middle East (Beirut ): –;Razmik Panossian,The Armenians. From Kingsand Priests to Mer- chants and Commissars (London ): –.  See Christian Weise, “Spurender armenischen Gemeinde in Lemberg. Vonder Ansiedlung der Armenier in der Ukraine im .Jahrhundert bis zum Ende der armenischen Gemeinden in den Jahren – und ihrer Wiederbegründung im Jahre ,” GünterPrinzing, An- drea Schmidt, ed., Das LembergerEvangeliar.Eine armenischeBilderhandschrift (Wiesbaden ): –;George A. Bournontion, AConcise Historyofthe Armenian People (Costa Mesa ): –.  Oleś, “Casimir the Great,” – (with further references).  The charter is reproducedbyOleś,Armenian Law, –.Loose German translation by Bis- choff, “Recht der ArmenierinPolen,” : . “Rutheni” is an old-fashioned (and politically incorrect) term to denoteUkrainians. The Old ArmenianLawcode of Lemberg 159

The authenticity of the charter is contested, however¹⁴.Taking it at face value, it grants the above-mentioned communities the opportunity of forum shopping: They mayplead their cases at the communal court of the advocatus civitatis (reeve; germ. Vogt,pol. wójt)accordingtothe LawofMagdeburgasany other citizen,but they mayrefrain from this and conclude ajudgment following their traditional rules or customs.The caveat:The king tries to control this piece of legal pluralism by using aprocedural measure;eveninthese ‘autonomous’ cases the reevecomes into play(tamen presidenteAdvocato civitatis). The exactnature of his involvement was abone of contention for the contempo- raries as well as for legal historians: There is documentary evidence for Lemberg Armenian ecclesiastical functionaries acting as judgesincivil matters;¹⁵ furthermore, authors claim the existenceofsome kind of “traditional” Armenian jury system¹⁶ (both versions would reducethe reevetoamere president with no power of judgment). On the otherhand,the reeveisportrayed as the full-fledged, competent judge for the minoritycommunities,onlyrestricted ratione materiae by being bound to their ancestral law¹⁷. The compromise (if genuine) pavedthe wayfor new strife. The document of 1523amplyproves thatthe city authorities and the Armenian community were still at odds about the scope of the latter’sjudicial autonomy¹⁸ (it furthermore hints at the possibilitythat there wereinner-Armenian controversies concerning the option of seeking legal protection by turning to the reeveinhis function as the mouthpiece of the LawofMagdeburg¹⁹). This ‘benchmark’ of the contested Armenian community maysound strangeatfirst: The “LawofMagdeburg” was applicable in Lembergaccordingtothe mentioned Royal decree of 1356.In- deed the Saxonian city wasextremelysuccessfulinher Rechtsexport (lit.legal export or export of statutes). At its apex,hundreds of cities in Germany,inEast- ern and in Northern Europe applied the “LawofMagdeburg” and partlyeven

 Pro:Oleś, “Casimir the Great,” – (with further references); contra: Bischoff, “Recht der Armenier in Polen,” : : “bloßes Machwerk” (lit. “merebotch”).  See Oswald Balzer, “Armenische Gerichtsbarkeit im mittelalterlichen Lemberg,” Bulletin de la Societé polonaise pour l’avancement des sciences  (/): –;see also Oleś, “Casimir the Great,” – alludingtoaprivilegetothe Armenian bishop Gregory dating from  (also appendix II, ).  See Oleś, “Casimir the Great,” – (his assumption that“the institutionreflects the communal courts of the oldest Armenian law” []isspeculativeatbest).  See Bischoff, “Recht der Armenier in Polen,” : .  See Bischoff, “Recht der Armenier in Polen,” : –.  See Bischoff, “Recht der Armenier in Polen,” : . 160 Fabian Wittreck used the court of the city as superior judicial instance (Oberhof).²⁰ Forthe Polish kings, this was an instrument of unification of theirrealm. Forthe Armenian community (or at least her traditional leaders), however,itappeared as amen- ace to unity and cohesion²¹.Itisthis tense situation which sawthe appearance of the Lawcode.

3. Historical Context (2): Evolution of ‘Armenian Law’? 3.1 The SignificanceofArmenian Law

Armenia has along tradition of adistinct Armenian ‘statehood’ or better – to avoid anachronism – organized authority,dating backtoantiquity²².Incontrast to otherEastern Christian ‘heterodox’ communities (e.g. Copts, Nestorians,Jaco- bites), the Armenian ‘Gregorian’ church thus could lean on some kind of secular branch – at least semi-autonomous fiefdomsafter the Arab conquest,petty kingdoms in the high middle ages, and the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia during and after the crusades. Nevertheless, the sources of ‘Armenian Law’ are not only (with afew exceptions, as we willsee later on) writtenbyreligious functionaries, but also mainlyconsist of ecclesiastical sources (augmented with Roman or By- zantine materials²³). Adistinct ‘Armenian Law’ with clear and discernable traces back to antiquity does not exist or mayatleast not be reconstructed from the sources bona fide²⁴.

 See Friedrich Ebel, RenateSchelling, “Die Bedeutungdeutschen Stadtrechts im Nordenund Osten des mittelalterlichen Europa. Lübisches und Magdeburgisches Recht als Gegenstand von Kulturtransfer und Träger der Moderne (),” Andreas Fijal,Hans-JörgLeuchte, Hans-Jochen Schiewer,ed., Unseren fruntlichen grus zuvor.Deutsches Recht des Mittelaltersimmittel-und os- teuropäischen Raum (Cologne et al. ): –, –;OlgaKeller, “Einführung und Adaption des deutschen Rechts im östlichenEuropa während Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit,” Zeitschrift fürNeuereRechtsgeschichte  (): –.  Bischoff, “Recht der Armenier in Polen,” : .  See onceagainPanossian,The Armenians, –, –;for ashort summaryofthe history of Armenian lawsee Kohler, “Das Recht der Armenier,” passim (but largely outdated); Karst, Grundriß;Oleś,Armenian Law, –;Fabian Wittreck, Interaktion religiöser Rechtsordnungen (Berlin ): –.  See Burgmann, Kaufhold,Bibliographie, – with further references.  But see Karst,Grundriß. The Old Armenian Lawcode of Lemberg 161

3.2 Mxit’ar Goš’s “Datastanagirk” (Twelfth Century)

Mxit’ar Goš (†1213) was acleric of the learned rank of vardapet;hewas born and spent most of his life in Eastern (i.e. nowadays) Armenia, but also travelled around Armenian communities in Syria in Cilicia. In 1184 he started to compose his Lawbook; the exacttime of its completion is unknown. The code comprises an introduction with twelve headingsand 251chapters. They deal – like atypical nomokanon of the Eastern tradition²⁵ ‒ with secular as well as ecclesiastical matters;²⁶ the rules are primarilydrawn from the Old Testament and Armenian canonicalcollections. There maybetracesofRomanLaw as well as local custom, but to claim the codeasacodification of an autochthonous ‘Armenian law’ would be difficult²⁷. The code givesaseemingly clear motivation for its composition. Mxit’ar points out in his introductory remarks²⁸:

As we areabout to writedown the lawcode, first let us set out arefutation of those who criticize the Lawofthe Lord[on the grounds] that [it] is not acode; because they are morethan afew whose task and argument it has been to honour foreigners and hold their statutes lawful.

Besides opposing this “slander,” Mxit’ar castigates his countrymen for taking re- sort to Muslim courts in the absenceofanorganized Armenian judiciary²⁹:

That believers in Christ must not go tothe tribunal of non-believers in Christ,havingagreat [distance] between them, as this shows.

The impression left by these remarks is clear: The code is composed with the intention of giving the Armenian people averitablecodification of genuine Chris- tian lawserving at least to functions: Symbolically, it should adorn Armenian cultureasone of thosedisposing of afull-fledged learned law. Practically, it should act as aguide for those Armenian dignitaries (mainlyofecclesiastical breed) who could act as de facto judgesinthe absenceofacentralized judiciary;

 DerivedfromGreek nomos (secular law) and kanon (churchrule or law); see ClarenceGal- lagher,Church Law and Church Order in Rome and Byzantium (Aldershot,Burlington ): .  In detail Robert W. Thomson, “Canon-Lawand Secular LawinMxit’ar Gosh,” Astanak  (): ff.  Detailed account by Karst, Grundriß, –.  Datastanagirk, Introduction I(Thomson,Lawcode, ). – The term ‘foreigner’ points to Mus- lims (n).  Datastanagirk, Introduction IX (Thomson,Lawcode, ). 162 Fabian Wittreck by improving their judgments, it would in the end prevent Armenians from suing in the qadi’scourt.While the lawcode of Mxit’ar was copied widely,³⁰ it is open to debate whether the second functionwas ever fulfilled at all; as far as can be seen, thereisnodocumentary evidence for the Medieval use of the code as a sourceofindividual judgments explicitlybased on its content or single rules laid down in it.Indeed, the very same can be said of several prominent Eastern Christian nomokanones of the highmiddle ages. Most striking is the example of the Coptic nomokanon of Ibn al-cAssal (1238)³¹ which has found later reception in Ethiopia as the famous Fetha Nagaśt³². It comprises achapter covering the office of the ecclesiastical judge – which should be most tellingifthere was anyprac- tice of Coptic Christian courts in thirteenth-centuryEgypt³³.Takingacloser look, it is amere copy of the relevant chapter of aMuslim scholar of fiqh or Islamic religious law – al – cAssal justreplaces “mosque” by “church”³⁴.

3.3 Smbat’s Cilician Code (ThirteenthCentury)

The same mayhold true for the second medieval sourcetobepresented in this paper.The Armenian kingdom of Cilicia flourished – not without interruptions – from 1080 until 1375, forging alliancesand fighting wars with Byzantium, the crusaderstatesand local as wellasregional Muslim rulers. The kingdom func- tioned as acentreofArmenian cultureand learning,being especiallyimportant due to the Muslim occupation of the ancestral Caucasian and eastern Anatolian homelands. The Lawcode of the sparapet (constable) Smbat (1208–1276;brother of King Hethoum I) was composed on the basis of the Datastanagirk and blended

 See Thomson,Lawcode, – as well as Hubert Kaufhold,Die armenischen Übersetzungen byzantinischer Rechtsbücher (Frankfurt ): –.  Edition:Marqus Ğirğis, ed., Kitābal-qawānīn (Cairo ); no translation. See Wilhelm Rie- del,Die Kirchenrechtsquellendes Patriarchats Alexandrien (Leipzig ): –;René- GeorgesCoquin, “Canon Law,” Aziz S. Atiya,ed., TheCoptic Encyclopedia (New York et al. ), vol. : , .  Translation: Peter L. Strauss,ed., TheFetha Nagast. TheLaw of the Kings,trans. A. Paulos Tzadua (Addis Ababa ). See Paulos Tzadua, “The Ancient Lawofthe Kings – The Fetha Na- gast – in the Actual Practiceofthe Established Ethiopian OrthodoxChurch,” Kanon I(): –;Paulos Tzadua, “Fetha nägäśt,” Siegbert Uhlig, ed., Encyclopaedia Aethiopiaca (Wies- baden ), vol. : –.  See Strauss, Fetha Nagast, –.  See Hubert Kaufhold, “Der Richter in den syrischen Rechtsquellen. ZumEinfluß islamischen Rechts aufdie christlich-orientalische Rechtsliteratur,” Oriens Christianus  (): – (, ); Wittreck,Interaktion, . The Old Armenian Lawcode of Lemberg 163 its content with Western (crusader) sources of law³⁵.There are at least allegation of its use in courts³⁶,but the documentary evidence is scarce.

3.4 The Armenian Versionofthe Syro-Roman Lawbook

The lastArmenian sourcetobeconsidered is still an enigma. The so-called Syro- Roman Lawbook is adocument circulating widelyamong the legal literatureof the oriental churches³⁷.Itwas typicallyincluded as “Laws of the RomanEmper- ors”–even by thosecommunities who had split from the empire because of its alleged heterodoxy (like the Armenian church). The origin and purpose of the Lawbook wereheavilydisputed. Accordingtothe prevailing modern interpretation, it was written in Antioch or Beirut after474 AD in Latin for the use in alaw school (probablybythe renowned teacherAmblichus)³⁸.Itconsists of high-level interpretations of constitutiones of later Roman emperors.Subsequently,itwas translated (via Greek)into Syrian, Arabic, and finallyArmenian versions (not without severe misreadings and misunderstandings). The Armenian version seems to have been translated in the thirteenthcentury in Cilicia; it is based on aWestern Syrian (or “Jacobite”)version of the collection³⁹.The distance of ascholarlyinterpretation of late Roman lawtothe social realities of medieval and earlymodern Christian communities in the East should be obvious.

4. Reading the Lawcode from the Perspective of Law andLiterature

Even ashortscrutinyofthe Lawcode of Lembergwill produce ample evidence that the text – as the Syro-Roman Lawbook – is not well (or at all) suited as a

 Edition and German translation: Josef Karst,ed., Sempadscher Kodex aus dem .Jahrhun- dert oder mittelarmenisches Rechtsbuch,  vols (Strassbourg ). See Josef Karst, “Introduc- tion,” in Sempadscher Kodex,vol. :i–xxxii.  See Oleś, “Casimir the Great,” .  Classical edition: Karl GeorgBruns,Eduard Sachau, ed., Syrisch-römischesRechtsbuch aus dem fünften Jahrhundert (Leipzig )(Armenian version: part I: –;German translation: part II: –;commentary:part III: –). Authoritative modern edition (onlyofthe Syrian texts) by Walter Selb, Hubert Kaufhold, ed.,  vols (introduction – text and translation – commentary) (Vienna ).  See Selb, Kaufhold,Einleitung, –.  Selb, Kaufhold,Einleitung, –. 164 Fabian Wittreck foundation for judgments in sixteenth century Lemberg(4.1). In fact,itismuch more fruitful to read the sourceasapiece of literature; this pavesthe waytoa better understanding of its function for the identity of adiasporacommunity (4.2).

4.1 The Law Code as Law

The previous interpreters of the Lawbook of Lemberghavealways interpreted it as “lawinaction”,asacodeactuallyusedinthe courts of the Armenian community (or at least by the city reevepresidingthese courts)⁴⁰.One even runs across the assumption that the book was composed by an active Armenian judge⁴¹ or mirrors actual court practice⁴².Acloser look at the sourceand its context(s) will reveal thatthis interpretation is faulty.The Lawbook of Lemberg is whollyunsuited to function as abasisfor (sound)judgments; furthermore, the hitherto prevalent view has the serious drawback of an anachronistic rear projection of the modern notion of ajudge boundtothe letter of the law(which does not even reflect the everydaywork experience of our current judiciary⁴³). Acloser lookatthe Lawbook and its comparison with the Datastanagirk will show that the document is practicallytotallyalien to the situation in earlymodern Lemberg⁴⁴.Let’sturn to the index and afew tellingexamples. The Lawcode is essentiallybasedonchapters 20–216ofthe Datastanagirk, omitting the first 19 chapters en bloc as well as numerous others⁴⁵.Its further sources – the Syro-Roman Lawbook, documents of German and Polish law – are left aside at this point⁴⁶.

 See Bischoff, “Recht der Armenier in Polen,” : : “möglichst ausgedehnten Gebrauch”; Kohler, “Das Recht der Armenier,” ;Oleś,Armenian Law,  and passim. – Distinguishing Oleś, “Casimir the Great,” : “Perhapsthe lawwas promulgated but never applied in its whole scope.”  See – highlyspeculative – Oleś,Armenian Law, .  This assumption is shared by Karst,Grundriß, ,and Oleś,Armenian Law, –.  See Fabian Wittreck,Die Verwaltung der Dritten Gewalt (Tübingen ): –.  But see Oleś, “Casimir the Great,” –: “Undoubtedlythe old native practices of the Arme- nians were significantlyaffected by the local necessities and conditions in the city of Lwów.”; Similar Balzer, “Das LembergerArmenische Rechtsbuch,” .  Comparable schedules:Karst,Grundriß, –;Oleś,Armenian Law, –.  See in Detail Oleś, Armenian Law, – (with further references). The Old Armenian Lawcode of Lemberg 165

Lawcode DatastanagirkShort summary⁴⁷

Concerning the statutesfor princesguilty towards kings, and of otherstowards them Statutes forpeasants Concerning the statutesfor murder by children Concerning the statutes forchildren if at play they maim eachother or break [bones] or deprive [each other] of faculties Concerning the statutesifchildren harm each other in water Concerning the statutesfor children, if forawager they instigateeach other to run down from ahigh placeseqq. Concerning the statutes foryouths who harm eachother forreasons of frivolous wagers Concerning the statutes fordrunkardsand the harm caused by them Concerning the statutesfor treasure-trove   Concerning the statutesfor those who fight an pluck out beards   Concerning the statutesfor stores of seeds   Concerning the statutes forpeasants hurt by their lords morethan is customarily allowed   Concerning the statutesfor those who dishonourpriests   Concerning the statutesfor those who dishonourking or prince   Concerning the statutesfor designating servants into clergy   Concerning the statutesfor taking servants according to the Law   Concerning the statutesfor maid-servants   Concerning the statutesfor foreign servants, and likeweise maid- servants   Concerning the statutesfor those who striketheir father or mother   Concerning the statutes thatfathersand sons are not to die foreach other   Concerning the statutesfor kidnappers   Concerning the statutes forthose who slander their father or mother   Concerning the statutesfor those who quarrel   Concerning the statutesfor servants and maid-servants who are killed by their masters   Concerning the statutes forstriking apregnant woman when men are fighting   Concerning the statutesifabullhurts aman or awoman   Concerning the statutesfor servants and maid-servants who are struck by their masters   Concerning the statutesifabullhurts abulland kills it   Concerning the statutes forcisterns an wells,and if any animal falls in   Concerning the statutesifamanorawoman or achild fallsintoa cistern or well

 The summaries generallyfollow the translation of Thomson,The Lawcode, –. 166 FabianWittreck

Continued

Lawcode DatastanagirkShort summary⁴⁷

  Concerning the statutes if abullhurts acleanorunclean animal and kills it   Concerning the statutes, if beasts of burden kill eachother or cause harm by strangling or trampling   Concerning the statutesifone of these animals mentioned above either by biting or by trampling kills aman or woman, son or daughter,servant or maid-servant   Concerning the statutesfor thieves caught in the act   Concerning the statutesfor [animals] which eatupfields   Concerning the statutesfor conflagrations   Concerning the statutesfor deposits   Concerning the statutesfor safe-keeping   Concerning the statutesfor those who borrow   Concerning the statutesfor loans   Concerning the statutesfor pledges   Concerning the statutesfor fire-setters   Concerning the statutesfor those who cut down plants   Concerning the statutesfor those who killanimals   Concerning the statutesfor those who willsell and buy land   Concerning the statutesfor those who willsell and buy ahouse   Concerning the statutesfor water-mills   Concerning the statutesfor the sale of animals   Concerning the statutesfor the sale of oxen   Concerning the statutesfor the sale of acow   Concerning the statutesfor the sale of bees   Concerning the statutesfor the sale of vessels   Concerning the statutes forthe sellers and buyersoffruit of vines and of other stocks   Concerning the statutesfor the leasing of water-millsand of other such things   Concerning the statutesfor those who despise priests and judges   Concerning the statutesfor everyone’sboundaries   Concerning the statutesfor the witnesses and false witnesses   Concerning the statutes if someone is foundkilled in the confines of territories   Concerning the statutesfor perverse sons   Concerning the statutesfor those who havedied after being con- demned to death   Concerning the statutesfor those worthy of abeating  ‒   Concerning the statutesfor lost [animals]    Concerning the statutesfor women’sclothing The Old Armenian Lawcode of Lemberg 167

Continued

Lawcode DatastanagirkShort summary⁴⁷

  Concerning the statutesfor newly-built houses   Concerning the statutesfor those who enter harvests   Concerning the statutesfor those who enter their neighbour’svine- yard   Concerning the statutesfor those who takenew wives not going to war   Concerning the statutesfor those who pledge millstones   Concerning the statutesfor debts and their pledges   Concerning the statutesfor hiredservants in general   Concerning the statutesfor the pledge of awidow   Concerning the statutesfor those who fight and the wifewho rescues [her husband]   Concerning the statutesfor corpse-stealers   Concerning the statutesfor involuntarymurders  ‒  ‒   Concerning the statutesfor those who killinwar   Concerning the statutesfor artisans who embezzle   Concerning the statutesfor crippled children   Concerning the statutesfor deceit in commerce   Concerning the statutesfor false witnesses  ‒   Concerning the statutesfor monasteries   Concerning the statutesfor shipswrecked at sea   Concerning the statutesfor those rebuilding villages  ‒  ‒   Concerning the statutesfor thieves hung on gallows  ‒   Concerning the statutes foraman sent on ajourney or other business who suffers death   Concerning the statutesifanyone sends out on business someone who is not hisown [servant]   Concerning the statutesfor hiredservants  ‒   Concerning the statutes if withevil intent or in jest someone scares a horse, and someone falls from it and dies or is hurt, or if from some other animal; or if it is scared without cause on merely seeing someone   Concerning the statutesfor involuntaryand voluntarymurders   Concerning the statutesfor those who causeharmthrough water   Concerning the statutesfor doctors  ‒ 168 Fabian Wittreck

Continued

Lawcode DatastanagirkShort summary⁴⁷

 ‒   Concerning the statutesfor shepherds and herdsmen   Concerning the statutesfor gifts to achurch – land, or water,ora vineyard, or some other such thing   Concerning the statutesfor markets   Concerning the statutesfor all artisanswho cheat   Concerning the statutesfor hiredworkerswho damagetheir tools   Concerning the statutesfor those who sell from booty

To start with, the text is basicallyanamended translation of ashortened version of the Datastanagirk. Now one maypose the question if either the (positive) choice of chapters translatedorthe (negative)choice of thosetobeomitted bears the imprint of some attempt of aggiornamento or adaptation to late medieval and earlymodernconditions in eastern Poland.Aswehavenoaccess to the Armenian version acting as abasis for the translation, we have to take into account the possibility of no rational choice at all, meaningthatthe downsizing of the chapters had alreadytaken place before. What is left out (or had alreadybeen left out when the unknown translator laid hand on the text)? Marked lacunae are the chapters 1–19 (comprisingstat- utes on judges, princes, the clergy,and husband and wife),chapters 38–48 (statutes on judgesand ecclesiastical matters), chapters 51–53 (penal law), 86–88 (statutesondepositsand ecclesiastical matters), chapters 134–173(once more ecclesiastical law), chapters 175, 176, 180 –181, 183(familyand inheritance law), 184 (funeral rites), 187–208(familylaw,ecclesiastical law),242 – 250(agri- culturallaw,boundaries et al.). Having in mind the above-mentioned controversiespitting the Armenian community against the majority of the city society,neither the chapters chosen nor the chapters omittedform adiscernible rational pattern: There is aclear tendency to sort out ecclesiastical matters,but even this is not done thoroughly(see chapters 15,85, 103). Furthermore, familyand inheritance laware nearlytotally combed out (which comes as asurprise consideringthat both fields of laware extremelyimportant for the demarcation of aminority group and its continued existence). Against that,ahighnumber of penal provisions is “upheld” (they belong to thosechapters marked with anot to be applied-addendum by the Polish king – another indication of the aloofness of the Lawbook). Generally, the picture is arural one – the Lawbook comprises chapters on merchants and loans, crafts- men and buildings, but most provisions deal with agriculture or with circumstances clearlylocated in villages. Single chapters obviouslydonot make The Old ArmenianLawcode of Lemberg 169 sense in the Lembergenvironment: This applies to chapter 86 (shipwreck), as well as to chapter 79 (penance of those who kill in war). The list could be continued. What is most surprising (and telling) is the purging of most of the chapters on judges. As in the tradition of the older Eastern Christian nomokanones,especiallythe omitting of the chapter on judges(38 of the Datastanagirk)ishighly significant.Adiasporacommunity trying to defend its own legal turf against the encroachment of the majorityisnot well advised to cripple itself by delibe- ratelyerasing the rules governing its autochthonous judges.

4.2 The Lawcode as Literature

After all, the Lawcode of Lembergbears onlysmall signs of court practice or the peculiarsituation of an ethno-religious diasporacommunity which is known to have engaged in handicraft and commerce (especiallylong-distance trading). Bearing in mind that its main sourcealreadyexhibits clear signs of alearned work undertaken for its ownsake, one has to draw the conclusion that the Ar- menianLawcode of Lembergwas alsocomposed with an intention exceeding mere court practice. The basic assumption of this paper is that the sourceisbet- ter understood if read as apiece of (legal) literature which was never (or at least not primarily) intended for use in the courtroom. Firstly, the foundationofjudg- ments in written lawisgenerallyagenuinelymodernnotion that must not be applied to medieval and earlymodernsocieties. Secondly, as we have seen, the Lawcode does neither fit with the situation nor the interests of acity-dwelling minoritygroup primarilyengaged in handicraft and trade, and which is intent on defending its distinct jurisdiction. It would be simplistic just to point to the order of the Polish king (as mentioned, it is possiblethat the Armenian version is considerably older than its Latin translation). As in the caseofMxit’ar Goš,itseems to be the case that the Lawbook was composed justtoproduce adistinct legal compendium for the Armenian community – regardless of its content.Thisrenders the text basically awork of fictionclad in the language of the law – afine example of lawasliterature. 170 Fabian Wittreck

5. Common Ground: Functionsand Benefitsof Distinct Legal Textsfor Diasporic Communities

To conclude: Of course, diasporic communities maybenefit from adistinct living lawthat strengthenscohesion, marks the boundaries vis-à-vis the majority of society or other minorities, and upholdsorhelps to uphold the identity of the group (e.g. by banning inter-group marriages). The lawofthe Christian oriental churches in general and the Armenian Lawbook of Lemberg(as well as its medieval source, the Datastanagirk of Mxit’ar Goš)inparticularfurnish evidence for the insight that mere ownership of such adistinct (and not necessarilyliving) lawmay have positive effects for adiasporagroup (or at least its leading dignitaries). Such acollection – even alearned work fairlydetachedfrom the everydaylife of the community or the customary lawactuallyusedbyits members – acts as agenuine link to the common ancestral home(imagined or remembered), and constitutes the members of the community as aunity distinguishedfrom other groups.Furthermore, in asituation wherethe existenceoflaw has to be ‘proved’ by presentingawritten version to authorities alien to the diaspora group, the mere existenceofarecorded version maybemoreimportant than its content – the fact that the code contains sections from aclassroom textbook of late antiquity is telling. Finally, one has to takeinto account that the Armeni- an diaspora – in this respect perhapsbeing alike to the Jewish – had astrong tradition of stagingitself as acommunity of literacy,learning,and scholarship. And in this regard, abook of learned lawmade sense to the Armenians of Lem- berg – irrespective of its practical effectiveness and use. Melanie Williams The Diasporaofthe ImaginaryinPolitics and Poetics

“Let the God not abandon us”–The Poetry of Derek Mahon

Letthe godnot abandon us Who have come so far in darkness and in pain. We toohad our livestolive. Youwith your light meterand relaxeditinerary, Letnot our naive labours have been in vain!¹

The word ‘diaspora’ evokes an idea of persons not onlydispossessed and mar- ginal but also in some sense having lost some of their intrinsic humanity, and this notion extends to the more particularlydefined categories of ‘refugee’ and of ‘asylum seeker.’ Contrast the horror of such exigency with the embracing arms of national identity and community especiallyascreated, bestowed and inherited by the sovereign statehood of the West.Yet both ‘diasporic’ identities and those arising from national certainties flow principallyfrom imaginative and symbolic streams which become hardened into ‘realities’ onlybypolicy,byprac- tice, by pragmatism. This chapter seeks to explore some links in the imaginative realm as exemplified in particularbythe Irish-American nexus.Through the prism not onlyofpolicies but also with an additional glanceatthe poetry of Derek Mahon, apoet with areputation for dealing with the concerns of the diaspora, it is hoped that further insight maybeforgedinapprehending the delicate interplaybetween the worlds of politics and the imagination. Both the United States of America and the Republic of Ireland have powerful visions of theirdiscretenational identities, identitiesdisseminated around the world through literature, art, film and the media. Moreover,these identities are frequentlytied together, not just by historicalfact but by romanticized attachment.Manyearlier Hollywood films, from National Velvet to TheQuiet Man in various ways cement and promotethis vision of aspecial attachment and anumberofscholars have explored the implications of such idealization to the politics of identity.² Moran (1999) discusses the utilizationofsentimental

 Derek Mahon, “ADisused Shed in Co. Wexford” [], in Derek Mahon: Selected Poems (London: Penguin, ): .  National Velvet, a  film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney was released by Metro-GoldwynMayer.In; National Velvet was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aes- 172 Melanie Williams and romanticized visions and images of Irish national identity in the interests of the political lobby for support for Home Rule both at homeand abroad,³ whilst McCarthyand Hague(2004) explorethe

[…]oblique references (via discourses of Englishness) that can onlybeunderstood within a racialized problematic […]. While we recognize that Celticism is an ambiguous and malle- able identity available to awide rangeofpolitical projects,weconcludethat in the contemporary United States it is beingused primarilyfor reactionary purposes in ways that make a mockery of the legacy of dispossession and injusticeits adherents claim as their own.⁴

Arguably, one field of political engagement in particular runs the risk of exem- plifying such adistorted use of the idealized relationship – that of immigration policy.Indeed, current proposed American immigration policy changehas been somewhat dominated by news of an Irish lobby.Bette Browne describes a “last- ditch effort as St Patrick’sDay approaches to win Republican support for immigration reform that would benefit thousands of Irish illegals across the United States,”⁵ while TedHesson (2013) referring to the samemovement,notes that “Listeningtothe immigration debate in the Senate, discussing visas for the Irish is arare moment when the conversation shifts from questions of the economyand ‘rule of law’ to sentimentality.”⁶ Lee (2009) traces aless than romantic earlyhostility towards Irish immigrants to America,⁷ whereIrish workers livedinslums and wereonlymarginally freer than the slave population, tied to oppressive contracts and often paid in vouchers redeemable in companyshops. Nevertheless, the imaginative forceof the idealized relationship continues to exert power,whilst the discreteidentities

theticallysignificant.” National Velvet,dir.ClarenceBrown, tx.  (United States: Metro-Gold- wyn-Mayer, ); TheQuiet Man, dir.John Ford,tx.  (UnitedStates: Republic Pictures, ).  Sean Farrell Moran, “Images, Icons and the PracticeofIrish History,” in Images Iconsand the IrishNationalist Imagination, ed. LawrenceMcBride(Dublin: Four Courts Press, ): – .  James McCarthywith Euan Hague, “Race,Nation, and Nature: The Cultural Politics of ‘Celtic’ Identification in the American West,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers .  (): –, .  BetteBrowne, “The long fight for US immigration reform” (March , ), The IrishExam- iner http://www.irishexaminer.com/analysis/the-long-fight-for-us-immigration-reform-. htm (acc. March , ).  TedHesson, “Whythe Irish Want aSpecial Immigration Deal” (May , ), abc NEWS (acc. Dec , ).  Gregory Lee, “The Makingand Maintainingofthe Irish Diaspora,” DCIDOB:the Journal of The Barcelona Centrefor International Studies (): –. The Diaspora of the Imaginary in Politics and Poetics 173 of each, America and Ireland, are themselvesbuilt upon the notion of aliberat- ing ideal towards victims of global injustice. YetAmerica works to tighten the US- Mexico border,with an all-time high migrant death rate,⁸ whilst Ireland, itself the historic victim and siteofinjustice, displacement and religious persecution has tightened immigration policies in line with areactionary vision of national identity – as Lentin (2007) indicates:

[T]he discursive political reformulation of Ireland as ‘diaspora nation’,whileexplainingthe narrowing of citizenship entitlement of non-citizen migrants resident in Ireland in the wake of the 2004 Citizenship Referendum, paradoxicallyalso makessense of the juxtaposition of ‘entitled’ Irish illegals in the US with ‘unentitled’ illegal immigrants in Ireland.⁹

When in 1992the Irish poet Derek Mahon was asked by TheNew Yorker to write a poem commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the first immigrant to be processed through Ellis Island on New Year’sDay 1892, it was no doubtacom- mission flowing from arush of patriotic fervour about the origins of the Ameri- can Dream, of the generosity of the AmericanStates reflected in the Statue of Liberty cry:

Give me your tired, your poor /Your huddledmasses yearningtobreathe free /The wretch- ed refuse of your teemingshore/Send these, the homeless,tempest-tost to me /Ilift my lamp beside the golden door!¹⁰

Such verse reflected the symbolic and semiotic power drawing upon the deeply held sentimental vision of America as asaviour of embattled and threatened

 CelesteMonforton, “All-time highmigrant death rate along US-Mexicoborder: prevention in immigration reform?” (March , ), ScienceBlogs (acc.  July ). According to data fromU.S.Customs and Border Protection (CBP),  individuals died along the U.S.-Mexicoborder in  duringtheir attempt to enter the U.S. That’sanall-time highrate of . deaths per , CBP apprehensions.Itcompares to arateofdeaths per , in ,and four per , in .The data was assembled by the NationalFoundation for American Policy (NFAP) in the policy brief “How manymore deaths?The moral case for atemporary worker program.” At atime when fewer migrants are attemptingtoenterthe U.S. illegally, the author attributes the escalatingdeath rate to two related factors: ()the lack of legal temporary visas for low-skilled workers; and ()the build-up of enforcement along the U.S.-Mexicoborder.  Ronit Lentin, “IllegalinIreland, Irish Illegals: Diaspora Nation as Racial State,” IrishPolitical Studies .  (): –,.  Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus” [], in The OxfordBook of American Poetry,ed. David Lehman (Oxford: OxfordUP, ):.In,the poem was engraved on abronze pla- que and mounted inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. 174 MelanieWilliams peoples. TheNew Yorker’schoice of Derek Mahon reflectedinpart his probable fealty with the first Ellis Island immigrant – an Irish girl, Annie Moore, who on passing through the “golden door” was givena$10 gold coin, coincidentally timelyonthe fifteenth anniversary of her birth. Mahon was also an apposite choice givenhis personal associationwith describingthe experience of emigration, of displacement and alienation in arangeofpoems. Hisresultant offering commemorating Annie Moore, was the poem “To Mrs. Moore at Inishannon,”¹¹ a letter-poem, representative of the missiveshome from the newlyarrivedIrish emigrants who formed such asignificant element of the immigrant populations passing through the “golden door.” The poem is placed in the centreofacollec- tion named TheHudson Letter – described by McKendrick (1996) in the Times LiterarySupplement as

[…]perhaps [Mahon’s] least even achievement so far,but then evenness is not,itseems, what Mahon is after […]. “The Hudson Letter”,in18longish sections,his longest poem to date, shows the poet once morecoming into his own […]what is most courageous and movingabout the poem is the waythe images of urban dereliction aretied explicitly to apersonal crisis,ahard-earned fraternal feelingfor the down-and-out […]. Out of this absencehewrites from lowerManhattan,addressing, in ramble or vigil, his absent lover,his children in London, Auden, Yeat’sfather,and other cosmic vagrants, “clutching our bits and pieces,arrogantindereliction.” In the eighteen sectionsof“The Hudson Let- ter,” the gabble of adockside bar,voices of arecycled Sappho and of an Irish immigrant girl reassuringher mother in Inishannon, and the midwinter, all night sounds of the City inter- sperse with the voiceofthe poet – lively,witty,poignant,elegiac,humane, and thoroughly human.¹²

Mahon thereforeelects to ‘place’ the commissioned icon within alargercontext of predominantlymore modern alienation and self-examination and, perhaps paradoxicallyfor some, links the contextual materials and thereby himself, to the largerliteraryand predominantlymasculine, canon of Ovid, Yeats, Auden and Ginsberg.This context mayberegarded as somewhat problematic to the realization of Annie Moore, whose “letter” is oddlyplaced amongst such canonical reverberations. The poem begins with aquotation which references the nascent odour of racism tainting the romanticized context of the Emma Lazarus poem –“Give me your tired, your poor /your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” inscribed at the foot of the Statue of Liberty.Mary Gordon, Irish-Italian-Jewish New

 Derek Mahon, “To Mrs. Moore at Inishannon,” in TheHudson Letter (Wake Forest,NC: Wake Forest UP, ): –.Further references in the text, abbreviatedwith “MI”.  Jamie McKendrick, “Earth-residence,” (London) TheTimes LiterarySupplement ( April, ): . The Diasporaofthe ImaginaryinPolitics and Poetics 175

Yorker,academic and author of ahost of books and essays reflects upon the conflicts thrown up by Irish Catholicism in its engagement with art and life in her book Good Boys and Dead Girls and it begins with aquotation from this text that Mahon selects as aposition statement for his poem:

The statue’ssculptor,Frederic-AugusteBartholdi, reactedwith horror to the prospect of immigrants landingnear his masterpiece; he called it ‘amonstrous plan’.Somuch for Emma Lazarus […]. Iwanted to do homagetothe ghosts ¹³

In the tradition of the epistolary or letter-poem,the communication from Bridget Moore to her mother,Mrs. Mooreisprefaced by the business-like recordofad- dress and date and initial reassurance of survival: “No. 1, Fifth Avenue, New York City,Sept.14th,1895 /And Mother,dear,I’mglad to be alive /After a whole week on the crowded Oceanic / –Tho’ Igot here all right without being sick” (MI,1–4). The sea voyage is oddlyaccompanied by aseagull hitchinga lift all the wayfrom Ireland to LongIsland, acreature seemingly used to this commutesince, on arrival it “vanish’dwith the breeze /inthe mass’drigging by the Hudson quays” (MI,11–12). Mahon captures the workadaypracticality of the young woman who finds herself “install’damid the kitchenware” thanks to “Mrs. O’Brien” (MI,19–20). She is aservant in a “fine house in Washington Square” owned by “Protestants, mind you, and abit serious /Much likethe Ban- don sort,not fun like us /” (MI,21–23). Here Mahon references the religious divisions still evident in the history of the Irish Republic, wherethe town of Ban- don still has traces of aProtestant incursion in the 1600 sand with anod to a culturalsense of phlegmaticProtestants comparedtoamischievous Catholic mind set.¹⁴ The poem goes on to demonstrate the comic ironyand assumption of superior insight,eveninthe inexperienced young Bridget, who notes the Americanobsession with “eagles and bugles” and “simple faith” in the stars and stripes to the point of “life and death,” ending with the arch humour,or is it irony? of her own simple faith –“As if Earth’scentre layinCentral Park / When we both know it runs thro’ Co. Cork” (MI,35–36).Towards the end of her letter,Bridgetreveals amoment of spiritual yearning –“Sometimes at night,inmyimagination /Ihear youcalling me across the ocean;” (MI,37– 38) but then she quicklycomposes herself reverting to her workaday, practical self, appreciating that “the money’sgood” and sending “ten dollars” hometo her mother with apromise of more to come giventhe evident wealth of the

 Mary Gordon, “Good Boys and Dead Girls,” qtd. in MI, .  Foramorerecentreferencetothe Protestants in Bandon see Peter Cottrell, The Anglo-Irish War: TheTroubles of – (Westminster,MD: Osprey Publishing, ): . 176 Melanie Williams

New World since –“here, for God’ssake /They fling the stuff around like snuff at awake”.Signingherself off as “Yr.loving daughter – BridgetMoore” (MI,41– 46), the imagined sender of the letter fades backinto the massofimmigrants whose individual idiosyncrasies are buried in the greater social obscurity. Critiques and researchers of the poem have acknowledgedMahon’sown particularity in researching for himself some of the details of what the experience might have entailed – he checkedonthe authenticity of the “mass’drigging by the Hudson quays” for example, yetthere are differencesofopinion as to the poem’smerit.Adam Hanna argues that the poem, “far from ‘ridiculing the girl’snaïveand sentimental attachment to her native place’ (Elmer Kennedy-An- drews,2008), enables Mahon to explore and comment on the values of his new environment,” and to comparethem with thosehehad left in Ireland. ¹⁵ YetI would arguethat,though this poem mayhaveanswered the requirementsof the commission in the sense of including critical signifiers – the statue, the sculptors artistic xenophobia (a signal as to the more correct feelingsofgener- osity to be fostered), the roughpassage, the teeming downtown population, the impact of the great icons of the New World, it does clearly ‘place’ the girl as essentiallyparochial, howsoever humorous (“as if Earth’scentre layinCentral Park when we both know it runs thro’ Co. Cork”)and ultimatelydomesticand trivial in her concerns. Thismay perhaps have met,entirely, the iconic vision of the ‘wanted’ immigrant,the domesticatedfemale, pragmatic, adaptable and unsophisticated, the ‘tabula rasa’ upon which the New World would write and who would lend her washerwoman arms to the continued building of the great globaleconomy. Yetperhapsthe poem does not quite meet the potential magnitude of the commission, for it is an opportunity to reflect on much greater themes, signalled onlyrarelyinlines such as “Sometimes at night,inmyimagination, Ihearyou calling me across the ocean.” No doubt agood number of such emigrants were similarlyunambitious in the scope of their thinking but the true violence of the experience,though not always reflected in correspondence,isretrievable. Aletter from Mary Garvey,written in an earlier decade back to Ireland makes constant reference to sickness and death, not onlyinAmerica itself but particu- larlyanalmostobsessive anxiety as to the health and continued life of all those

 Adam Hanna, “Through an Emigrant’sEyes: Annie Moore and DerekMahon’sPerspectives on America” ( March ), New Perspectives on Women and the IrishDiaspora (acc. July , ); the source referred to in the quotation is Elmer Kennedy-Andrews, Writing Home: Poetry and Place in Northern Ireland – (Woodbridge:Brewer, ). The Diasporaofthe ImaginaryinPolitics and Poetics 177 back home. It also reflects alack of sentiment about the ‘home country’–indi- cating the extreme privation:

Ifeel very uneasy about youall for fear that youmay be sick or dead or that youmay be sufferingfor the want of the comforts of life […]. Dear Mother Ishould liketohaveyou come over here very much if youthink that youwould be strong enough to stand the voyage.I hope youwill leave that starved country and come over here in the spring.¹⁶

Now although the worst of the “famine” conditions wereoverbythe end of the nineteenth century,the recent historical experience of dispossession, the repressive social and economic culture and sheer privation was certainlywhat drove the majority of people to leave their homes. In addition, the ‘large’ themes of the diaspora as they arise in the laware not effectively addressed – not only the central one of wholesale identity displacement or negation, but alsothose specific to genderand to faith. The happenstance of the iconic immigrant being female, even and perhaps particularly, at such ayoung age, meant that she was representative of awhole rangeofthreats,apparent then as now – of sexual exploitation, of passing from subjection under one patriarchal forceto but another,the dangers of childbirth, of unwanted pregnancy, of the particularly limited opportunities of work and movement available to women. ForAnnie Moore, the first Ellis Island migrant on whom the poem is based, though the recent statue and museum dedicationtoher celebrates her new- found symbolic significance to the American dream,¹⁷ she actuallydied in her forties, having borne eleven children and was buried in an unmarkedgrave.¹⁸ Nevertheless,leaving the aboriginal form of oppression of the villageand its ‘biological’ patriarchymay have offered the best chance of some level of liberty for such women, especiallyintheir flight from aCatholic country.Insofar as The HudsonLetter is also adiscourse upon the threats and displacements of modern contemporarylife, the continuingdebate upon the influenceofthis conservative religious cultureupon the livesofwomen might thereforehavebeen signalled –

 Letter from Mary Garvey,Irish immigrant,toher mother,( October ), RUcore:Rutgers University Community Repository. (acc. July , ).  Foranofficial recognition of the status accorded to Annie Mooresee The Statue of Liberty – Ellis Island Foundation Inc., “Annie Moore: first Immigrant through Ellis Island” (), The Statue of Liberty – Ellis Island Foundation Inc. (acc. July , ).  RayO’Hanlon, “PuttingThings Right” ( February ), The IrishEcho (acc. July , ). 178 Melanie Williams the mere mention that Protestants are ‘abit serious’ comparedtoher countrymen hardly addressingthe magnitude of the issue. When one considers how the issue of any ‘diaspora’ manifests in legal terms, as asylum seekersand refugees as well as the more orthodoximmigration applicant,these darker issues of gender and of faith as well as the ethical failings of sovereign power are in constant attendance. Displaced women are and always have been, the most likelyvictims of human trafficking,whilst religious persecution toohas been acritical feature of human movement throughout history. If the American self-imagination is constructed in part – as no doubt are all national self-identities – upon avision of fealty with the nationals of certain sen- timentallysignificant states, with Ireland foremost as ahistorical victim of Eng- lish colonialism and as anear-relative in terms of high church Christianity, the baton of such openness, albeit selective,does not seem to be happilyhanded on. Though the Irish people historicallyhaveexperiencedsuch afavourable reception at the door of America in particular, the immigration policy of Ireland herself is characterized by conservatism, aphenomenon which Lentin has described as the “racialization of immigration policy in twenty-first century Ire- land,” concluding that

reconceptualizingIreland as adiaspora nation whose off-shore (emigrant) children are granted citizenship access in preferencetoits on-shore(immigrant) children, pushes Ire- land closer to Agamben’s “state of exception”,where the line between democracyand absolutism is gettingthinner.Inastate of exception, legal/illegal instruments such as the US Patriot Actand the proposed Irish Immigration, Residenceand Protection Bill allow the statetoerase the individual’slegal status at will.¹⁹

The self-and outward-facingidentity of Ireland has always been tied, stronglyto her religious passions, much inflamed in the popular imagination around the world by the combination of high-church ritualism, iconographyand agonistics with aradical and poetic literary capability.Little wonder perhaps that refugees of areligious inclination might consider Ireland as apromisingplace of empath- ic pilgrimage, more so than the predominantlysecular England. Yetdespite this particular form of ideological and ideational projection, the fundamentallyreligious history and culture of the Irish Republic does not make her necessarilymore open to those asylum seekerspresentingwith faith arguments for their applications.For example in the case of H. M. vMinister for Jus- tice, Equality,Law Reform, [2011] IEHC 16,the applicant was an Afghan national who left Afghanistan in 1999 and travelled to Iran. While in Iran he was intro-

 Lentin, “Illegal in Ireland, Irish Illegals,” . The Diaspora of the Imaginary in Politics and Poetics 179 duced to Christianity. Fearing he would be returned to Afghanistan the applicant fled. On his journey to Ireland he claimedasylum in Greeceand then the United Kingdom. He arrivedinIreland in 2005.InIreland he was involvedwith the Je- hovah Witnesses and another Christian Church. The applicant basedhis initial application for asylum on his Hazaraethnicity.His claim was refusedbythe Of- fice of the RefugeeApplications Commissioner (ORAC). The ORACdecision was affirmedbythe RAT(RefugeeAppeals Tribunal). Both the ORACand the RAT found the applicant not to be atruthful witness. The RATfound that his conversion to Christianity was not done in “good faith” and that his conversion was “opportunistic.” Theapplicant applied for subsidiary protection. The Minister for Justice, Equality and LawReform, placing significant reliance on the decision of the RAT, found that the applicant was not truthful, refused the subsidiary protection application and issued the applicant adeportation order.The applicant applied for leave to apply for judicial review and an interlocutory injunction pre- venting deportation. Hogan J, in the High Court,granted leave to applyfor judicial review.The judge stated that the RATmember had made an error by finding that,while the applicant had converted, he had onlydone so opportunistically. The Judge stated that this approach was incorrect and thatthe correct approach is to consider the applicant’sconversion to Christianity from the perspective of an Afghan religious judge. Although this case eventuallyturned, in the HighCourt,toarecommenda- tion thatthe asylum application be considered in light of possible discrimination in the originating country,the initial jurisprudential examination of religious conscienceand integrity was arguably aprofoundlydisturbing shift,evenin light of asubsequent judicial correction. Imagine the journey of the applicant, from Afghanistan, to Iran, to Greece and from thence to the United Kingdom and eventually Ireland, perhaps in the belief that acountry of such highlighted religiosity would be most sympathetic to his case. It seems that the initial plea of his ethnicity as areason for asylum might have undermined the subsequent faith-based plea, yetnodoubthereceivedlegal guidance as to selecting the most feasible aspect to plead. His subsequent faith-based plea was perhaps further undermined in the minds of some by the evidence that he had associated himself first with the Jehovah Witnesses and later with adifferent Christian group. Yetimagine the situation, as completeoutsider,assisted by charitable and religious groups perhaps keen to claim this new entrant as theirown.As Shuman and Bohmer (2004) comment: 180 Melanie Williams

Asylumclaims involvemultiple discourse systems,fromthe local community and bureau- cratic systems of the homeland to the discourses of groups that aid refugees,such as temp camps and church based groups.²⁰

The implication of literal “bad faith” under such circumstances is hardlyclear and is aredolent of the crucible of faith interrogation so reflexively illustrated by ArthurMiller in his play TheCrucible, reflecting upon the Salem WitchTrials simultaneouslysatirizing McCarthyite politics. Millerrecognizedthe ethical failure that lawtrials pursuing questions of belief unto suspicion and superstition, shared with partisan politics:

The Salem court had moved to admit “spectral evidence” as proof of guilt; as in 1952, the question was not the acts of an accused by his thoughts and intentions.Miller understood the universal experience of beingunable to believethat the statehas lost its mind […]. [T]he thingatissue was the secret allegiances of the alienated heart,alwaysthe main threat to the theocratic mind, as well as its quarry.²¹

The favouring of particularethnic groups and interrogation of potential immigrants as to their ‘good faith’ on arangeofideological fronts at Ellis Island, as now,iscentral to anystate dissection of an incoming diaspora. Within the public mythologies cultivated by nations – embracing the values of Good Samar- itan, of sympathyfor the “huddled masses,” the supplicant homeless, maylie a hardened inversion of such values, amere show of feelingmasking awholesale normative failure, the ‘mystery’ hollow to its core. Mahon is actuallyequipped to provide astingingcritique of such religious and political vacuity – his poem “Ec- clesiastes” seems at once ablast against the failure of divisive and barren religious politics as well as religious or political cant.²² The terse irritation at innate moral contradictions is clear from the poem’sbeginning: “God,you could grow to loveit, God-fearing,God- /Chosenpurist little puritanthat,for all your wiles and smiles, youare (the /Dank churches,the emptystreets /The shipyardsi- lence, the tied-up swings) and /Shelter your cold heart from the heat/”(EC, 1–5). The poem challenges the male leader,religious and political,whose “cold heart” can take shelter in this forlorn place, not onlyfrom the “bright

 AmyShuman, Carol Bohmer, “RepresentingTrauma: Political AsylumNarrative,” TheJour- nal of American Folklore . (): .  Arthur Miller, “WhyIwrote ‘The Crucible,’” (New York) The New Yorker (October, , ): .  Derek Mahon “Ecclesiastes,” Scanning the Century: ThePenguin Book of the Twentieth Centu- ry in Poetry,ed. Peter Forbes (London: Penguin, ): .Further references in the text, abbreviated with “EC”. The Diaspora of the Imaginary in Politics and Poetics 181 eyes of children”–presumably he is beyond such honesttruth-seeking –,from “woman-inquisition”–for his creed puts him beyond the questions of mere women – but also from “the world” at large,for he rules over his own petty fief- dom. Though he makes playofthe emblems of religious purity – the “locusts and wildhoney” of John the Baptist,the sombre black clothing,the austere diet,hedoes not “Feel called upon to understand and forgive /But onlyto speak with ableak /afflatus”(EC,10–12), referencing not the inspired breath of spiritual purity but rather the crude failureof“hot” or even fetid air.The imagereferences,perfectly, the doublespeak of anypolitics claiming benign policy whilst delivering intolerance, at the same time embracing and sentimentaliz- ing the harsh womb of the “oldcountry”–“lovethe Januaryrains when they / Darken the dark doors and sink hard /Into the Antrim hills, the bog-meadows, the heaped /Gravesofyour fathers/”(EC,12–15). The final stanza underscores the blindness of such claims, even as they persist in claiming power over the “credulous” indigenous population –“God /help you, stand on acorner stiff / with rhetoric, promisingnothing under the sun” (EC,20–22). Herewehavethe promises failing whole generations, whole peoples, defeated into afatalistic acceptance of theirconditionsbythe empty rhetoric of aself- serving dogma. Although so powerful acommentator upon this abstracted notion of the emptyideologue, Mahon does not in this particular poem translocate or implicate such visions to the wider historical and geographicalpicture,risking thraldom to an AmericanDream as myopic as America’sown.Though TheHud- son Letter is in part aself-flagellating hymn to his ownfailings, his outsiderdom and ameditation on the existential nature of life, it remains predominantlyan homagetothe stark “real” of downtown America in the style of Auden as well as Ginsberg. YetMahon carried within himself agreat and perhaps unique potential to make the more challengingconnections signalled by the commission to write the poem. The example of Ireland was particularlypowerful to the semiotics of Americannationalidentity as saviour because of the contrast such hospitality drew with the ravagesofEnglish colonialism which had reduced Irish peasants literallytostarving and landless vagrants and this, along with the strongcommunity of Catholicism, ensured that the Irish immigrant could be endowed with akind of mythical martyrdom. No doubt Mahon did not wish to become too tied to this particular trope, yetthe opportunitytoreflect upon the timeless struggle of the supplicant emigrant for the basicconditions of existence was missed. Forsurelythis symbolic entrant to the golden door was significant to the stories of humanity itself, to the ebb and flow of dispossessed persons in history and in the future. Mahon’savoidance of the deeper themes and connections maybereferable to apsychological phenomenon linking him to less celebrated politicallydis- 182 Melanie Williams placed persons. In an interview in 2000 he explains his inability to write directly about the intimatelypolitical events of Ireland contemporarytohis writing:

It’spossible for me to writeabout the dead of Treblinkaand Pompeii – included in that are the dead of Dungiven and Magherafelt. But I’ve never been able to writedirectlyabout it.In Crane Bag they’dcall it “colonial aphasia.” Perhaps, in fact,that’swhatitis. Iwas not prepared for what happened. What happened was that myself and all of our generation (par- ticularlyinthe North) werepresented with ahorror, somethingthat demanded our serious, grown-up attention. But,asIsay, Iwas not able to deal with it directly.²³

Such “colonial aphasia” reflects an internal splitnot unlike that suffered by trauma victims, resulting in an effacement or inability to articulate theirown experience. In Lacanian terms

thereissome hard kernel in me that always resists symbolization. This hard kernel is the small object of a. The Lacanian subject is preciselythe very split between one’ssymbolic identificationand the fantasmic object-remainder […]the Lacanian subject is agap between the symbolic and afantasmic object. Zizek further warns us that the object-remainder is not to be understood as apositive Thing;itisaneffect of our beinginvolvedina symbolic order.²⁴

Moreover,this model of the splitwithin individual subjects interactswith the “split” symbolized at the level of State policies

The pricetobepaid for athoroughly relational ontologicalstatus of the actor-network is the determinationofthe networkassuch. What act,then, determines the actor-network as such, namely, its symbolic (over)determination, its double? The formation of an existing actor-network entails adetermination of the network as agesture of exclusion through pos- itingabeyond that is nonrelational. […]the (US) segregation system never simplyconstrained and enabled people; it enabled one groupbut constrained another.Therefore, structureisnot aneutral force that constrains and enables an abstractactororactors.²⁵

At the individual level the split,between the ‘self’ who must engagewith ‘the system’ and the bare self who has undergone the trauma of displacement and worse, maybewhollydisabling. Shuman and Bohmer note that persons who

 Eamonn Grennan, “Derek Mahon, The Art of Poetry No. ” (), TheParis Review (acc. July , ).  Yong Wang, “Agency: The Internal Split of Structure,” SociologicalForum, . (): – , .  Wang, “Agency,” . The Diaspora of the Imaginary in Politics and Poetics 183 have experienced severe trauma maynot be able to articulate anydetail at all;²⁶ add to this the requirement that their experience ‘fits’ the discourse – they must report apersecution narrative credible to the BCIS. They explain:

refugees have been categorized as criminals in asystemthat refuses to see individuals as victims of persecutionwho seek to cross political borders […].NancyCampbell[…]argues that public policynarrativescan be understood in terms of Michel Foucault’sconcept of ‘governing mentalities’ that determine how individuals experiencesare categorized … to provethat the persecution against them was politicallymotivated, applicants for political asylum need to be able to describe the motivations of their oppressors as well as their group affiliations as part of the public suppression of dissent […]²⁷

The immigration enquiry and jurisprudencewill thereby inevitablylack authenticity,asnarratives are imposed and the actual experience remains unsought.Yet it is surelythe ‘genuine’ person who should be the object of attention. As Wang (2008) discusses

[t]he real task for the social theorist is to distinguish humans fromsocial automaton. This distinction lies preciselyinthe very gestureofassertingherself/himself as human in addition to all the roles, identities and relations […]. The very act of recognizingone’ssocial identities and roles and at the same time assertingthat one is morethan the social is the very proof of one’shumanness. This is the Lacanian split subject(S) that,onthe one hand, is displaced/decentered onto the symbolic Other,and on the other,occupies the very gap/split as its “being”.²⁸

As we have seen, asylum seekers/refugees recognize the need to sublimate/neg- ate their ‘uniqueness’ and favour their relation to an ideological position – unless they can claim the identityof‘artist’ which tends to attract suspicionunder repressive regimesbut become astrongsymbol of the receiving country’srecognition of freedom and liberalism elsewhere. Actually, Mahon proved himself perfectlycapable of producing apotent in- vocation of these grander themes – even as they reside in the parochial and ev- eryday – and of speaking to the “local” indigenous moral failingalongside the “universal” one. Hispoem with the unprepossessing title “ADisused Shed in Co. Wexford” makes the point very powerfully,²⁹ this time referencing the canon with

 Shuman and Bohmer, “RepresentingTrauma.”  Shuman and Bohmer, “RepresentingTrauma,” .  Wang, “Agency,” .  Derek Mahon, “ADisused Shed in Co. Wexford,” in TheNorton Anthology of Poetry fifth ed., ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, JonStallworthy(New York: Norton, ): –. Further references in the text, abbreviatedwith “DS”. 184 Melanie Williams more care. When contrasted with the letter-poem to Mrs. Moore it utterlyout- strips in resurrectingthe full horror of dispossession, of the outcast and forgotten. “ADisused Shed in Co. Wexford” begins with adedication to the author J.G. Farrell and to “the weak souls among the asphodels.”³⁰ Mahon’spoem takes us to haunting places of such strangedisplacement that they maypresage the possibilityofnew creative beginnings, where “athoughtmight grow” but nevertheless overwhelmingly places of abandonment and loss, “Peruvian mines, worked out and abandoned /Toaslow clock of condensation, /Anecho trapped for ever,and aflutter /Ofwildflowers in the lift-shaft /” (DS,2–5). From the other-world locations of “Peruvian mines” and “Indian compounds,” the poem shifts to aconcentration upon the local, parochial and forgotten place that is Ireland – to adisused shedinCo. Wexford, acipher for the whole country of the forgotten, the insignificant and invisible. In that shed, which is “deep in the grounds of aburnt-out hotel” (a referencetoJ.G.Farrell’snovel Troubles, so emblematicofthe places of colonial decaytrappingindividual livesinthe aspic of political failure) liveshalf-starved in darkness linger on, their myopia imposed by the constrained conditions –“Athousand mushrooms crowd to a keyhole /This is the one star in their firmament /Orframes astar within a star./Whatshould they do there but desire?” (DS,13–16). Reduced to both “patience” and “silence” such human mycelia await liberation by “us”–the polit- icallyinformed, the conscientious poet,the reader,the politician, for “[t]hey have been waitingfor us in afoetor /Ofvegetable sweat since civil war days / Since the gravel-crunching, interminable departure /Ofthe expropriatedmycol- ogist/” (DS,13–16). Thepoem carries adirect rebuke,for this official who might classify, authorize and legitimate those lost souls has not returned: “He never came back, and light since then /Isakeyholerusting gentlyafter rain /Spiders have spun, flies dusted to mildew /” (DS,21–24). Meanwhile they must bear the soundsofdecayaround them alongside the tantalizinghints of liveslived in the light: “And once aday,perhaps,they have heard something – /Atrickle of ma- sonry,ashout from the blue /Oralorry changinggear at the end of the lane /” (DS,28–30). Their ownlives waste away,not onlyinterms of physical death but also the spiritual and psychological distortions borne of the “grim /dominion of stale air and rank moisture /” (DS,33–34).Thoughyet surviving,these forgotten people are horriblydamaged by the experience, they are the “Powdery prisoners of the old regime /Web-throated, stalked like triffids, racked by drought /And

 In Greek mythology,the flowers of Hades and the dead, referencingtoo the poem Mithistóri- ma (,Mythical Narrative)byGiorgosSeferis,narrated by travellers whoare at oncepresent- dayexiles whilst flaggingancient Homeric figures. The Diaspora of the Imaginary in Politics and Poetics 185 insomnia, onlythe ghost of ascream /Atthe flash-bulb firing squad we wake them with /Shows there is life yetintheir feverish forms /Grown beyond nature now,soft food for worms /They lift frail heads in gravity and good faith” (DS,44–50). The ‘local,’ indigenous forgotten and the diasporaofthe world are brought togetherinasearing rebukewherefor some the end is nearand the loss incalculable:

They arebeggingus, yousee, in their wordless way, To do something, to speak on their behalf Or at least not to close the door again. Lost people of Treblinka and Pompeii! “Save us,saveus”,they seem to say(DS,51–55)

Powerfullyuniting the historic, the contingent and the universal, the poem sequence is potent not onlyfor its evocation of all lost and displaced peoples but also its reminder of the invisibilityand loss imposed by such displacement –“groaningfor their deliverance, so long expectant that there is left onlythe posture.” The imageof“athousand mushrooms crowding to the keyhole” evokes the hopelessness, the darkness and impotenceofthe supplicant.With global conflict so clearlyrelevant not onlytolocal struggles and ideologies but alsorevealing fractures common to the universal, distortingeffect of colonization and displacement,the final cry,

Letthe godnot abandon us Who have come so far in darkness and in pain. We toohad our livestolive. Youwith your light meterand relaxeditinerary, Letnot our naive labours have been in vain!(DS,56–60)

… indicts those in power – those with “light meters” and “itineraries” for afail- ure of common humanity.AsPapastergiadis explains, the failurespringsnot from adefensible, developed apprehension but from an imaginary realm, a patchwork of prejudicial fears which result in atotalizing denial of the person, adenial best evoked by Agamben’snow much vaunted evocation of the homo sacer:

There is astruggle to preserveanidealized self by means of either expellingorsuspending the other in astate of unplacement […]. Aboundary is established to separate those who do, and do not,belongtothe nation. Across this boundary values areprojected that define the characteristics of the self and the Other […]psychoanalytic concepts have been useful in explainingthe formation of anational imaginary at atime when the nation was consid- eredtohaveadiscrete historical origin […]itisunclear how we can applythese concepts to explain the contradictory dynamic of aglobal system that seeminglylacks anyprimal his- 186 Melanie Williams

torical trauma […]. The invasioncomplex does not draw from afixed national pool of cultural references,ordepend on anysingular moment of trauma to constitute the ‘anvil’ upon which national identity was forged. On the contrary,the invasion complex maybeenvis- aged as an ongoing, incompleteand shiftingcollage of fears and desires. […]Agamben explains the paradoxical status of the camp and its detainees by drawing an analogy between the refugeeand the “homo sacer”–asubject in Roman lawwho has committed aparticular crime that renders him or her outside of the rule of lawthat has been defined for citizens.Beingsituated outside this systemthe homo sacerloses all value: he or she is not even worthyofsacrifice.³¹

The romantic ideals of nations in theirvisions of themselvesare boundalways to involveanethical question. Where the split between the imaginary and the symbolic mayprovetobebeyond individual control, facilitating or disablingthe agency of the individual subject,the corresponding gapasitarises in the public institutional domain maybeapprehended, managed and shaped according to consistent principles of ethics and rights. It is within the gift of the poet to reveal and give expression to the split between the symbolic identification and the phantasmic object-remainder.The constraint of Mahon’ssymbolicpoem and its dis/location within the inward-looking Hudson Letter series, is amirror to the split within idealised vision and true empathy. Formalized and institutionalized, the split becomes referable to an ultimate, global imaginative and normative failure – afailuretofusethe ethical with the symbolicorder that is nation- alistic immigration policy which does not seek consistency but rather feeds its own, very partisan, sentimental journey.

 Nikos Papastergiadis, “The Invasion Complex: the Abject Other and SpacesofViolence,” Ge- ografista Annaler: Series B, Human Geography .(): –, –. Daniela Carpi CulturalMobility and Diaspora: The Case of Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock

Since1970s,‘diaspora’ was increasinglyused to denotealmost every people livingfar away from their ancestral or former home-land.¹ [Diaspora is] anyethnic collectivity which lacks aterritorial base within agiven polity.²

Traditionallythe concept of diasporahas been seen mainlyasconnected to the Jewish people: displacement,dispersion, and loss of home haunt the works of Jewish writers from the Hebrew Bible to Kafka. Studies of the Jewish diasporareached auniversal and metaphysical dimension after the Shoah; they came to epitomize, metaphorically, also the modern condition of man’salienation and homelessness. Whereas in the history of religions and more vigorouslyinits neighbouring disciplines ‘diaspora’ wasprimarily employed as ageographic-sociological category to denote dispersed groups and trans-national relationships, since the 1990s afurther,different approach has stepped forth. Post-modernistand culture critical authors such as Stuart Hall, Homi Bhabha, Paul Gilroy and James Clifford have adopted the diasporaterm to denote aspecific type of experience and thinking,i.e., that of ‘diasporaconsciousness.’ Aspiringtomovebeyond essen- tialising notions such as ‘ethnicity’ and ‘race,’ in often jargon-laden papers, the idea of ‘diaspora’ has been celebrated as expressingnotionsofhybridity,heterogeneity,identity fragmentation and (re)construction, double consciousness, fractures of memory, ambivalence, roots and routes, discrepant cosmopolitanism, multi-locationality and so forth.³ Robin Cohen identifies four phases in diasporastudies: the first is concerned with the Jewishexperience of victimhood; the second involves ametaphoric des- ignation, away to describe different categories of people, and it deals with the concept of racial minority.The third phase refers to the uprootingofpeople and thereforeoftheir identitiesinthe postmodern world, and considers their rapid displacement into other nations. Finally, the fourth phase is one of consolidation

 Martin Baumann, “Diaspora: Genealogies of Semantics and Transcultural Comparison,” Numen . (): –, .  John Armstrong, “Mobilized and Proletarian Diasporas,” American Political Science Review . (): –, .  Baumann, “Diaspora,” . 188 Daniela Carpi at the turn of the twentieth century and impliesthe study of how people settled within anew nation.⁴ In the first case the scarring historicaltragedy of the Holocaust lends aparticular colouringtothe diaspora:

[T]he wrench from home must survive so powerfullyinthe folk memoriesofthese groups that restoring the homeland or even returningtherebecomes an importantfocus for social mobilization, and the mould in which their popular cultures and political attitudes are formed.⁵

The concept of Diasporaisused when members of an expatriate community share several of the following features:dispersal of their ancestors, while retain- ing acollective memory of the past, and the belief that they are not accepted wherethey now are. The ancestral homeisidealized.They believethatall the members of the diasporashould be committed to the preservation or restoration of the original homeland; the link to the native homeland must remain uninterrupted. Thus the diasporaoften nurtures acollective identity, as well as asolid- arity with co-ethnic members in other countries. However,though diasporas have par excellence been connected to displaced victims, they mayalso includecultural or political élites.⁶ Thiswill be the focus of my paper.The analysis of Philip Roth’snovel Operation Shylock will in fact entail adebate on the relation of Jews to their homeland in Palestine, with a drastic reorientation of theirdiasporic self-image. In the Jewish case “theirim- mediate nostalgia [is] focused on the country in which they had been born and raised, rather thanonamythic homeland in Palestine.”⁷ Formost Jews in PalestineIsrael is in fact not their homeland, but afictitious state born out of the necessity to give ahomeland to the persecuted Jews of the Shoah. The problem is: which country is exile?

 See Robin Cohen, Global Diasporas:AnIntroduction (London: Routledge, ).  See Cohen, Global Diasporas, .  MonikaFludernik, ed., “Introduction. The DiasporicImaginary:Postcolonial Reconfigurations in the Context of Multicultualism,” in Diasporaand Multiculturalism: Common Traditions and New Developments (Amsterdam,New York: Overseas Press, ): xi–xxxviii, xiii.  Fludernik, Introduction,xxvi. Cultural Mobility and Diaspora:The Case of Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock 189

1. Diaspora as Cultural Mobility

My view of diasporainvolvesits culturalconsequences and focuses on the problem of cultural mobility. Nicolas Roseasserts thatsociety is the sum totalofthe bondsand relations between individuals and events – economic, moral, and political – within a more or less defined territory governed by its own laws.⁸ In fact social phenomena cohereinasignificant way: social life forms afabric of some kind and has continuity and scale. The social is always assumed to be, in asense, intelligible as aunity.⁹ In consideration of the concept of “field” derived from the sociological studies of PierreBourdieu,¹⁰ we will consider aglobalapproach to pluri-national cultural fields within the perspective of their definition (through an analysis of the internal mechanisms of auto-definition and the external ones of recognition) and reciprocal interaction, with resolution of tensions and conflicts and their inclu- sions. Thisapproach willinvolve investigations relatingtothe formsoftrans-cultural migration and hybridization. Particularlyuseful are rewriting, trans-codification,translation and inter-textualityinliterary, artistic, legal and economic products. Aby-nowsuperseded concept of pan-European cultureregardeditasfixed, predeterminedand invariable throughthe centuries, with theonlyacceptabledif- ferences beingthose of thevarious national cultures,which formed legitimate and naturalsubdivisionsofit. Thefactremains that themajor resistance to athorough cultural studyofhumanistictopicshas been felt most strongly where literature hasbeendeeplyconnected with theessence of national identities. AccordingtoStephenGreenblatt,inorder to be able to speak of culturalmobility theremust be conditionsofactual displacement (material, spatial, institutional)which have to be carefullyinvestigatedtounderstand correctlythe metaphorical displacement thatthese conditions have broughtabout,between centre and periphery, or between order and its opposite, between external and internal.

 See NikolasRose, “The Death of the Social?Re-figuringthe Territory of Government,” Econ- omyand Society . (): –, .  RogerCotterell, Law,Cultureand Society (Hampshire: Ashgate. ): .  PierreBourdieu, TheField of Cultural Production (Cambridge:Polity P, ). “The notion of field provides ameans of goingbeyond internal analysis (whether formal or hermeneutic) and external explication, both of which Bourdieu sees as inadequateand reductive.”“Literatureart and their respective producers do not exist independentlyofacomplex institutional framework which authorizes,enables,empowers and legitimizes them.” Randal Johnson, “Introduction,” in TheField of Cultural Production,ed. Randal Johnson (Cambridge:Polity P, ): –, . 190 Daniela Carpi

If culturefunctions as astructure of limits,italsofunctions as the regulator and guarantor of movement.Indeed the limits are virtuallymeaningless without movement; it is onlythrough improvisation, experiment,and exchangethat cultural boundaries can be established.¹¹ Among the most important phenomena, special relevance can be ascribed to movements of people, objects, images, texts,and ideas; the cultural mechanisms that involvethe functioningofsociety can be migrations, phenomena of the market and of market change, the crossingofborders, or even culturalornon-cultural tourism, and periods of training abroad. These migratory movements cause atransformation in the concept of national identity:

We need to situatethe debates about identity within all those specific developments and practices which have disturbed the relatively ‘settled’ character of manypopulations and cultures,aboveall in relation to the processesofglobalization […]and the processesof forcedand ‘free’ migration which have become aglobal phenomenonofthe so-called ‘postcolonial’ world.¹²

The new social identitiesthat are formed by today’smigrations are constructed within the playofpower and exclusion. This new concept of identity caused by culturalmobility is constructed through différance and is constantlydestabilized by what it leavesout. Studies on diasporaand cultural mobility must be able to account for the tension between individual agency and social limitation in anew way. One can speak of creative tensions in religious, sexual, and specific cultural contexts in which the static quality is onlyanunstable moment because it is inscribed in adynamic process which mayexperience moments of destruction of the existing and moments of creation of the new.The operators of the transformation may have avaryingdegreeofcontrol over the process that is underway. In fact, every transformation findsfertile ground in astate of tension, of debate that does not have adetermining functionbut rather amaieutic one, apotentiality that involves it also aesthetically. The mobility has its counterpart in the sense of binary opposition rooted in asense of threat which is necessarilyconnected, at least partially, with change, with the separation from tradition and from individuallyand collectively reassuringrituals (as social psychologyteaches).

 Stephen Greenblatt, Cultural Mobility (Cambridge:Cambridge UP, ).  Stuart Hall, “Introduction: Who needs Identity?,” in Questions of Cultural Identity [], ed. Stuart Hall, Paul du Gay(LosAngeles, London: Sage, ): –, . Cultural Mobility and Diaspora: The Case of Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock 191

The concept of trans-culturalmigration broughtinto focus means the process through which aEuropean field of knowledge is created, and whereexternal, foreign, and subordinateelements are included within certain procedures: they maydeal with translation, loan, rewriting,and modification both of the elements and of the whole field from within itself,tothe point of determiningan innovation in the network of the free exchangeofideas, texts,and themes among European cultures.Sometimesmigration mayregardspecific works or authorsthat rise to pan-European canonicalvalues; at othertimes thereare genuine migrations of individuals or of whole communities thatdetermine drastic epistemologicalchanges in the European culturalfield. The most advanced research has dwelt on the elements of mobility within the diaspora through which each culture createsitself and temporarilyestab- lishes itself in anon-linear way, by dint of loans and adaptations of elements of othercultures, both near and far in time as in space. Cultural values are not in fact rigid and pre-arranged, but the result of aconstant process, at times chaoticand unpredictable, of fluctuation and evolution; it is the product of anegotiation, founded upon the dialectic between conservation and innovation.

What is at issue todayisnot the essentializedoridealized Arnoldian notion of ‘culture’ as an architectonic assemblage of the Hebraic and the Hellenic. In the midst of the multicultural wars we are surprisinglycloser to an insight from T.S. Eliot’s Notes towardsthe Def- inition of Culture,where Eliot demonstrates acertain incommensurability,anecessary im- possibilityinthinkingculture. Facedwith the fatal notion of aself-contained European culture and the absurd notion of an uncontaminated culture in asingle country,hewrites: “We arethereforepressed to maintain the ideal of aworld culture, while admittingthat it is somethingwecannot imagine. We can onlyconceive it as the logicalterm of the relations between cultures.”¹³

If culturenow has become amigratory concept,italso has to do with the elim- ination of border lines. If we want to stand for and defend the unhomely, migratory and partial nature of culture we must go back to the archaic meaning of ‘boundary.’ The translation of cultures is acomplex act that generates borderline effects and identifications (culturesympathyand cultureclash).¹⁴ What emergesisthe notion of apolycentric Europe, wherethe boundaries of national literatures have come to terms with other kinds of diversified, discon- tinuous and dis-homogeneous European culturalboundaries. This conception of

 Homi K. Bhabha, “Culture’sIn-Between,” in Questions of Cultural Identity,ed. Stuart Hall, Paul du Gay(LosAngeles, London: Sage, ): –, .  Bhabha, “Culture’sIn-Between,” . 192 Daniela Carpi

European culturecomprises national entitiesand identitiesthatare distinct and often in competition with one another.Inthis respect,asUmbertoEco reminds us in La ricerca della lingua perfetta,¹⁵ the tower of Babel comes to represent no longer acurse, but the emblemofthe culturalvitality of Europe. We must consider that lawisanintrinsic part of the culturalpanorama of every historical period: “We speak of aculturalanalysis of law, of lawasculture and culture as law, of the use of cultural studies methodologytointerpret the law, of lawasaculturalartifact.”¹⁶ Thereforeinapost-diasporaworld we must invent new juridical languages that maybefit for human coexistence. The richness of European cultural identity comes to be located preciselyinthe culturaldiversification of its micro-spaces. The challengethen is to rethink Europe in terms of cultural identity that is rooted in difference. Multiplicity,plurality,difference, otherness, unity in diversity: these seem to be the keywords around which the notionofEuropean identity can be constructed. Integration is not aflatteningprocessofuniformity, instead it means culturaldiversity coupled with equality of opportunity.Integra- tion within multiculturalism has involved the creation of structuresinwhich the incorporation of immigrants and ethnic minorities (the resultofdiaspora) goes side by side with the recognitionoftheir culturaldiversity.¹⁷

Lawgives form to our wayoflife, which brings us inside an anthropological perspective where lawisadiscourse amongthe discourses of society.[…]Law exists in culture: if it shapes the relations of acertain community,law also shapes culture and is in its turn shaped by it.Law creates the conditions of culture to some degree. However the creation of a transnational community is now beingformed in aEuropean society,which promotes new shared values.Onone hand lawdefends tradition, but on the other hand it helps re- shape it so as to makeitprogress thus avoiding inertia.¹⁸

We should investigate how choices and backgrounds of members of the same multicultural society affect their values, attitudes and opinions towards the lawand the legal system.

 Umberto Eco, La ricerca della lingua perfetta (Bari: Laterza, ); TheSearch for the Perfect Language (London: Blackwell, ).  Daniela Carpi, “Lawand culture,” in Dialogues on Justice: European Perspectives on Law and Humanities,ed. Helle Porsdam (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, ): –, .  See Ali Rattansi, Multiculturalism (Oxford: OxfordUP, ).  Carpi, “Lawand Culture,” . Cultural Mobility and Diaspora: The Case of Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock 193

Legal culture, likegeneral culture, is abodyofideas, values and attitudes.Wecan talk about the legalculture of acommunity;this does not mean, of course, that everybody shares the same ideas – what we refertoare patterns, tendencies,trends.¹⁹

What has been the impact of migration on the attitudes towards law? Multicul- turalism maypose athreat to the viability of democratic institutions. Tyler asserts that “as nature of Americansociety changes toward amosaic model, the question whether and how democratic processes can be maintainedbecomes natural to discussions of publicpolicy.”²⁰ It is hard to find asolution to the problems caused by diasporaand cultural mobilityfor what concerns the legal system: what sort of legal code should be applied if anorm satisfies one group but impinges on the freedom of another?

Liberalism does allow for an interpretation of equal rights that requiresthe statetogrant the equal coexistenceofmajority and minority cultures; and that it should do so in terms of individualrights to culturalmemberships of various sorts.This conception is liberal in so far as it follows Dworkin in assumingthe priority of individual rights over collective goals or goods,including goods which depend on the maintenanceofcollective identities.Collec- tive rights, hedgingcollective identities,may become dangerousorevenillegitimate as they violatebasic individualrights.²¹

The onlypossiblesolution to this legal impasseisattemptingtokeep human rights in mind. The Human Rights Declaration is asupra-national code that considers the basic rights of each individual independentlyofhis/her national origin. The development of aculturalrights agenda goes parallel with the recognition thatminorities have the right to retain the recognition of their distinctive cultures. It is possibletosee the rise of multiculturalism as part of awider struggle for human equalitythatfollowed the end of Second World War. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 ushered in anew era which in principle distanced itself from pre-1945ideas of racial, national, and ethnic superiority and inferiority,typified by the Nazis.²²

 LawrenceM.Friedman, “Is thereaModern LegalCulture?,” Ratio Juris,  (): –, .  TomR.Tyler, “Multiculturalims and the Willigness of Citizens to Defer to Lawand to Legal Authorities,” Law and Social Inquiry . (): –, .  JürgenHabermas, “Multiculturalism and the Liberal State,” StanfordLaw Review . (): –, .  Rattansi, Multiculturalism, . 194 Daniela Carpi

2. Operation Shylock

Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock (1993)²³ is avery good example of how literature deals with the concept of Diaspora, cultural mobility,and law, though from a subverted perspective. Operation Shylock is acase of the psychological examination of stolen identities. “Roth waswearingthe mask of his mythic self in acharacter haunted by his double and namesake.”²⁴ Roth’schallengeinthis novel is thatofmerging personal and tribal obsessions,

to expose as inherentlyabsurd the presumption that this successful writer or the Jewish StateorJewish people weresecure. Israel was asovereign stateyet much of the world still questionedthe legitimacyofJewish existence, however defined.²⁵

In this novel Roth discusses afundamental historical problem in aparadoxical and ironic way, using arecurringfigure in his novels, that of the doppelgänger: Philip Roth meets Philip Roth, whom he considers an impostor. The line between fact and fiction is blurred because it is the fake Philip Roth who proposes the theory of diasporism and alsobecause real historical characters and events, such as Appelfeld, the Demjanjuk trial, and Lec Walesa,merge with invented ones, such as Roth’sdouble and Ziad. Thingsare made even more complex by the fact thatthe real and the fake Roth (in the course of the novel called Moishe Pipik [“pipik” in Yiddish means “bellybutton”]todistinguish him) exchange personality and ideas, so that for most of the novel it is the real Philip Roth who sustains the principles of Diasporism. As for the character of Ziad, he represents the opposite of the AmericanZionist: he is the Arab who has returned from the diasporaagainst all personal advantage because he is obsessed by his patrimony: the Palestinian cause. Ziad sustains that “the AmericanDiaspora has opened Jews to their best potential while Israel has shrunk them into narrow bigots.”²⁶ The reactions to this novel wereobviously conflictual and Roth was confirmed as the enfantterrible of literature.However Iamnot concernedwith the novel’sgeopolitical themes or with the perspectivesonthe Holocaust,the State of Israel, or even the future of Jewish life in America,but with the concept

 Philip Roth, Operation Shylock [](London: Vintage, ). Further references in the text,abbreviated as “OS”.  Alan Cooper, Philip Roth and the Jews (New York: SUNY Press, ): .  Cooper, Roth and the Jews, –.  Cooper, Roth and the Jews, . Cultural Mobility and Diaspora: The Case of Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock 195 of Diasporaand Diasporism discussed in the novel. The novel extensively debates the concept of Diasporabut if, as far as we have theorized in the first part of the essay, Diasporaisseparation and dispersal, for Roth Diaspora means reunification and merging.Zionism and Diasporaare put at variance: if Zionismmeantthe foundation of the State of Israel and the creation of aJewish fatherland for the dispersed Jews, Roth’sperspective is that of sending the Jews back to the nation they had fled from, so as to recover their lost European roots.

‘Diasporism: The OnlySolution to the Jewish Problem.’ AlecturebyPhilip Roth; discussion to follow:6.00p.m. Suite511. KingDavid Hotel. Refreshments.(OS,18)

This announcement is the starting point of the novel; the title of the lecture has itself many ironical innuendos. First of all, it plays with the Nazi idea of the Final Solution and with what they defined as the Jewishproblem. Second, it introduces the figure of the double, thus alsoplaying with the idea of the individual in the Diasporaasasplit personality in search of himself. Third, it sets the debate at the very coreofJudaism, giventhe name of the hotel: we understand thatthe solution will be apossible wayout of the problem of Jewish survivalinEastern Europe. Fourth, it mischievouslyplunges the whole into ordinary surroundings, “refreshments,” as if to deflate the terrible burden of the problem. The ‘real’ Philip Roth is experiencing the “disaster of self-abandonment” (OS,22),asense of deracination also due to amedicalpill, Halcion, he had been swallowing that causes asense of alienness and hallucinatory states. The situation that originates everything is ametaphor for the psychological condition of the diasporic individual that is not at ease with his own self, has lost contact with the external world and has lost his self-assurance, which prevents him from doing what his occupation had always been: being awriter.Halcion becomes the cause for the inner deracination experiencedbythe character who feels separated from himself: it is an imageofthe effects of diasporaon aperson who does not consider himself anylongerathome in the world. The effects of the pill are similar to those caused by adiasporaconsciousness:a loss of contact with the external world and the loss of the qualities that characterized Roth as an individual, the separation from his ownculturalworld, and his loss of asense of identity and belonging. Roth’sdouble is politically very active and is concerned with bringingthe resettlement of Jews in Poland to apositive solution. He is the one concerned with diasporism. “The reason for my visit to Walesa was to discuss the resettlement of Jews in Poland once Solidaritycomes to power there, as it will” (OS,31), he asserts duringaninterview.The journalist heads the article: “Philip Roth 196 Daniela Carpi meets Solidarity Leader.[…]Poland needs Jews –Walesa tells Author in Gdansk” (OS,31).

“Everyone speaks about Jews,” Walesa told Roth. “Spain was ruined by the expulsion of the Jews,” the Solidarity Leader said during their two-hour meeting at the Gdansk shipyards, where Solidarity was born in 1980. “When people saytome: What Jewwould be crazy enough to come here? Iexplain to them that the long experience, over manyhundreds of years,ofJews and Poles together cannot be summed up with the word ‘anti-Semitism.’ Let’stalk about athousand years of glory rather than four years of war.” (OS,31)

The fact thatPoland is unthinkable without Jews stresses the idea thatanew positive diasporashould arise which would once more reconstitute the old pop- ulationthat was composed also by Jews.

The so-called normalization of the Jewwas atragic illusion from the very start.[…]The time has cometoreturn to the Europe that was for centuries,and remains to this day, the most authentic Jewish homeland therehas ever been, the birthplaceofrabbinic Judaism, Hasidic Judaism, Jewish secularism, socialism – on and on. The birthplace, of course, of Zionism too. But Zionism has outlivedits historical function.The time has come to renew in the Eu- ropean Diaspora our pre-eminent spiritual and cultural role. Roth, whoisfearful of asecond Jewish Holocaust in the Middle East,sees Jewish resettlement […]asahistorical as well as aspiritual victory over Hitler and Auschwitz. (OS,32)

What the second Philip Roth proposes is the re-instauration of Jewish culture in Europe, aculturewhich would involvethe Jews as an integralpart of Western civilization. Instead of arguing along national or religious lines, Pipik posits cultural space as amajor site of Jewish identity.²⁷ The question of Jewish survivalisalsoacultural problem. Paradoxically, in this case the diasporic feeling of deracination is not solvedbythe creation of a new independent JewishState, foundedonJewishreligious laws and customs, but instead on akind of reverse diaspora, whereJews go back to the mixed kind of civilization they had helped create. This new diasporawould be acrea- tive one, apositive one because “Israel is no longer in the Jewishinterest.Israel has become the gravest threat to Jewish survivalsince the end of World War Two” (OS,41):

[F]or the European Jews Israel has been an exile and no more, asojourn, atemporary in- terlude in the European sagathat it is time to resume. (OS, 42)

 Ursula Zeller, “Between goldene medine and Promised Land. Legitimizingthe American Jew- ish Diaspora,” in Diasporaand Multiculturalism: Common Traditions and New Developments,ed. Fludernik (Amsterdam,New York: Overseas Press, ): –, . Cultural Mobility and Diaspora: The Case of Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock 197

In other words from this perspective Zionismhas failed because it has not been able to create astate that compensatesfor the sense of alienness thatJews had always experienced as aseparate ethnic group within the different nations they had inhabited. If Diasporameans asituation of non-assimilation, if it involves aperceived identity differenceofthe diasporagroup when contrastedwith society’sdominant culturaland religious norms and orientations, we certainlycannot speak of adiasporic consciousness in the case of the Israeli Jews. As anation Israel is grounded in Jewish rules and laws: it is the materialization of all Jewishcre- dos, asocio-legal construction of acommon space, the wilful creation of an ‘ideal’ Jewish environment through religious identity.The Jews cannot help but identify with the nation they themselves have helped create. Still Israeli identity is artificial because the spread of the Jews throughout Europe developed parallel to the evolution of Europe itself to which they contributed. Even though anti-Semitism is unfortunately still very much present,the Jews have been part of the European culturalpanorama for centuries and they probablyidentify more with their European nations of origin thanwith the artificial sort of community that has been created in Israel. At least,this is the theory advanced by Moishe Pipik in Roth’snovel. Israel now has become the exile land for the Jews, while their resettlingintheir European homeland would be aculturalreintegration. As Emmanuel Levinas writes: “The creation of the State of Israelrevealedto Jews themselves, to the great surprise of some of them,the depth of their enroot- edness in Western countries.”²⁸ In Operation Shylock twoopposing views of diasporaare discussed: on the one hand we have,asithas been by now sufficientlydiscussed, the idea that apositive diaspora should be created in Europe, whereeach Jewishethnic group forming the State of Israel would recover its place of origin; on the other hand there is the widelyscattered group of “diasporaJews” who

constituteapool of foreign nationals such as no other intelligenceagencyinthe world can call on for loyalservice.This is an immeasurable asset.The security demands of this tiny stateare so great that,without these Jews to help, it would be in avery bad way. (OP,384)

In other words, for the survivalofIsrael, the Jews of the Diasporaliving all over the world, but especiallyinthe United States,are necessary because of their loyalty and financial support.AccordingtoDiasporastudies we have thus both a literal concept of Diaspora(involving alsothe connection of the Diasporagroups

 Emmanuel Levinas, Difficult Freedom: EssaysonJudaism [](Baltimore:Johns Hopkins UP, ): . 198 Daniela Carpi with each otheracross the world) and an unusual, subversive concept,according to which apositive perspective is the one promotingare-unification of each single group to its state of origin.

Diasporism seeks to promote the dispersion of the Jews in the West,particularlythe resettlement of Israeli Jews of European background in the European countries where therewere sizable Jewish populationsbeforeWorld WarTwo.Diasporism plans to rebuild everything, not in an alien and menacingMiddle East but in those very lands where everythingonce flourished, while, at the same time, it seeks to avert the catastrophe of asecond Holocaust broughtabout by the exhaustion of Zionism as apolitical and ideological force.Zionism undertook to restore Jewish life and the Hebrewlanguagetoaplacewhereneither had existed with anyrealvitality for nearlytwo millennia. (OS,44)

In anycase both the diasporic and anti-diasporic perspectiveswould help create asupra-national territory rooted in ethnic and religious affinity,with the exclusion of bordered, segmented spaces.This would involvethe actualization of a continuous cultural mobility within asort of striated space represented by the different cultural groups.Inthis waythe Jewishcommunity would form a “heterotopian space generated through enlargement practices(ideological supra-territory) and sovereign place (nationalterritory).”²⁹

Diasporism is presented as arepetition of Zionism, in that it echoes the underlyingidea of returningtoaprevious homeland. However,itisalso areversal of Zionism, a “retroversion, aturningback, the very thingthat Zionism itself oncewas.” (OS,158)

Just as Zionismimplicitlynegated the history of the Diaspora, diasporism negates thatofZionism.³⁰ What is objected to is that this would createasecond flight of the Jews, in this case aflight towardlife and not from life. Such aDiasporawould mean rep- aration for theirpast sufferings,would alsorepresent justicerestored, because it would not be re-entry as refugees but as “an orderlypopulation transfer with an international legal basis, with restoration of property,ofcitizenship and of all national rights” (OS,46). Thisisafundamental perspective,because the lawwould be involved and would ‘sanctify’ such an operation. The violation of the rights of the Jews was made possiblebythe principles of the nation state since it did not respect human rights as such, but onlythoserights belongingto

 Emma Patchett, “The Right to Free Movement as Temporal Deterritorialization in the Land- scaped Garden,” Polemos . (): –.  Sophia Lehman, “Exodus and Homeland: The Representation of Israel in Saul Bellow’s To Jerusalem and Back and Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock,” Religion &Literature . (): –, . Cultural Mobility and Diaspora:The Case of Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock 199 citizensrecognized by the state. In the event of this kind of diaspora, their human personhood and their rights as citizens would emerge and they would be legallyreintegrated into the state. Thisnew Jewishreality would be based on principles of historical justice. Moreover,the close connection between the idea of the free movement of persons and citizenship is one of the fundamental principles of the European Union.

Iknow that people call Diasporism arevolutionary idea, but it’snot arevolution that I’m proposing, it’saretroversion,aturningback, the very thingZionism itself oncewas.You go back to the crossingpoint and cross back the other way. Zionism went back toofar,that’s what went wrong with Zionism. Zionism went back to the crossing point of the dispersion – Diasporism goes back to the crossing point of Zionism. (OS,158)

ForMoishe Pipik, Diasporism would take the place of by-now-superseded Zion- ism: Zionismnolonger has the political and moral function it used to have.In the past it had the functionofgatheringtogether ascattered and persecuted people, thus giving them alegal and geopolitical spaceinwhich to recover their religious identity;now there is the necessity to reintegrate their culturalheritage within their European roots.

Diaspora [in this case is seen] at its parasitic worst,asitprojects its own image onto a mythic incarnation of Israel without makinganaccount of its own specificities. […] Astate of perpetual estrangement,dispersion is onlybarelyremedied by wayofadensely wovenweb of rules legislatingsocial life.³¹

However Diasporahas always been the normal condition for Jews, who have been accustomed to it for millennia. In fact the novel offers alsoathird definition of aDiasporaJew:

it is aJew for whom authenticity as aJew means livinginthe Diaspora, for whom the Dia- spora is the normal condition and Zionism is the abnormality – aDiasporist is aJew who believes that the onlyJews whomatter arethe Jews of the Diaspora, that the onlyJews who will survive arethe Jews of the Diaspora, that the onlyJews who are Jews arethe Jews of the Diaspora. (OS,171)

In otherwords, Jews must always be involved in aDiasporaofsome sort, as if they were doomed to it.

 Maeera Y. Shreiber, “The End of Exile: Jewish Identity and ItsDiasporic Poetics,” MLA . (): –, . 200 Daniela Carpi

3. Law and Diaspora

The problem of what kind of lawshould be applied pervades the novel. In fact the ‘real’ Philip Roth would like to sue his double for being an impostorand he is meditatingonwhat charge he can bring against him: invasion of privacy?Defa- mation? Impersonation?Reckless conduct?But what lawcould be applied? At the moment when Roth is writing he is in New York while his double is in Israel ˗so what lawtoapply? Whatlegal safeguards?Such aproblem is alsocreated by culturalmobility,asIassertedabove. In fact,inthis novel we must also face aproblem of culturalmobility, because of the culturalbases which the idea of resettlement entails. If the cultural roots of each single Jewishgroup forming the State of Israel are called into question by the idea of resettlement,then the legal roots are part of the problem. Is- rael represents the place of settlement,alocal, national or even transnational place, the realization of an imagined virtual community linked by the creation of acommon languageand acommon religion, by secured borders and emphasis on the homeland. It is anation: the enemiesofthe Jews have caused the Jews to createanation as ameans of ethnicsurvival, as the solution to the sense of non-belonging they have always experiencedthroughout history,asawaytoes- tablish anational identity.

The Land and the Laware seen as mutually dependent,inthat the Land needs the Lawfor the right government of the Land, for the establishment of an ideal society,while the Law needs aspaceinorder to develop its full force.From this interrelation derivesthe Israelites’ legitimation for their territorial claims.³²

FormostIsraelis, Israel has become amodel state based on equity and fraterni- ty:itwas all tooeasy for Zionistideologues to promote the idea of creating anational homeland as an alternative to adoomed attempt at assimilation. The positive side of the state of Israel as Diasporaisthatofmobilizing acollective identity,

not onlyaplaceofsettlement or in respect to an imagined, putative or real homeland, but also in solidarity with co-ethnic membersinother countries.Bonds of language, religion, culture and asense of acommon fateimpregnatesuch atransnational relationship, and give to it an affective,intimatequality that formal citizenship or long settlement frequently lack.³³

 Zeller, “Between goldene medine and Promised Land,” .  Cohen, Global Diasporas, . Cultural Mobility and Diaspora:The Case of Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock 201

If anew diasporaistoexist,itmust be on different grounds than formerly. The concept of lawwould in this caserespect the concept of the heterotopian space³⁴ in its juxtaposition of ethnicities and diverse environments.This diasporainre- verse would re-create anationalidentity in contrasttoasupra-national identity represented by DiasporaJews supporting the state of Israel from all over the world, and thus keepingconnected with each other.Weare torn between “auto- pian sense of home [Zionism]and the cleaving segmentarity of aheterotopian site [Diasporism].”³⁵ Such deterritorialization of the Jewish population would create an inter-legal space which is the consequence of diasporic migrations. In this waythe idea of Diasporism mergeswith the idea of flexible citizenship that has been debated over the past few decades,especiallyafter the Cold War. Aperson can retain double citizenship: the one of the nation he has been forced to go to (also for work reasons) and the one of the nation of origin. This is particularlythe case in Operation Shylock,wherePhilip Roth livesbe- tween two nations, America and Israel, living in between alsotwo legal systems. He does not know at what jurisdiction he must apply to have justice against Pipik: his splitpersonality is reflected both in the production of his double and in this double legal perspective.Infact Rawls contrasts ashared concept of justicetovarious conflictingconceptions of justice.

The concept of justice, applied to an institution,means, say, that the institution makes no arbitrary distinctions between persons in assigning basic rights and duties […]and that its rules establish aproper balancebetween competingclaims […]People can agreeonthe meaningofjusticeand still be at odds,sincethey affirm different principlesand standards for decidingthese matters.³⁶

This is particularlytrue because

within the dominant American culture, Israel has been perceivedhistoricallyasarepetition of the ideology which spawned the creation of the UnitedStates, thus establishingapar- ticularlycomplex connection for American Jews.³⁷

 Heterotopia is aconcept elaboratedbyFoucaulttodescribe those spaces that areconnected to all other spaces, while in some wayneutralizing and invertingall the connections they them- selvesdefine, reflect or replicate. They arespaces of otherness,simultaneouslyphysical and mental. See Michel Foucault, “Of Other Spaces: Heterotopias,” Architecture, Mouvement, Contin- uité  (): –.  Patchett, “The Right to Free Movement,” forthcoming.  John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia UP, ):  n. .  Lehman, “Exodusand Homeland,” . 202 Daniela Carpi

Earlyimmigrants from Europe considered America in Messianic terms as the Promised Land. America’sown Biblical tradition envisions aJewish correlative to Christian America.

Jewish immigration to the U.S.A, likethe Zionist immigration to Palestine, was nurtured also by idealistic motives, by the belief in the Jewish – and the liberal American – values of freedom and equality.³⁸

This double sense of belonging characterizes also Philip Roth in the novel as he feels astrongumbilicalconnection to Israel while living in America and having Americannationality.This situation mirrors acommon aspect of the contemporary world wherethe possibilityofadouble nationalityand adouble passport widens the concept of citizenship and can be set in the ideological debate between Diasporaand centre.

The multiple passport-holder is an aptcontemporary figure; he or she embodies the split between state-imposed identity and personal identity caused by political upheavals,migration and changingglobal markets.³⁹

Giventhe spreadingofmodern communication and nomadism, passports have become not so much attestations of citizenship as claims of participation in global markets. But this is taking the idea of diasporatoo far from the intent of this essay. However,wecannot resolve conflictingloyalties except by recoursetouni- versalmoral obligations to act justly.Asociety of peoples should be created, in Rawls’ terms,whose

system of lawmust be guided by acommon good conception of justice […]that takesim- partiallyinto account whatitsees not unreasonablyasthe fundamentalinterests of all members of society.⁴⁰

The fulfilment of this condition would be rooted in the application of human rights, which include aright to subsistenceand security,freedom from slavery, as well as formal equalityexpressed by arespect for naturalrights. Even in diasporic cases such rights should be the basis of acommon existence.

 Zeller, “Between goldene medine and Promised Land,” .  Ahiwa Ong, Flexible Citizenship:the Cultural Logic of Transnationality (Durham:DukeUP, ): .  John Rawls, “The LawofPeoples” in On Human Rights, The Oxford Amnesty Lectures,ed. Stephen Shute,Susan Hurley (New York: Basic Books, ): –, . Cultural Mobility and Diaspora:The Case of Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock 203

4. Conclusions

What is dealt with in this novel is on the one hand apossible solution to Eastern European political problems,but on the other hand the situation of Roth as a loyal and sincereJew,here evidentlyironic. “Let your Jewish consciencebe your guide” are Smilesburger’sclosing words to the real Philip Roth. This statement emphasizes acommon Jewish element which transcends both national allegiances and differences. We are constantlyinside and outside fiction, as the note to the reader at the end of the book demonstrates.Once more Roth makes fun of our quest for afinal explanation, because he declares that what he has described is aproduct of his imagination, but the closing words “This confession is false” refute his assertions at the very end, leaving the reader forever in suspense. My idea of culturalmobility as aconsequenceofDiaspora is connected to the concept of embodiment in space through territorial conceptions of belonging. The different Jewishgroups must coalescewith the European cultures they came from, thus superseding the negative imageofDiasporaand transforming the terminto aconstructive and vivifying one. To the very end of the novel we are splitbetween an appreciation of adiasporic hybrid (the artificial creation of the state of Israel formedbydifferent Jew- ish groups united onlybytheir common religion, astate conceivedasarefuge from European persecution; the double consciousness of being Jewish and American, for instance, within anation increasinglyknown for the multiple hyphenated identities it contains) and anostalgic revivalism for acoherent homeland. It is asplit between the assimilationist drive (Diasporism) and the nationalist drive (Zionism). In the course of the novel we are thrust within the ongoing tension between Zionism and Diasporism and with an uneasy awarenessofthe contradictions embodied in the security offered by ‘home,’ whether in one’sland of origin or in the traditional religious idea of ahaven. As Pipik argues, Zionism, after fulfilling its historical role of “recover[ing] Jewishhope and morale” in the immediate post-war years, has exhausted itself and in turn become “the foremost Jewish problem.”⁴¹ The novel bringstothe fore the Jewishcontradiction, pointed out by some writers,oflongingfor ahomeland and then feelingdislocated in it: “IamaJew-

 Zeller, “Between goldene medine and Promised Land,” . 204 Daniela Carpi ish writerinthe sense of writing forever about the ache to have ahome, and then having one, aching to go away thinkingthat this is not the real one.”⁴² Jewishhistory and identity are inextricablybound up with the diasporic condition.The outcome of the novel is alsoare-readingofthe very term ‘diaspora,’ which comes from the Greek dia,meaning ‘apart,’ and speirein,meaning ‘to sow.’⁴³ While in both ancient and modern thought the former meaninghas tended to dominate,the lattermeaning,with its promise of replanting, re-rooting, and subsequent growth⁴⁴ gains momentum in Operation Shylock.

 Amos Oz, “Afterthe Sound and the Fury:AnInterview,” Proof Texts  (): –, .  “Diaspora, n.” (), OED Online (acc.  Sep- tember, ).  Shreiber, “The End of Exile,” . Franziska Quabeck CulturalRights and the Politicsof Recognition in KazuoIshiguro’s Never LetMeGo

‘Homogeneous society’ is an oxymoron. While it is to be doubted that there has ever been ahomogeneous society in the history of the world, since even before the ageofcolonialism class has divided anysociety into different groups of the powerful and the oppressed, in this dayand agehomogeneity can onlybecon- sidered amyth. As Avtar Brah has shown in her influential study Cartographies of the Diaspora,people who are settled ‘in’ aplace in the twenty-first century,are “not necessarily ‘of’ it.”¹ She has argued that what she defines as “diaspora space” has changed the profile of the world in the sense that it “addresses the global condition of culture, economics and politics as asite of ‘migrancy’ and ‘travel’ which seriously problematizes the subject position of the ‘native’.”² The idea of the native,asaperson rooted in aspecific country and culture, who belongstothe locality they find themselvesin, has become obsolete for the majority of the population of the world. Anditisthis general uprootedness of human beingsthat has changed in avery general waythe human condition per se,asRobin Cohen argues: “[T]he sense of uprootedness,disconnection, loss and estrangement,which the traditionally-recognized diasporas hitherto morally appropriated, maynow signify something more general about the human condition.”³ Human beingsthatpopulate the earth in the present more often thannot are dispersed from ahomeland, have migrated voluntarilyorare born in places they have no ancestral roots to, which contests the idea of belonginganywhere for the gros of human kind, accordingtoCohen:

One of the most important features of modernity was that the leaders of powerful, hegemonic nation-states soughttomakeexclusive citizenship a sine qua non. The world is simply

 Avtar Brah, Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities (London, New York: Routledge, ): .  Brah, Cartographies, .  Robin Cohen, Global Diasporas:AnIntroduction,second ed. (London, New York: Routledge, ): . 206 Franziska Quabeck

not likethat anymore; the scopefor multiple affiliations and associations that has been opened up outside and beyond the nation-statehas also allowedadiasporic allegiance to become both moreopen and moreacceptable. Thereisnolonger anystability in the points of origin, no finality in the points of destination and no necessary coincidencebe- tween social and national identities.⁴

The fact that the world is “not like that anymore,” however,leadstovery serious questions as to how people live in the world, how they can develop asense of belongingthatisindependent from alocal rootedness and in how far they are integratedinthe society they live in forcefullyorvoluntarily.⁵ How does a place become ahomeand what social, cultural, political conditions must prevail for the individual to maintain or develop asense of identity in aforeign place? As Brah has pointed out,this question of home “is intrinsicallylinked with the […]way in which processes of inclusion or exclusion operate and are subjectively experiencedunder givencircumstances. It is centrallyabout our political and personal struggles over the social regulations of ‘belonging’.”⁶ These conditions,which Brah terms “social regulations,” will be in the focus of this article; Iwill arguethatthese social regulations, which mayormay not allow ahuman being to feel at home in acertain society and locality, must include the recognitionofthe individual’sculturalrights, which might be at odds with their host society.Yet they must receive duerecognition, since cultural rights are constitutive elements of aperson’sidentity and thereforeintegralto their personhood. In the second part of my article Iwill attempt to show how vital recognition in this context is by applying these concepts to Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go,which portraysthe oppressive power of alack of recognition. Cultural rights are human rights, in the sense that they must be protected in order to allow the individual to develop their very own person in freedom and respect,asthe International Covenant on Civil and PoliticalRights clearlystates: “[T] he ideal of freehuman beingsenjoying civil and political freedom and freedom from fear and want can onlybeachievedifconditionsare created whereby

 Cohen, Global Diasporas, .  One must,ofcourse,distinguish between the migrant and the diasporic, if onlyfor the crucial differenceofbeingplaced out of one’sown free will or not.Betty Joseph argues that in “the scene of displacement,the immigrant and the diasporic mayshareacommon new home and acountry of origin, but they aredistinguishable by their distancefromthe communities to which their belongingispredicated.” Betty Joseph, “Cultural Forms and World Systems:The Eth- nic Epic in the New Diaspora,” in New Routes for Diaspora Studies,ed. Sukanya Banerjee, Aims McGuinness, Steven C. McKay (Bloomington, Indianapolis:Indiana UP,): –, .  Brah, Cartographies, . Cultural Rights and the Politics of Recognition in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go 207 everyone mayenjoy his civiland political rights, as well as his economic, social and cultural rights.”⁷ Moreover,this statute becomes infinitesimallymoreim- portant in the case of our pluralist societies, which are majorlyconstituted by human beingswho try to define themselvesbyaculturalheritagewhich is at odds with the location they are placed in. The loss of ahomeland is part of people’sexistence in the world and this can cause severe ramifications for aperson’s identity,asVijayMishraargues:

Traumatic moments heighten the sense of mourningoccasioned by aprior ‘death’ of the homeland which in asense is part of the entity,the dasein,ofthe subject.There is no im- mediatecure for the condition because the loss remains abstract; it is not compensated for by happiness in the new nation-stateand is thereforeinternalized as the emptiness of the egoitself. It leads to retreat into essentialist diasporic instrumentalities such as places of worship (church, temple, mosque) or into social collectivities from which both the nation state’sdominant racial group as wellasother diasporas areexcluded.⁸

This emptiness of the egoistobeavoided at all costs and acentral means to this end is the duerecognitionofthe individual’sculturalrights. As VijayMishra points out,the motive of compensation that arises due to the loss of the homeland is naturallydirected at the person’sculturalbelonginginthe widest sense and this must entail that human beingshavethe right to exercise their cultural performance as being of acertain cultureindependent from their locale. And this required recognition entails not onlysocial recognition between individuals on a minor scale, but ideallyalsolegal recognition on the major scale, as increasingly more legal theorists argueinthe present day.

As all societies become more pluralist all over the world, accordingtoCharles Taylor,they simultaneouslybecome more “porous,”⁹ which has severe ramifica-

 United Nations, “Preamble: International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights” (), Unit- ed Nations Human Rights: Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (acc. March , ).  VijayMishra, TheLiteratureofthe Indian Diaspora: Theorizing the Diasporic Imaginary (Oxon: Routledge, ): .  Charles Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition,” in Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition,ed. AmyGutmann (Princeton: Princeton UP,): .Taylor’sterm multiculturalism has been heavilycriticized for along time now and Iwill not use it for my own theory,but the politics of recognition is ahighlyrelevantconcept in post-colonial theory to my mind. 208 FranziskaQuabeck tions on anysociety’sculture. People of the most numerous and diverse backgrounds constitutethe demographic landscape of anyofthe modern states, which causes an equivalent diversity in anysociety’sculturallandscape and the question arisestowhat extent people can freelyexercise their various cultural habits.This is what Taylor means when he speaks of the “porousness” of modern societies:

Their porousness means that they aremoreopen to multinational migration; moreoftheir members live the life of diaspora, whose center is elsewhere. In these circumstances, there is somethingawkward about replyingsimply, “This is how we do things here.” […]The awkwardness arises from the fact that there aresubstantial numbers of people whoare citizens and also belongtothe culture that calls into question our philosophical boundaries.[…] This brings us to the issue of multiculturalism as it is often debated today, which has a lot to do with the imposition of some cultures on others,and with the assumed superiority that powers this imposition.¹⁰

Crucially, the awkwardness arises first and foremost through the fact that in modernsocietiesthereisno‘we’ anymore thatcould imposeonthe stranger how to behave.This fact,however,isnot acknowledgedasthoroughly as it should be on different planes: discoursesofnationalism, social interaction and, most importantly, the law. As WernerMenski self-criticallyproclaims,as lawyers, “we are still far too entrenched in modernist,positivist,colonial frameworks of mind […]. We stubbornlyrefuse to recognize thatthis is entirelyout of tune with new demographic and socio-legal realities and trends.”¹¹ Thus, adis- crepancyhas arisenbetween European legal systems and the variety of citizens they ought to govern and this discrepancy is first and foremost felt by legal theorists and lawyers themselves. The legal code in existence is simplyinadequate to account for ajust treatment of all of its state’smembers, so that it needsto adjust to the reality of acompletelydifferent demography. As anthropologist Roger Ballardargues:

Plurality is aphenomenon and as such has been an integral part of the social order.Wheth- er or not lawyers, the lawand the courts feel comfortable with the prospect of responding

 Taylor, “Politics of Recognition,” .  Werner F. Menski, “RethinkingLegal Theory in the Light of South-North Migration,” in Mi- gration, Diaporas and Legal Systems in Europe,ed. Prakash Shah, Werner Menski (London, New York: Routledge Cavendish, ): –, . Cultural Rights and the Politics of Recognition in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go 209

positively to growing plurality,itseems quiteclear that it is lawwhich ultimatelyhas to bend to the realities of the extant social activity,rather than vice-versa.¹²

Thus, in 2004 legal theorists gathered in order to address this discrepancy between existing laws and the outdated cultural and sociological basis they wereformedon. The frequency of migration, the number of immigrantsand the formation of diasporas in states all over Europe requireadifferent perspective on societies and the necessity arises to formulate legal codes that can account for this plurality and subvert the common notion of “this is how we do thingshere.” As Menski points out,much of contemporary legal practice is still built on the idea that “they have to assimilate to us and our values. After all, they have come here, into our territory and thereforejurisdiction.”¹³ Similarly, Roger Ballard drawsattention to the fact that this misguided principle is still prevalent in much contemporary legal thinking: “[I]f members of minority groups fail to follow the injunction ‘when in Rome, do as the Romans do’,pre- ferring instead doggedlytofollow their own alternative conventions, they have onlythemselvestoblame if this leads them into trouble with the law.”¹⁴ Howev- er,ancient Romans and Roman territory have disappeared and this fact must be acknowledgedbythe law, if it is to distribute justiceinthe sense that legal rep- resentativesaspire to. Distinctions of we and they are impossibletomake in the modernnation state and this fact should guide modern jurisdiction, for otherwise “there is avery real prospect that amiscarriageofjusticewilloccur.”¹⁵ This call for the law’sacknowledgement of its subjects’ conditions thus necessarilyevokes the question of culture: in atime when subjects and citizens come from all kinds of different cultural backgrounds,which includevalues and norms they believein, ahuman being’sculturalrights gain crucial importance when confronted with the law. This imposes ageneral awareness on those involved in the distribution of justice, which Roger Ballard summarizes in four principles:

[I]f justiceistobedeliveredonanequitable basis,all those involved in the delivery process should at the very least be awarethat:

 RogerBallard, “Ethnic Diversity and the Delivery of Justice: The Challenge of Plurality,” in Migration, Diaporas and Legal Systems in Europe,ed. Prakash Shah, Werner Menski (London,- New York: Routledge Cavendish, ): –, .  Menski, “RethinkingLegal Theory,” .  Ballard, “Ethnic Diversity,” .  Ballard, “Ethnic Diversity,” . 210 Franziska Quabeck

– everyone without exceptionorder their thought and behaviour within aculturaland ideological framework of some kind; – those frameworks arecontextual, and hence that individuals whohaveacquired the necessary culturalcompetence mayorder their behaviour according to differingpremises as they movefromcontexttocontext; – the framework within which one routinelyoperates is far from beinguniversallyappli- cable;other frameworks, grounded in alternative conceptual orders, appear just as reasonable, rational, sensible and comfortable to their users as one’sown taken-for-granted assumptions […].¹⁶

Thus, not onlymust the culturalcontexts of the human being under jurisdiction be acknowledged, but in avery general sense distribution of true justice has to account for an individual’scultureinthe sense of their beliefs, their customs, their literature and anything else thatmight fall under this category,because an oppression of these elements of aperson’sidentity has in the history of the world toooftenbeen equated with the oppression and/or destruction of entire peoples. As Elsa Stamatopoulou pointsout,the “neglect of cultural rights has hiddenone of the most disgraceful and violent parts of human history:that of states knowingly and deliberatelyoppressingand even annihilatingcommuni- ties.”¹⁷ This is whyWernerMenski concludes that “[w]e have to rethink how we handle ethnic diversity and socio-cultural differenceinlaw within our jurisdiction in Europe and North America. […]Global legal realism demands recognition of the intrinsic plurality of all law.”¹⁸

The precept of legal recognition that is due to anyhuman being thus gains in- creasingsignificanceinanage of globalization and migration, wherethe individual is in constant commotion and thereforeconstantlyconfronted with different contexts and the urge to belong.AsIain Chambers emphasizes:

To come fromelsewhere,from ‘there’ and not ‘here’,and hence to be simultaneously ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the situation at hand, is to live at the intersections of histories and mem-

 Ballard, “Ethnic Diversity,” .  Elsa Stamatopoulou, “MonitoringCultural Human Rights:The Claims of Culture on Human Rights and the Response of Cultural Rights,” Human Rights Quarterly . (): –, .  Menski, “RethinkingLegal Theory,” . Cultural Rights and the Politics of Recognition in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go 211

ories,experiencingboth their preliminary dispersal and their subsequent translation into new,moreextensive,arrangements alongemergingroutes.¹⁹

The oppositionbetween here and there, inside and outside, necessarilyraises the question of belonging and of home. Home, as mentioned before, becomes adifficult concept,since it cannot be defined along the lines of location anymore, but inevitablyturns into aconcept that depends on people, rather than places.AsAvtar Brah has argued, in this sense home “connotes our networks of family, kin, friends, colleagues and various other ‘significant others’.”²⁰ “Sig- nificant others,” Iwill arguehowever,are not necessarilypersons in close personal connection to the individual, but basicallyeveryone they are surrounded by in country,town, or general community.The individual as being different is constantlyconfronted with others who are different and thus oddities are confronted with oddity.AsChambers has it,the migrant or diasporic inevitably “experience[s] the violence of alterity,ofother worlds,languages and identities, and there finally discover[s] [their] dwelling to be sustained across encounters, dialogues and clashes with other histories,otherplaces,other people.”²¹ Since this is universal, however,same and other are embodied in every single person, and everyone is other all over the world in all kinds of contexts, which givesthe principle of recognitionits vital importance. Human beingsare “dialogicallyconstituted,” to borrowCharles Taylor’s phrase.²² They are giventhe chance to understand who they are, or rather develop an individual identity onlyininteraction with others, whose understanding of them constitutes their understanding of their own selves: “[I]t is in dialogue with otherpeople ’sunderstandingsofwho Iamthat Idevelop aconception of my own identity.Wecome into the world […]capable of human individuality but onlyifwehavethe chance to develop it in interaction with others.”²³ Thus, the formation of identity depends on the recognition receivedfrom those around us and alterity becomes the necessary condition for findingthe self. Due to this causal connection between self and other,the principle of recognition entails a moral imperative:onthe one hand, differenceand diversity must not onlyberecognized, but must be understood and accepted: “People are different […]and there is much to learn from our differences. Because there are so manyhuman possibilities worth exploring,weneither expect nor desire thatevery person or

 Iain Chambers, Migrancy,Culture, Identity (London, New York: Routledge, ): .  Brah, Cartographies, .  Chambers, Migrancy, .  Taylor, “Politics of Recognition,” .  Kwame AnthonyAppiah, TheEthics of Identity (Princeton:Princeton UP,): . 212 Franziska Quabeck every society should convergeonasingle mode of life.”²⁴ Anyone’sdifference must receive duerecognition and be considered avalue, so that they understand their own identity and feel no need to hide who they are or wherethey are from in the widest sense. This is whyrecognition becomes “avital human need”:

The demand for recognition […]isgiven urgencybythe supposed links between recognition and identity,where this latter term designatessomethinglikeaperson’sunderstandingof whothey are, of their fundamental definingcharacteristics as ahuman being. The thesis is that our identity is partlyshaped by recognition or its absence, often by the misrecognition of others, and so aperson or group of people can suffer real damage,real distortion, if the people or society around them mirror back to them aconfiningordemeaningorcontemp- tible pictureofthemselves.²⁵

Making use of Lacan’sconcept of the mirror stageasaformative element in the development of an identity,Taylor here emphasizes the element of responsibility of not mirroringbacksomething degradable, duetothe graveconsequen- ces this can have for aperson’sunderstandingofwho they are.Furthermore, the significanceofrecognition increases even more in the context of the diasporic or the migrant.Thisisagroup of people whose identity formationisconsiderably more difficult due to the “rift of separation” and rootlessness, as Stuart Hall has pointed out: “Diasporaidentities are thosewhich are constantlyproducing and reproducingthemselvesanew,through transformation and difference,”²⁶ or,as Iain Chambers has it, “identity is formed on the move.”²⁷ Moving from context to context,culturetoculture, the sense of rootlessness and the missing feeling of belonging thus make it much more difficult for people to establish their sense of identity and develop acomfortable understanding of who they are and feeling accepted as what they are:

In the case of the exile – whethernational refugee, culturaloutsider,social outcast, linguistic foreigner or rejected convert – the production of aself-definitionisconsiderably more difficultthan that facingthe citizen or the one who belongs,who can find his ready-made.²⁸

 Kwame AnthonyAppiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in aWorld of Strangers (New York, Lon- don: W. W. Norton &Company, ): xv.  Taylor, “Politics of Recognition,” –.  Stuart Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” in Community,Culture, Difference,ed. John Rutherford(London: Lawrence&Wishart, ): –, .  Chambers, Migrancy, .  Elizabeth Grosz, “Judaism and Exile: The Ethics of Otherness,” in Space &Place. Theories of Identity and Location,ed. Erica Carter, James Donald, Judith Squires(London: Lawrence&Wish- art, ): –, . Cultural Rights and the Politics of Recognition in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go 213

While Grosziscorrect in pointingtothe difficulties of understanding the self that occurs in people who have been dispersed or rejected,her attestation that the citizen who belongs finds their identity “ready-made” constitutes blatant question-begging.Nomatter their personal life stories,itishardly conceivable that anyhuman being could find their ownsense of identity ready-made for them, especiallysince rootedness is one element of identity,but questions of gender, sexuality,ethnicity,education, and class playtheir ownrole in the formation too. However,the urgency of recognition cannot be undervalued in this context and everyone has the responsibility of not mirroringback ademeaning picture. As Taylor emphasizes, “the withholding of recognition can be aform of oppression,”²⁹ since the perception of the self as someone less valuable than others causes not onlythe feelingofrejection,but is accepted as part of the imageofthe self. An individual that does not receive recognition is likelytobe- lievethatthey do not deserverecognition,which furtherstheir segregation and oppression by the rest of the society.Stuart Hall has called attention to this process of mirroringback, which has the power of making the individual see them- selvesasOther:

It is one thing to positionasubject or set of peoplesasthe Other of adominant discourse. It is quiteanother thingtosubjectthem to the ‘knowledge’,not onlyasamatter of imposed will and domination, by the powerofinner compulsion and subjective con-formation to the norm. [… ]This inner expropriation of cultural identity cripples and deforms.³⁰

The demeaning picture that is mirrored by lack of recognition is thus accepted by the self, which thereby acceptsits ownoppression and does not attempt to receive the justiceitwould be due. Thus, misrecognition is not just ameans of withholdingrespect from others, but “[i]t can inflict agrievous wound, saddling its victims with acrippling self-hatred.”³¹ Therefore, recognition must be considered to be akey concept in identity formation and this entails recognizingothers for what and who they trulyare,which entails recognition and acceptance of their culturalrights. Otherwise people might feelinclined to hide who they are and pretend to belong by means of discardingtheir ownculturalidentity.As Anupam Chander describes, people can easilyfeelinclined to “take steps to hide [their] minoritystatus, to assimilate, to pass. While it maybeimpossible to rid oneself completelyofone’sracialmarkers, thatdoes not stop one from try-

 Taylor, “Politics of Recognition,” .  Hall, “Cultural Identity,” .  Taylor, “Politics of Recognition,” . 214 Franziska Quabeck ing,atleast,tominimize difference.”³² Thisprocess of assimilation thus leads back to the principle of When in Rome and the actual diversity of contemporary society is not trulyacknowledged. Thus, recognition must be due anyone and their cultural rights must be respected, for anyother treatment bereavespeople of theirown sense of identity.

The tragic consequences that befall human beings who are deprivedoftheir rights and denied due recognition can be graphicallyseen in anovel that can justlybeconsidered to be an allegory on the livesofminorities in the present day. Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go seems to be, prima facie,about the ethical ramifications of human cloning,but acloser look at the narrative suggests a readingthat reveals the difficulties of identity formation in people who are segregated and oppressed. This dystopian novel demonstrates the emotional and psychological impact on the marginalized individual, the individual thatisde- nied recognition. In order to emphasize this condition and the dehumanizing effect this denial can have,Ishiguro has chosen to createadystopia that deprives agroup of people of their right to live.Set in contemporary yetimaginary Eng- land, the novel deals with human clones, who have been raised in aschool called Hailsham in totalisolationand exclusion from society and thus represent the marginalized, unrecognizedminorities of modernsociety.Moreover,the hy- perbole of the dystopianscenario of clones, who are kept as living resources for organ harvesting,bringstothe fore the unendurable situation of being denied the most basic rights. The clonesare denied the right to live,which serves as an allegory for the individual who suffers from the deprivation of their cultural rights. Never Let Me Go was first publishedin2005 and depicts aseemingly futur- istic scenario of asociety thatfunctions on asystem of organ harvesting.Clones are kept and raised in isolation from society in different institutions until their human counterparts in the outside world are in need of an organ donation. The clonesare then physicallyexploited over the time of several months in their earlytwenties,until they have literallynothing left to give and die, or,in the novel’srather euphemistic terms,they ‘complete.’ This plot has invited critics to concentrate on the question of bioethics and to foreground the fact that the

 Anupam Chander, “Diaspora Bonds,” New York University Law Review . (): –, . Cultural Rights and the Politics of Recognition in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go 215 novel calls into question the ramificationsofhuman cloning.Thus, accordingto Wai-chew Sim, Never Let Me Go “explore[s] […]ahotlycontested and controversial issue, namelythe ethical implications of ongoing advances in biomedicine and genetic technology” and “tapsinto our moral disquietudeoverprodigious advances in the biomedicalsciences.”³³ On the surface, this readingisperfectly valid and the epigraph England, late 1990 s suggests critical scrutinyofdevelop- ments in biotechnology, which dominated public discourse at thattime. At the same time, while the novel is not set in afuturistic science fictional scenario, it still seems to borrow from the form of the classic dystopia. Accordingtothe general definition dystopias are usually “works of fiction,includingscience fiction, thatrepresent avery unpleasant imaginary worldinwhich ominous ten- denciesofour present social, political, and technological order are projected into adisastrous future culmination.” ³⁴ As such an “ominous tendency,” human cloningplays apart in this novel and the fact thatthe characters we identify with are sentenced to death from the beginning of their livescertainly suggests an “unpleasant imaginary world.” However,asseveral critics have noticed, unlike the classic dystopian or science fiction novel, Never Let Me Go displays aremarkable lack of scientific detail or technological methods. We learn that donorsare physicallycapable of undergoing four donations at most,but that others ‘complete’ as earlyastheir second or even first.How they are kept alive between donations is entirelyglossed over and left for speculation, as well as the methodsofcreatingand raising the clones from the infant stage on. As Mark Jerng points out:

Ishiguro upsets the opposition between sciencefiction as ‘genre fiction’ and the non-mech- anistic value of the human by creatingscience-fiction without the technological. Indeed, the novel seems almost to be technology-phobic in its lack of reference to technology,es- peciallybio-technology.³⁵

In asimilar vein, Gabriele Griffin points to “the use of ordinary languagetocon- veythe biotechnological state” and the “absence of signifiers of ‘acute science’” in the novel, which defies the generic categorization as an actual novel of science fiction.³⁶ Thus, while science fiction novels usuallyrepresent “an imagined real-

 Wai-chew Sim, KazuoIshiguro (London, New York: Routledge, ): , .  M. H. Abrams, AGlossaryofLiteraryTerms,eighth ed. (Boston: Thomson, ): .  Mark Jerng, “GivingForm to Life: Cloningand Narrative Expectations of the Human,” Partial Answers:Journal of Literatureand the HistoryofIdeas . (): –, /.  Gabriele Griffin, “Scienceand the Cultural Imaginary:The Case of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, ” Textual Practice . (): –, . 216 FranziskaQuabeck ity that is radicallydifferent in its nature and functioningfrom the world of our ordinary experience,”³⁷ Never Let Me Go subverts such an alienation by creating the feeling that,overall, this world is not so entirely different from ours. Moreover,there is avitalgeneric cue of the dystopia missing in the novel too: the clones never try to break out of the system. While the classic climax of the dystopiannovel would lead to an attempt of the oppressed to undermine the oppression and changethis fictional world, Never Let Me Go is curiouslydevoid of such rebellions and even parodies the idea, as will be seen later on. These clones seem fullyaccepting of their fate and await their completion, i.e. their death in sombre quietude, which seems unnatural or even inhuman.Akey question thereforeisinhow farthe novel allows areadingofthe clones as human, and there have been several critics to claim that the text subverts aviewof the protagonists as human beings. While they are anthropomorphized and the reader is implicated in their world through the narrative focus, most critics claim that the clones seem to remain distinctlydifferent,due to the apparent in- differencetotheir confined life span. Critics have been disturbed by Kathy’s “chipper tone” and “casual blandness,” which are claimed to create “an ever in- creasingdivide between her disaffected tone and one’sown growinghorror and outrage.”³⁸ As Martin Puchner puts it: “Thislack of outragemore than anything else makes one wonder whether she is not somehow deficient,perhaps in away one might expect from amanufactured creature.”³⁹ Thus the suspicion arises that the reader is not supposed to consider these clones to be human, since it seems unnaturalthat they suffer theirfateinfull awarenesswithout the attempt at rebellion or opposition to the powers thatoppress them. Thisiswhy Shameem Black argues:

The livesofthese genetically-engineered students seem fundamentallyautomatic and mechanized: they movethrough the stagesoftheir liveswith the regularity of students pro- moted from grade to grade, seeminglyblind to the horrors that shadow their march toward sufferingand death [and] […]without the capacity to resist their own exploitation.⁴⁰

In the following Iwill argue, however,that the author’screation of the seeming passivity of the clones is not motivated by the attempt to call into question their

 Abrams, Glossary, .  Martin Puchner, “When We Were Clones,” Raritan: AQuarterly Review . (): –, .  Puchner, “When We Were Clones,” .  ShameemBlack, “Ishiguro’sInhuman Aesthetics,” Modern Fiction Studies . (): –, . Cultural Rights and the Politics of Recognition in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go 217 humanity, but rather the opposite: their passivity more than anything else proves them to be human, for it is the oppression and misrecognitionthatthey receive from the society around them, which cripplesthem and makes it impossible for them to resist.They accept their marginalization as Other duetothe perception of others thatismirrored backtothem and thus they consider themselvesright- fullydeprivedoftheir right to live and do not call into question theircategoriza- tion as second-class beings. The lifelong deprivation of recognition is addressed from the beginning of the novel, when it becomes clear that these characters are completelydistorted in their sense of themselvesand have had no opportunityofdevelop asense of identity.Asthe protagonist KathyH.begins her narrative,her introduction of herself as narrator makes it clear thatshe has no sense of identity outside of the system she is placed in:

My name is KathyH.I’mthirty-one years old, and I’ve been acarernow for eleven years. That sounds long enough,Iknow,but actuallythey want me to go on for another eight months,until the end of this year.[…]Now Iknow my beingacarersolong isn’tnecessarily because they think I’mfantastic at what Ido. […]SoI’mnot tryingtoboast.But then Ido know for afact they’ve been pleased with my work, and by and large,Ihave too.Mydonors have always tended to do much better than expected.⁴¹

KathyH.here tries to introduce herself, but the onlyterms she has to tell the reader who she reallyis, belong to the system that oppresses her.Apart from her age, there is no information givenastowho she actuallyisand the references to being acarer,her unusually calm donors and the fact that “they, ” i.e. the oppressors,are pleased with her work are the elements that she feels necessary to mention to describe herself, so thatitbecomes clear that she has no identity outside of this.This tone, the acceptanceofoppression and the internalized imageofthemselvesasOther characterize Kathy ’swhole story,sothatitisgrad- uallyrevealed under which horrible circumstances the clones grow up; and yet they are incapable of questioning them. Kathyrecalls memories of her childhood and upbringing, so that the entire narrative is structuredthrough flashbacks from the narrative frame into the past and through this structure, the whole truth of the system is onlygraduallyrevealed and the horrific conditions of the clones’ livesare onlyfullyuncovered at the end of the novel. The readers’ understanding thus depends on the revelation of Kathy ’smemories, which limits their insight in proportion to the realization of the character.Inaddition, her

 Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (London: Faber and Faber Limited, ): ,further references in the text abbreviated as “NLMG”. 218 Franziska Quabeck memoriestend towards the unreliable, because the clones are kept in the dark about their destiny for as long as possible. The truth is always implied, but never expressed, as one of the boardingschool’steachers tells them in the attempt to enlighten them:

The problem, as Isee it,isthat you’ve been told and not told. You’ve been told, but none of youreallyunderstand,and Idaresay,some people are quitehappy to leave it that way. But I’mnot.Ifyou’re goingtohavedecent lives, then you’ve gottoknow and know properly. […] If you’re to have decent lives, youhavetoknow whoyou areand whatlies ahead of you, every one of you. (NLMG,73–74)

Ironically, Miss Lucy speaksof“decent lives,” which are obviouslydeniedany- way, but truthfully, she considers knowing who one is as avital necessity for one’slife. As it turns out,however,these clones have no such identities. The fact that they have been “told and not told” leads to the impression created in the clonesthat their function in life is quitenormal and thatthere is nothing wrong with being deprivedofone’sright to live.Asone of them puts it when she faces her final donation: “Iwas pretty much readywhenIbecame adonor.Itfelt right.After all, it’swhat we’re supposed to be doing,isn’tit?” (NLMG,207). They have internalized oppression and misrecognition to an extent that they do not feel the necessity to question them, which creates the normality that colours the atmosphere of the novel. Through Kathy’smemories, however,it becomes clear that they werenot born with the idea of being second-class beings: they have had to experience rejection to an extent that has made them be- lievethemselvestobeunworthy. Confrontingone of the managers of the school silentlywith theirexistence, they experience thatthey are rejected by society and how this makes them feel:

[S]he was afraid of us in the same waysomeone might be afraid of spiders.Wehadn’tbeen readyfor that.Ithad never occurred to us to wonder how we would feel, beingseen like that,beingthe spiders.[…]The first time youglimpse yourself through the eyes of aperson likethat,it’sacold moment.It’slikewalkingpast amirror you’ve walked past every dayof your life, and suddenlyitshows yousomethingelse, somethingtroublingand strange. (NLMG,32–33)

In agraphic narrative rendition of Taylor’spolitics of recognition, Ishiguro here implements the sameimageofthe mirror as formative for identity.The self-image the clonesgraduallydevelop of themselvesisthus shown to be as distorted and damaged as Taylor proclaims in his attestation that “aperson or group of people can suffer real damage, real distortion, if the people or society around them mirror back to them aconfiningordemeaning or contemptible picture of Cultural Rights and the Politics of Recognition in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go 219 themselves.”⁴² Just like human beings, these clones are “dialogicallyconstituted ”⁴³ and depend on interactionwith their surroundings for the formation of their identity.But,asisthe case when such interaction is shaped by misrecognition, the imagethat resultsfrom this is one of being different,the proverbial Other,who is rejected by society.Robbie Goh argues in his readingofthe novel:

[T]he mirrorscene is ‘troublingand strange’ because of the double-vision in which she sees herself, not just with her own eyes and consciousness,but also with the consciousness of the ‘people out there,’ the ‘normal people outside’ whoinexplicablysee her as different, even when her origins as aclone would not be immediatelyevident [… ]. This incessant and internalized lack then manifests itself as aconstant sensitivity to rejection by the majority,even(or especially) when this rejection is onlyinferred.⁴⁴

However,the fact that this rejection is not onlyinferred is emphasized by Ishi- guro in an episode towards the end of the novel, which constitutes almostapar- odyofthe dystopian element of confrontation with the oppressor.Far from being an act of rebellion, Kathy ’sand her lover Tommy ’smodest attempt to defer his final donation late in the novel lets them confront the authorities finally,but un- successfully. At the sametime it becomes unmistakablyclear that society has regarded the clones as second-class beings,asOther and as inferior,which has formedthe very basis for the functionality of the system, as Miss Emily, the former headmistress reveals: “[F]or along time youwerekept in the shadows, and people did their best not to think about you. And if they did, they tried to con- vince themselvesthat youweren’treallylike us. That youwereless than human, so it didn’tmatter” (NLMG,240). Amore explicit confirmation of the method of de-humanizing the segregated in order to justify theiroppression could hardlybe expressed. At this moment the clonesfullyunderstand what they have surmised all along:they are denied theirright to live,because they are denied their existenceinthe first place, as people attempt to de-humanize them and relievethem- selvesofguilt.When the headmistress reveals whythey educated the clones as thoroughly as they did and encouraged them to produce artworks themselves, it becomes clear that both Kathyand Tommyhavenot understood how strongly they are despised by society:

 Taylor, “Politics of Recognition,” .  Taylor, “Politics of Recognition,” .  Robbie B. H. Goh, “The Postclone-ial in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go and Amitav Ghosh’s TheCalcutta Chromosome: Scienceand the Bodyinthe Asian Diaspora,” ARIEL: ARe- view of International EnglishLiterature .– (): –, . 220 FranziskaQuabeck

“We took away your art because we thought it would reveal your souls.Ortoput it more finely, we did it to prove that you had souls at all.”

She paused, and Tommyand Iexchanged glances for the first time in ages. Then Iasked:

“Whydid youhavetoprove athing likethat,Miss Emily? Did someone think we didn’thave souls?” (NLMG,238)

The childlike tone of Kathy’sinquiry,which seems to portrayher as entirely naïve, creates asympathy with the clonesatthis moment that fullyaligns the reader with them, not the humans.Her innocent questions make this heart- breakingmoment which exposes the dreadful deprivation of beingswho are denied to be freelywhat they are. To the clones, the idea that they could not have souls is inconceivable, as they live,loveand feel, but due to the fact that this has even been called into question, they experience how severelythey have been excluded not onlyfrom society,but from the realm of humanity, so that they have become “crippled” from the denial to belong.AsChu-Chueh Cheng emphasizes, the “clone-studentsare indoctrinated to believeintheir innate inferiority and hence acquiescetothe fate of self-sacrifice.”⁴⁵

The distorted imageofthemselvesthathas been installed in the clonesbythe mirror of society has made it impossible for them to belong to anyone other than themselves. They are orphans who “have neither past (parents) nor future (children)” and the onlyones they can “keep substantial and continuous relationships with are fellow clones.”⁴⁶ However,inanother attempt to show that they are not different,Ishiguro brings to the fore that they,too, search for their own sense of identity,search for ahome and search for belonging, which takes its shape in the novel not onlythrough theirattempt to maintain relationships with each other,but more importantly in their search for their “possibles.” In coherence with the novel’seuphemistic terminology, “possibles” are considered to be the actual human beingsthese characters have been cloned from and at one time or another,they all wonder whereand who these humans

 Chu-Chueh Cheng, TheMarginWithout Centre: KazuoIshiguro (Oxford: Peter Lang, ): .  Cheng, Margin Without Centre, . Cultural Rights and the Politics of Recognition in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go 221 might be, which underlines their ownhuman affinity,asGabrielle Griffin argues: “[T]hey manifest adesire for knowledge of their origin and for belonging that humanizes them, rendering them acompanion species [… ]rather than an other on adifferent hierarchized scale.”⁴⁷ Ironicallythough, the very human search for their origin onlyemphasizes the distorted imagethey have of themselves: on the trip they take to find awoman workinginanoffice who might be the character Ruth’s “possible, ” arare emotional outbreak givesvoice to the deeplyinternalized demeaning picture of themselvesthat society has im- printed on their souls:

We all know it.We’re modelled from trash. Junkies,prostitutes, winos,tramps.Convicts, maybe,solong as they aren’tp sychos.That’swhatwecome from. […]Weknow it,so we might as welljust sayit. If youwant to look for possibles,ifyou want to do it properly, then youlook in the gutter.You look in rubbish bins. Look down the toilet,that’swhere you’ll find whereweall came from. (NLMG,152–153)

Through the rather extreme analogywith trash as useless, defective,dirty and worthless, Ishigurohere clearlyemphasizes how the marginalized, who are denied recognition and through this suffer alife-longoppression internalize the imagethat is imposed upon them and thereby are denied the chanceofeverfeel- ing equal. As Cheng argues, “it is this sacred divide between God-willed genesis and human-wieldedmimesis that affirmsthe humans’ superiority and justifies their exploitation of the clones,”⁴⁸ so much so that the clonesthemselvesare made to believethattheir oppression and exploitation is justified, which neces- sarilyrecalls once again Stuart Hall’sattestation that the oppressive forces “had the power to make us seeand experience ourselves as ‘Other’.[…]Thisexpropri- ation of culturalidentity cripples and deforms.”⁴⁹ How crippled and deformed the clones’ imageofthemselvesisshows in Ruth’sdiagnosis that they are trash and completelyworthless and it is the discrimination of asociety that has made them, which has destroyed their very sense of being.This explains whythis scenario is not adystopian but avery real one and at the same time, the lack of rebellion is shown not to be justavariation on the genre: these oppressed beings never rebel, because they do not believethat they are entitled to. They have been givensuch aprofound understanding of themselvesasdifferent in the worst sense of the wordthatthey have not been able to establish abelief in theirown right to live.They are narrativeexamples of Mishra’s “emptiness of

 Griffin, “Scienceand the Cultural Imaginary,” .  Cheng, Margin Without Centre, .  Hall, “Cu ltural Identity,” . 222 FranziskaQuabeck the ego,” which is the resultofamissing sense of belonging, for as these clones try to find their home, they can onlycome to the conclusionthat they do not belong anywhere. Thus, the purpose they have been created for becomes in aself- fulfilling prophecy their only raison d’être. Since they have never had the chance to develop anormalsense of who they are, since they have receivednothing but misrecognition, they can onlydefine themselvesalmost masochisticallythrough that which cripplesthem. They all then await their ends in patience and entire submission, because they can onlyact within the confinement of theiroppression. Characteristically, the novel ends after the deaths of all those she has loved with Kathy’scontrolled tone, as she tells us that in her role as carer she drivesoff “to wherever it was Iwas supposedtobe”(NLMG,263). Never Let Me Go can thereforejustlybeunderstood as atragic allegory on the livesofpeople, who have never learnt that they have the right to receive recognition from others, that they have the right to be and act accordingtohow they want to be and accordingtowhat makes them who they are. The distortion that is caused in people’ssense of who they are by lack of recognition thus makes it a necessity to protect minorities, diasporics, migrants, anyofthe segregatedthe possibilityofliving their livesasthey choose to and this requires legal protection. All people deservetheirshare of justiceand if the legal systems of the world are not yetadapted to the pluralism of the population of the earth, it is hightime they were. Sidia Fiorato Diasporic Fragments Coalescing: Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’sGhost

Contemporary diasporastudies purport to overcome the traditionallyassumed correspondence between aparticularculture and aparticulargeographical space (or anation-state)which grounds the inseparability of identityfrom place.¹ The concept of diaspora, as theorized by Khachig Tölölyan in the first issue of the journal Diaspora,² emergesfrom its inception as acritical term, met- afictionallyoriented towards puttinginto discussion its own definitions, in particularunderlying the shift from rooted forms of identification to multiple identitiesand cross-border networks.³ As manycritics observe, the concept of di- asporaseems to resist precise definition; there is no accepted normative model of what adiaspora should be like and although it is continuouslysubjecttoco- dification, at the same time it continuouslyeludes it.⁴ One explanation is that it continuouslyevolves and mirrors new migration trends and situations: “Diaspor- ic identities are historical phenomena which need to be addressed within their specific cultural contexts,”⁵ and they emerge from multiple perspectivesas being linked to atemporal rather than aspatial dimension.Inthe contemporary critical discourse,diasporastudies use manyterms and conceptualizations of

 See Smadar Lavie TedSwedenburg, “Introduction,” in Displacement, Diasporaand Geog- raphies of Identity,ed. Swedenburg(Durham, North Carolina: Duke UP, ): –, .See also Sudesh Mishra, DiasporaCriticism (Edinburgh:Edinburgh UP, ): :the concept of nation refers to “an imagined polity (usuallyanethno-cultural and linguistic commune) forgedwithin a bounded territory and sustained by anotion of sovereignty.[…]The coupling of nation to a geopolitical realm, and hencetoabounded imagined community begets the hyphenated creature known as the modern nation-state.”  See KhachigTölölyan, “The Nation-Stateand its Others;InLieu of aPreface,” Diaspora. AJournal of Transnational Studies . (): –.  Carolin Alfonso, Waltraud Kokot, KhachigTölölyan, “Introduction,” in Diaspora, Identity and Religion: New Directions in Theoryand Research,ed. Alfonso, Kokot,Tölölyan (London: Rout- ledge, ): –, .  See MonikaFludernik, “The DiasporicImaginary.Postcolonial Reconfigurations in the Con- text of Multiculturalism,” in Diasporaand Multiculturalism: Common Traditions and New Devel- opments,ed. Fludernik (Amsterdam:Rodopi, ): xi–xxxviii, xi; Alfonso, Kokot, Tölölyan, “Introduction,” .  Roy Sommer, “‘Simple Survival’ in ‘HappyMulticultural Land?’ Diasporic Identities and Cul- tural Hybridity in the Contemporary British Novel,” in Diaspora and Multiculturalism: Common Traditions and New Developments,ed. Fludernik: –, . 224 Sidia Fiorato postcolonial critical discourse and open them up to new negotiations and fruitful syntheses in adynamic process mirroringthe intrinsic dynamics of the term itself. The critical focus of analysis on processes of migration and cultural hybridity opens up to atheorization of culturaldifferencewhich intersects with and renovatesitself through the concept of transnationalism.⁶

1. DiasporicDynamics

The term ‘diaspora’ has adouble meaning;literally, and in anegative historical sense, it refers to communities of people dislocated from their native homelands for multiple reasons (migration, immigration, exile),but etymologicallyitalso suggests the positive fertilityofdispersion and dissemination of seeds. In this sense, James Clifford underlines diaspora’sconstructive potential in mediating cultures, and EdwardSaid emphasizes its profound creative empowerment.⁷ Ac- tually, the relocateddiasporic subjectisconceivedofastending on the one hand towards his/her historical cultural identity,while on the other, as projectinghim/ herself towards the host society.He/she thus experiences aculturalhybridity,a concept which is diasporicallyreinterpreted on the basis of Bhabha’svision of the third space. The concept of hybridity usually connotes the effects on individual identities of the contact between different cultures. Bhaba’sconcept of the “third space” overcomes the idea of cultural identitiesasabsolutes, and underlines instead

 The diasporic condition is not synonymous with transnationalism; “diaspora refers specifically to the movements – forcedorvoluntary – of people fromone or morenation-states to another. Transnationalism speaks to larger, moreimpersonal forces – specificallythose of globalization and global capitalism.[…]diaspora addresses the migrations and displacement of subjects […] concomitant with transnationalism [… but] maynot be reduced to such macroeconomic and technological flows.Itremains, aboveall, ahuman phenomenon – livedand experienced. […]itoffers an alternative paradigm for national (or multinational, transnational, and even postnational) identification.” (See Jana EvansBraziel, Anita Mannur, “Nation, Migration, Globaliza- tion: Points of Contention in Diaspora Studies,” in Theorizing Diaspora. AReader,eds.Evans Braziel, Mannur[Oxford: Blackwell, ]: ). Actually, the diasporic condition is not synonymous with multiculturalism, as this concept implies stable and unchangeable ethnic identities as somethinggiven rather than aprocess of development,nor with cosmopolitanism as this concept implies living simultaneouslyintotwo worlds, nor strictlywith third spaces between cultures, duetodiaspora’sdailyinteraction and communication across borders.  See James Clifford, “Diasporas,” Cultural Anthropology . (): –,and Edward Said, “The Mind of Winter: Reflections on Life in Exile,” Harper’sMagazine  (): –. Diasporic Fragments Coalescing: Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’sGhost 225 how cultures interpenetrate one another and become inextricablyintertwined.⁸ This metaphorical space becomes “anew area of negotiation of [cultural] meaning and representation,”⁹ an “in-between” space, which is at the sametime liminal and dialogic, and wherepersonal and/or communal identity are elaborated and enacted. Diasporas wereoriginallycharacterized by afeeling of displacement on the part of the relocated subjectwhich led him/hertocreateimaginary homelands which grounded acommunal identity in the dimension of myth and fictional memories; the diasporic imaginary testifies to how “identity operates through narrative[s], and narrative[s] nee[d]tostart in the past and pace [their] waytoafuture that embraces and resolvesthe discrepancies between past and present.”¹⁰ As Stuart Hall underlines, cultural identity can be seen as deriving from common historicalexperiences and shared culturalcodes which represent stable sources and references for identity,orasreflecting social, historical and cultural development and its transformations. Accordingtothis perspective,identities resultfrom the individual’sattitudes towards the inherited narratives of the past and are amatter of becomingaswell as of being.For Hall, the diasporaexperience is characterized by hybridity in the sense of “the recognition of anecessary heterogeneity and diversity; by aconception of identity which livesinand through, not despite,difference.”¹¹ In aprocess of diasporic “critical dialogism,” the defining elements of the dominant cultureare critically appropriated and “creolized,” theirsymbolic meaningsdisarticulated and rearticulated in a “powerfullysyncretic dynamic.”¹² Within this context,the focus of the diasporic condition lies on the mutualcultural exchangebetween the host and the original country.

 See JulikaGriem, “Hybridität,” in Metzler Lexicon Literatur-und Kulturtheorie,ed. Ansgar Nün- ning, thirded. (Stuttgart: Metzler, ): –, .  Homi Bhabha, “‘The ThirdSpace’.Interview with Jonathan Rutherford,” in Identity:Commun- ity,Culture, Difference,ed. Jonathan Rutherford(London: Lawrence, Wishart, ): –, .  MonikaFludernik, “The Diasporic Imaginary,” xxviii–xxix. From this description there emergeshow our individual and collective identities derive from our own fashioningofour- selves, but at the same time they arefashionedupon us by others.The individual sense of identity,astheorized by Brubaker and Cooper,comprises “the sense of self, the relationship one has to the placeone inhabits, and the sense of belongingtoabiggergroupone is apart of such as a specific culture or nation.” (See Sonja Lehmann, “Transnational Identities in Michael Ondaatje’s Fiction,” in Strangers, Migrants, Exiles.Negotiating Identity in Literature,ed. Frauke Reitemeier [Göttingen: UniversitätsdruckeGöttingen, ]: –, ).  EvansBraziel, Mannur, “Nation, Migration, Globalization,” .  See Kobena Mercer, “Diaspora Culture and the Dialogic Imagination,” in TheorizingDia- spora. AReader,ed. EvansBrazier,Mannur: –, . 226 Sidia Fiorato

The concept of diaspora is stillconnected to adislocation from acountry of origin and arelocation in anew one, but the notion of identity has acquired dynamic features; preciselyinvirtue of its hybridity,itconstantly(re)produces itself through transformation and difference and the focus shifts on the aftermath of relocation. The diasporic subject activelyinscribes his or her ownidentity in the context of his or her everydaylife. This does not mean that the blendingbe- tween cultures is effortless but new perspectivesare needed in order to analyse such kinds of narratives. Within the context of wide migrations in the twenty-first century, identity emergesasaprocess, not as astable attribute of the person, ablendingof self-understanding and social location.¹³ The transnationalcharacter of contemporary migration calls for arenegotiation of the connection between identity and territory,astransmigrants’ identities are developedwithin social networks that connect twoormore societies simultaneously. Therefore, integration into a new country and transnationalconnections with the old one no longer appear as mutuallyexclusive practices.New social and cultural spaces emerge which are defined as social fields, that is, “interlockingnetworks of social relationships through which ideas, practices,and resources are […]exchanged, organized, and transformed.”¹⁴ In contrasttothe container model of societies, the permeable borders of social fieldstranscend national borders and allow transnational migrants to takepart in several worlds simultaneouslyand in acritical way; “what we find in diasporaisanuncovering of the very fluid and constructed nature of identity and alsothe operation of individual subjective agency in that processofidentification.”¹⁵ Tölölyanargues that diasporas are recognized and experiencedasthe “Oth- ers of the nation state,”¹⁶ of its bounded stability and homogeneity;thereforethe diasporic cannot be restrictively defined through geographical displacements and re-settlements,¹⁷ but impliesanegotiation of territorial barriers, of other-

 See Rogers Brubaker,Frederick Cooper, “Beyond Identity,” Theoryand Society . (): –, .  PeggyLevitt,NinaGlick Schiller, “ConceptualizingSimultaneity:ATransnational Social Field Perspective on Society,” in Rethinking Migration: New Theoretical and Empirical Perspec- tives,eds.AlejandroPortes,Josh DeWind (New York: Berghahn Books, ): –, .  Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffits,Helen Tiffin, “Diaspora,” in ThePost-Colonial Studies Reader, eds.Ashcroft,Griffits,Tiffin, second ed., (London, New York: Routledge, ): –, .  Tölölyan, “The Nation-Stateand its Others,” .  Esha Niyogi De, “Re-DomesticatingHinduFemininity:Legible Pasts in the Bengali American Diaspora,” in Tracing an Indian Diaspora: Contexts,Memories,Representations,ed. Parvati Ra- ghuram, AjayaKumar Sahoo, Brij Maharaj,DaveSangha (New Dehli, London: Sage, ): –, . Diasporic Fragments Coalescing: Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’sGhost 227 ness, of asense of belongingand alienation, by means of the articulation of the experience of border-crossing. The “cross-culturalorcross-civilizational passage results in [and defines] the unique consciousness of the diasporic.”¹⁸ Diaspora ultimatelytranscends borders but space remains an important point of reference,¹⁹ albeit subject to constant negotiations in its relationship between identity and territory. The experience of dislocation connected to diasporaiscoupled with “the creative,productive and syncretic energies inherent in asituation of multiple identification and movement.”²⁰ The previous traditionalfocus on the homeland relocates itself on the trajectory of migration itself,and “the shifting contexts within which people […]live.” Diasporic people are en route and they combine in themselvesboth concepts of roots and routes, as Paul Gilroy observes.²¹ Con- sequently, diasporic identities acquireaperformative dimension,and rather than an accomplished fact,they emerge as “a ‘production’ which is never complete, always in process,”²² as projects rather than congealedtotalities.²³ The identities of Michael Ondaatje’scharacters are influenced by “multiple affiliations and affinities that cutacross national and cultural boundaries”;²⁴ they are characterized by asense of reconciliation which fosters the possibility of taking part in several cultures and nations. In this way, the author elaborates both facets of the term; the sense of loss and displacement determined by the condition of migration and subsequentlythe empoweringcondition givenby the sense of belongingtoseveral places.Byfocusingontransnationalidentities, Ondaatje overcomes the sense of displacement and in-betweenness typicalof postcolonial migrant writing.AsRushdie asserts, literature allows the diasporic subjecttoenter reality from new angles, which mirror his/her plural and partial

 Makarand Paranjape, “Writingacross boundaries.South Asian Diasporas and Homelands,” in Diasporaand Multiculturalism: Common Traditions and New Developments,ed. Fludernik: –, .  See Alfonso, Kokot,Tölölyan, “Introduction,” .  Ulfried Reichardt, “Diaspora Studies and the Culture of the African Diaspora. The Poetry of DerekWalcott, KamauBrathwaiteand Linton KwesiJohnson,” in Diasporaand Multiculturalism: Common Traditions and New Developments,ed. Fludernik: –, .  Paul Gilroy, TheBlack Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge,MA: Har- vardUP, ): .  Stuart Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” in ContemporaryPostcolonial Theory. AReader, ed. Padmini Mongia (London: Arnold, ): –, .  Valentin Y. Mudimbe,Sabine Engel, “Introduction,” South Atlantic Quarterly .– ():–; –.  Lehmann, “TransnationalIdentities in Michael Ondaatjie’sFiction,” . 228 Sidia Fiorato identity,straddled between the two cultures included in the perspective.²⁵ “In Ondaatje’sfiction complex questions of post-, trans-, or simplynationalbelong- ing,self-understanding,and connectedness are negotiated in subtle, yetprecise ways that are never uncritical.”²⁶

2. Anil’sWestern Identity:Detachment and Closure

The protagonistofOndaatje’snovel, Anil Tissera, represents apeculiararticula- tion of the diasporic subject from within the tenets of detective and forensic fiction in apostcolonial context; in aprocessofBildung, her investigation leads her to anew articulation of her identity.Her implied hybridity,which relies on a “both-and” definition, and renders her ahyphenated subject, is rearticulated and negotiated in the light of adeep relationship with her country of origin which transcends the concept of hybridity itself. Anil is aforensic anthropologist who left Sri Lanka at 15 in order to study first in England (in the colonial capital) and then in the United States. While in England,atfirst she seems to manifest the typicalcharacteristics of the diasporic subject as theorizedbyMishra, that is, astrong sense of alienationand displacement,and anostalgia for the country of origin.²⁷ Actually, Anil confesses that “[s]he had expected to feel alien in England onlyfor afew weeks,” but she continuously “felt lost and emotional.”²⁸ On the other hand, according to Mis- hra, the diasporic subject is grounded in acommunal rather than individual dimension; this usually leads him/hertopresent his/her own culture “as the de- sirable norm”²⁹ in aform of resistancetothe pressures of assimilation to the

 Salman Rushdie, “Imaginary Homelands,” in ThePost-Colonial Studies Reader,ed. Ashcroft, Griffits,Tiffin, second ed., –, : “Our identity is at oncepluraland partial. Sometimes we feel that we straddle two cultures […]Ifliteratureisinpart the business of findingnew an- glesatwhich to enter reality,then once againour distance,our long geographical perspective mayprovide us with such angles.”  Lehmann, “TransnationalIdentities in Michael Ondaatjie’sFiction,” .  See VijayMishra, “The DiasporicImaginary:Theorizingthe Indian Diaspora,” Textual Prac- tice . (): –.  Michael Ondaatje, Anil’sGhost (London: Vintage, ), .Further references in the text, abbreviated as “AG”.When Anil calls her ayah,Lalitha, fromEngland in order to receive some comfort,she ends up weepingrealizing the distancethat divided them “it felt,atthe far ends of the world” (AG, ).  Roy Sommer, “‘Simple Survival’ in ‘HappyMulticulturalLand?,’” . Diasporic Fragments Coalescing: Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’sGhost 229 dominant culture. Actually, in her earlytwenties, Anil marries aSri Lankan man and she seems to consider the marriagetosomebodyfrom her own country as a sourcefor astability of identity; “she had begun loving him because of her loneliness” (AG,137). This loneliness is to be interpreted as aculturalisolation,as one of the reasons of this loveisthat “[s]he could cook acurry with him. She could refer to aspecific barber in Bambalapitiya,could whisper her desire for jiggery or jackfruit and be understood. That made adifferenceinthe new,too brittle country” (AG,137).³⁰ After the divorce, she breaks all her connections both with him and her home country.When she learns that he has gone back to Colombo, her reaction is that “with his departure therewas no longer any need to remember favourite barbers and restaurants along the Galle Road. […] She no longer spoke Sinhala to anyone” (AG,141), thatis, she rejects the diasporic idea of an imaginary homeland.The onlyconnection she maintains to her parents and her original cultureisthrough the sarongthey always send her at Christmasand “which she dutifullywore” (AG,6), wherethe adverb “dutifully” expresses aform of moralobligation more than aconscious choice, as Lehmann observes.³¹ She also keeps “news clippingsofswim meets” in Colombo, as in her teens she had become arenowned swimmer,therefore they represent her history and her imageinher home country,the statusshe had achieved thanks to her skills. In this way, she puts her past Sri-Lankan history in asort of data archive, but leavesthese data without an interpretation or alinking narrative. The elements of her past remaincatalogued but are not taken into consideration; she will reconnect to them onlythrough her nuancedjourney through Sri-Lanka. Before analysing Anil’sjourney,itisuseful to attain adeeper insight in her ownconstruction of her personality in her countries of adoption. Afterher divorce, “she turned fullytothe place she found herself in” (AG,141 [myemphasis, wherethe verb “found herself” signals an indifferent absence of choice]); we are told that “In her years abroad, duringher European and North Americaned- ucation, Anil had courted foreignness,was at ease whether on the Bakerloo line or the highwayaround Santa Fe.She felt completed abroad” (AG,50). Actually, Anil turns completelytoher job: “she fell in lovewith workingatnight,and sometimesshe couldn’tbear to leave the lab, justrested her happilytireddark head on the table. There was no curfew or compromise with alover anymore. She gothome at midnight,was up at eight,every casebook and experiment and investigation alive in her head and reachable” (AG,141); the buildings

 See Mishra, DiasporaCriticism, : “Cutoff fromthe dominant forms of their host country, transmigrants find solaceinself-familiarisingpractices. They cling to mother tongues and […] form suburban enclaves[…].”  See Lehmann, “Transnational Identities in Michael Ondaatjie’sFiction,” . 230 Sidia Fiorato whereshe carries out her job “wereher home” (AG,63). This described condition givesthe impression of alack of will for an active engagement; she sort of abandons herself to the situation she finds herself in and proceedsinanadrift way. About her career,weare told that “she won ascholarshiptostudyinthe United States,and in Oklahoma she became caught up in the application of the forensic sciences to human rights” (AG,141 [myemphasis]); once again the chosen verb to explain her career choice suggests instead its casualness and determination by impersonal external agents. She becomes deeplyimmersed in the community of scientists she works with and who represents “the onlylargergroup which she connects to,”³² but Iwould not say, like Lehmann, thatshe connects with them on an emotional level; she transfigures the group into acultural community of belonging, thus transcendingand evading the concept of national belonging and the emotional attachment it implies. Anil mostlydescribes her routine life in this community,and expresses her affiliation on ambiguous and vague terms,such as, “Ilivehere, in the West” (AG,32).Infact,she has aBritishpass- port,but lacks anyemotional attachment to aspecific country.She appears to inhabit aliminal dimension, in which she loves “the clatter and verbal fling of pathologists” (AG,144), that is, theirlanguage, “loved theirrituals” (AG,143) and participatedintheir “old tradition”,that is their “cultural” dimension. The scientists come “from all over the world” (AG,32) and are bound together by ashared scientific interest; their community is not defined by national boundaries, but exists independentlyfrom them. Actually, the world of science is not limited to aspecific place but is recreated at anymission, be it in CongoorGua- temala; it is both transnationaland postnational, inasmuchasthe geographic space seems completelyinterchangeable, as Anil’svagueresponses to where she livesshow.Itisasifshe rejects aspecific personhood and chooses to remain in the abstract dimension granted her by the peripatetic existenceconnected to her job. She ascribes the characteristics of cultureand nation to acommunity that is not such, in asort of negation of the process of identification and the possible consequent feelingofdiasporic displacement. Considering all this,Iwould put into question her own abovequoted assertion that she felt completed abroad. In my opinion, she seems rather to actualize the split between bios and psyche: she confines herself into life as an empirical phenomenon (bios), while neglectingits groundinginthe psyche which should actualize its individuality and lead it to self-fulfilment. Bios and psyche are on- tologicallylinked and the latter determines the individual’sjuridicaldimension,

 Lehmann, “TransnationalIdentities in Michael Ondaatjie’sFiction,” . Diasporic Fragments Coalescing: Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’sGhost 231 its personhood,aswell as its identity and sense.³³ In an exaggeration of her past condition in Sri Lanka, whereher swimming abilities would have granted her asocial status – had she remained there – Anil is identifiedonlybyher professional skills: “Having been amild celebrity in Colombo because of her swimming,Anil was shywithout the presenceofher talent,and found it difficult to enter conversations. Later,when she developed her giftfor forensic work, she knew one of the advantageswas that her skill signaled her existence – likea neutral herald” (AG,137). While she sleeps at night,her hand moves constantly “as if brushing earth away” (AG,30), in amechanicalrepetition of her professional gestures.Atthe same time,she maintains an emotional detachmentfrom her job: “At night,returning from work, Anil would stand in the shallow water [of her small homepool], her toes among the white petals, her arms folded as she undressed the day, removinglayers of events and incidents so they would no longer be with her” (AG,63). Instead of foreignness,she seems to court anonymity;when asked what she likes about the West she answers “Most of all I think Ilike thatIcan do thingsonmy ownterms.Nothingisanonymous here [in Sri Lanka] […]. Imiss my privacy” (AG,68). This anonymity and emotional restraint are the same qualities she applies in her job:she defines her colleagues as “amixed bag of characters” (AG,30) and the onlyone she calls by his name³⁴ is the one who feels for the victims in astrongemphatic way.³⁵ She explains his attitude by underlying that he belongstothe community wherethey are carrying out their forensic work; because of this connection, she oxymoronicallyisolates him from the group. In her job, Anil is defined by scientific objectivity and im- personality;she is defined by her markers of occupation, in the same wayin which these elements identifyher victims (see AG,173). David Farrier describes her life as a “somnambulant existence,”³⁶ due to its lack of anykind of connectedness and its being located in scientific sterile labs,which symbolize also aster- ility of life. Her journey to Sri Lanka represents aturning point in her conception of both her own self and her profession. Anil posits her identification with the West as soon as she arrivesinColombo, when she asserts that “[t]he island no longer held her by her past” (AG,7). Herfirst impressions of the country are “dis-

 See Francesco d’Agostino, Parole di Bioetica (Torino:Giappichelli, ): –.  On the contrary,she revels in utteringthe names of the bones both in English and in Spanish (see AG, ).  “When I’ve been diggingand I’mtired and Idon’twant to do anymore, Ithink how it could be me in the grave I’mworkingon. Iwouldn’twant someone to stop diggingfor me.” (AG, )  David Farrier, “Gesturingtowards the Local. IntimateHistories in Anil’sGhost,” Journal of Postcolonial Writing . (): –, . 232 Sidia Fiorato locatedly” filtrated by awilled predominance of Western perspective suffused by memoriesofEastern rootedness which correct and adjust the former in asilent acknowledgement of the country:

By the time she was out of the terminal the sun had risen. In the West she’dread, Thedawn comes up likethunder,and she knew she was the onlyone in the classroom to recognize the phrase physically. Though it was never abrupt thunder to her.Itwas first of all the noise of chickens and carts and modest morningrain or aman squeakilycleaningthe windows with newspaper in another part of the house. (AG,5)

The memories that are evoked by her return to Sri Lanka are sensory ones and she physicallyenters into connection with the country.However,she negates these sensations and retreats into silence;she “seems to have decided to go to her motherland as aforeigner.”³⁷ She refusestobedefined as “aprodigal” (AG,6)thereby implying alack of will in her return and refutes her country’sco- dificationofherself as afamous swimmer in order to severe anylink with the past.Inthis way, she rejects the diasporic nostalgia for both her past and her homeland, and seems to relate to Sri Lanka in the sameway as she relates to the West,thereforebyposing both countries on the same level and keepingher- self in isolationfrom anykind of national connectedness.³⁸ On the other hand, her insisteddetachment is belied by the fact that after the first days in Colombo “SuddenlyAnil wasglad to be back, the buried senses from childhood alive in her” (AG,11). Actually, she had alsoenquired with the taxi driverabout asaloon for head massages she remembered, asking if it was still there, and said she would liketohaveatoddy, that is atypical palm wine of the area; by these el- ementswecan observe how,despite her detached attitude, dislocated connections with her country emerge and open up the dimension of the uncanny, that is, Anil’sfirst boundary crossing experience. The protagonist appears therefore in her multifarious aspects alreadyfrom the first pages of the novel and this preludes to subsequent developments in her attitude both towardsthe country and her own identity.

 Danuta Woznialis, “Identity as an Open-Ended Process:Michael Ondaatje’sWorks,” Dabai ir Dienos  (): –, .Wereadhow “She was glad to be alone” (AG, )and had informed no friend nor relative about her return.  See Lehmann, “Transnational Identities in Michael Ondaatjie’sFiction,” .Inthe novel, Anil is first addressed by Sarath in the followingway: “So – youare the swimmer?” (AG, ), to which she responds “The swimmingwas along time ago.” Another character whoisaforensic professional addresses her instead as “Youare the woman from Geneva” (AG, )and even though the woman’sface looks disbelieving, Anil confirms and clings to this definition, thereby takingonceagainrefuge in the anonymity of her scientific community. Diasporic Fragments Coalescing: Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’sGhost 233

3. Evolution of Anil’sSelf-Identity

Ondaatje introduces his protagonists as

simple entities characterized according to the features they reveal in their narrative present. [He]tells us what they are, but he does not sayanythingaboutwho they are. […]the different narrative voices (as much homodiegetic as heterodiegetic) introducethe readerinto the past of each character payingattention to the keysoftheir dynamic development in life.³⁹

Therefore, we experience togetherwith Anil the flux of her thoughts and memories and witness the changes in her attitude and her considerations, as she approaches the country from multiple viewpoints. When she arrivesinColombo, we learn that she has remained detached from the civilwar devastating the country and she has read about it in documents and news reports;she feels that “she had now livedabroad long enough to interpret Sri Lanka with along-distance gaze” (AG,7), meaning with objectivity and clarity.However,immediatelyafter this profession of her stance she acknowledges that “here it was amore complicated world morally” (AG,7). The codification of the violence by analogywith Greek tragedies, that is, through aWestern cultural mediation, proves untenable as the latter “wereinnocent compared with what washappeninghere” (AG,7). Anil’smission in Colombo implies the collaboration with alocal archaeologist,Sarath Diyasena, in order to analyze some skeletons discovered in an ancient burial site in agovernment-controlled area. Anil realizes that one of the skeletons is actuallyvictim of amorerecent violent death; therefore her quest becomes the determination of its identity and its consequent transformation into evidence for the incrimination of the Sri Lankan government for human rights violations.⁴⁰ Anil believes thatthe truth is simple and forward, she believes in “clearlymarked roads to the sourceofmost mysteries [and that] infor- mationcould always be clarified and acted upon” (AG,54). She therefore approaches Sri Lanka from atwice biased perspective;onthe one hand, she relies and obstinatelyclingson“the grand narrativesofwestern civilization,

 Paula Garcia Ramirez, “Wanderers and Exiles in Michael Ondaatje’s TheEnglishPatient,” in Diasporaand Exile,ed. Lucía Mora González, Bernhard Dietz, Asunción Sánchez Villalón (Cuen- ca: EdicionesdelaUniversidad de Castilla-la Mancha, ): –, .  See Milena Marinkova, “Haptic Aesthetics and Witness Writing,” in Michael Ondaatje. Haptic Aesthetics and Micropolitical Writing,ed. Marinkova (New York: Continuum, ): –. 234 Sidia Fiorato

[…]the empirical Truth and Reason,”⁴¹ on the other hand she applies her impersonal attitude to the investigation, and pretends to relyonuniversallyand atem- porallyvalid tenets, “the permanent truths, sameofColombo as for Troy” (AG,60). The victims’ bodies are turned into scientific specimen, “representatives of race and ageand place” (AG,51) which distances anyemotional involvement. Anil applies contemporary forensic methods(whichgrant onlya“five-percent margin of error,” AG,91), and considers avictim’sskeleton as a “representative of all those who lost voices.Togivehim aname would name the rest” (AG,52). By ascribingacommon shared identity to the victim she avoids the grief of human particularity but at the same time deniesthe victim his/her individual reality with its social,cultural and political implications. She avoids becomingen- tangled into the victims’ life narrativesthrough her belief that “[o]ne village can speak for manyvillages. One victim can speak for manyvictims” (AG,272). In Sri Lanka truth seems more elusive: “Information was made public with diversions and subtexts” (AG,51), and Sarath constantlyremindsher that “It’s different here, dangerous.Sometimes lawisonthe side of power not truth” (AG,44). Moreover,hecalls Anil’sattentiononthe fact that Western investigative attitude with its desire for asingle truth with which to distinguish between the guilty and the innocent,isuntenable; every side – the government,Sinhalese insurgents, and Tamil separatists – have been guilty of human rights violations, thereforeWestern objective universality proves inadequate to grasp the commitment to local histories.⁴² During her stayinSri Lanka and duringher investigation Anil is confronted with “the extent of her estrangementfrom the culture she was born into,”⁴³ as well as with her estrangement from the tenets of her Western self-understanding.Asubversion of the condition of the diasporic subject takes place; Anil is displaced in her homecountry but as aWestern subject and in her Western allegiance. In Ondaatje’snovel, the figure of the “international health professional as heroic moral agent” is pairedwith “local health practitioner[s] as […]silent,heal-

 HeikeHärting, “Diasporic Cross-Currents in Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’sGhost and Anita Rau Badami’s The Hero’sWalk,” Studies in Canadian Literature/ Études en Littérature Canadienne . (): –, .  Davis, “InvestigatingTruth, History and Human Rights in Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’sGhost,” in Detective Fiction in aPostcolonial and Transnational World,ed. Nels Pearson, MarcSinger (Farnham, Burlington:Ashgate, ): –, .  Lehmann, “TransnationalIdentities in Michael Ondaatjie’sFiction,” . Diasporic Fragments Coalescing: Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’sGhost 235 ing agent[s].”⁴⁴ Anil is led through her concrete and metaphorical journey by the archaeologist Sarath and his brother Gamini, who is adoctor.Gamini’sinsights into the Sri Lankan situation derive from his uninterrupted work in emergency rooms duringthe conflict, and his concrete witnessingofhuman rights abuses epitomized by the wounded bodies he tries to heal. Forthis reason, he condemns Western professionals and journalists, who presume to offer criticism from a safe distance, from their dislocated position of outsiders. As Burton observes, Gamini is devastated by the cumulative effect of his witnessingwhile Sarath has taken refuge into his professional identity and the political disinterestedness it allows;⁴⁵ actually, the archaeological secrets he uncovers are not bestowed with contemporary – and dangerous – meaning.⁴⁶ Sarath is stronglyand lucidly convinced that “Every side was killing and hiding the evidence. […]There’sno hope of affixing blame. And no one can tell who the victims are” (AG,13). In order to understand the civil war,reports are not enough;witnessing and in- volvementare alsonecessary and impossibletoattain for somebodywho has been absentinthe crucial years of the conflict: for this reason Sarath tells Anil: “I’dbelieveyour arguments more if youlived here […]You can’tjust slip in, make adiscovery and leave” (AG,40). He wishes Anil to understand and share “the archaeologicalsurround of afact” (AG,43); in order to become able to do this, she has to relocatetoSri Lanka through ajourney into its deepest recesses which becomes symbolic of her own inner path. At the beginning of her journey she is described as waiting for Sarath in the Archaeological museum whereher imageissymbolicallyvaguelyreflected upon the glass framing multiple maps of Sri Lanka. The maps provided information about every aspect of the country,apart from its population: “Traits of the country like thoseofacomplex friend” (AG,142). Anil’sjourney will teach her how to enter the frame. As Halloran⁴⁷ underlines, Anil conceivesher function to speak for the silent or silenced victims as her official reports’ codification. The act of witnessing instead goes beyond this medicaland official dimension and “requires acommunicative act which re-cites and re-siteswhat one has learned – not onlyabout what happened to others at/in adifferent space/time but also(and this is the

 Vivian NunHalloran, “Health Professionals,Truth, and Testimony: WitnessinginHuman Rights-Themed Entertainment,” TheJournal of the Midwest Modern Language Association . (): –, .  See AntoinetteBurton, “Archive of Bones: Anil’sGhost and the Ends of History,” Journal of Commonwealth Literature . (): –, .  Paul Brians, Modern South Asian LiteratureinEnglish (Westport,Conn.: Greenwood, ): .  Halloran, “Health Professionals,Truth, and Testimony,” . 236 Sidia Fiorato key) what one has learned of and within the disturbance and disruptions inherent in comprehending the substance and significanceofthese events.”⁴⁸ Palipa- na, the blind archaeologistwhom Sarath leadsher to encounter in aforest monastery wherehehas retreated, juxtaposes to Anil’sscientific methods of investigation the value of an imaginative leap and the possibility to see “as truth thingsthatcould onlybeguessedat,” abelief that “truth is justopinion” in “our world.”⁴⁹ He perceiveshistory as “ever-present around him” (AG,76), and he de- votes his studyinparticulartothe concreteness of stones and runes as pragmatic proofs of man’spresence. His approach is sensory and holistic (“He spread his finger over every discovered rune,” AG,79; “Every historical pillar he came to in afield he stood beside and embraced as if it wereaperson he had known in the past” AG,101). Actually, when Sarath illustratesAnil’sability and her skills in contemporaryforensic techniques: “She can cut across-section of bone with a fine sawand determine the skeleton’sexactage at death that way”,heironically comments: “What awonder youare” (AG,91; 92). The real wonder is her encounter with Palipana’smethod of enteringinto arelationship with the surrounding landscape: “Anil kept thinkingofPalipana’ssightlessness in this landscape of dark green and deepgrey.The stone steps and the rock nestled into the inclines of earth just as the fragments of brick and wood nestled against rock. These bones of an old settlement.[…][Anil] was picking up the intricacies of what was around them. Palipana’smind was probablycrowded with such things, in his potent sightlessness. Iwill not want to leave this place, she thought […]” (AG,93). Palipana’sattitude charms Anil into another dimension and she per- ceivesthe surrounding landscape as aliving organism. Anil enters into communion with Palipana and becomes capable of feeling his mental activity;atfirst we are told that “she imagined” the soundshecan hear in the forest but then she becomes sure, “she was sure he could hear all that” (AG,83). It is always in Palipana’sforest thatAnildiscovers the sacredness of wells and incorporates its waterbyrepeated ritual gestures of aspersion.⁵⁰ She thus allows herself for

 RogerI.Simon, Claudia Eppert,Mark Clamen, Laura Beres, “Witness as Study: The Difficult InheritanceofTestimony,” TheReview of Education/Pedagogy/Cultural Studies . (): –, .  Maryse Jayasuriya, Terror and Reconciliation in Sri LankanAnglophone Literature, –  (Plymouth: Lexington Books, ): .Healso considers history as an interpretive event rather than asociological science.  See AG, : “She undressed by the well, […]and gotintothe diyareddha cloth, and dropped the bucket into the depths.There was ahollow smash far below her.The bucketsank and filled. She jerkedthe rope so the bucket flew up, and caught the ropenear the handle. Now she poured the cold wateroverherself and its glow entered her in arush, refreshingher.Oncemore, she dropped the bucketinto the welland jerked it up and poured it over her hair and shoulders Diasporic Fragments Coalescing: Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’sGhost 237 the first time to be possessed by the Sri Lankan landscape through one of its constitutive elements and abandons herself to the free responses of her bodytothe reality of her surroundings. This marks adifference with the bath she used to take in the States after aday’swork and which crystallized her fatigue, instead of investing her of new energy;the reason for this is that at the time she did not live through her experiences but used to let them happen around herself and passivelyadapts to them.⁵¹ Palipana’shaptic or sensory approach is shared by Sarath, who engages in a “dark trade with the earth” (AG,25). As he tells Anil, “Ilovehistory,the intimacy of enteringall those landscapes. Like enteringadream. Someone nudgesastone away and there’sastory […]another world with its own value system [… comes] to the surface” (AG,255;257). We are told how

He would hold statues twothousand years old in his arms.Orplacehis hand against old, warm rockthat had been cut intoahuman shape. He found comfort in seeinghis dark flesh against it.This was his pleasure. […]simplytoplacehis hand against a gal vihara,aliving stone whose temperature was dependent on rain or aquick twilight (AG,276).

It is Palipana who advises them to collaborate with Ananda in order to reconstruct Sailor’sfacial traits, and thus opensupthe intersection of science with the artistic dimension and the artistic approach to the world. Anil’sinitial dis- missive attitude towards the enterprise “Never done reconstruction. Ihaveto saywesort of scorn it” (AG,157,whereitcan be noticed she still uses the plural in order to identify with and derive her authority from her Western scientific community) evolvesinto amorepersonal relationship as she manages to enter into communication and communion with the artist.Ananda starts his research

so the water billowed within the thin cloth onto her bellyand legs. She understood how wells become sacred. […]She repeated the mantra of gesturesagainand again. When she had finished, she unwrapped the wetcloth and stood naked in the wind and the last of the sunlight,then put on the dry sarong.”  The second time Anil abandons herself to her surroundings takes placeafter some days of rain, which affect the general atmosphere of the place: At first she exerts some restraint “Anil moves in silence, the energy held back,” then she abandons herself to the music: “She needs music to push her into extremities and grace. She wants grace, and it happens hereonlyon these mornings or after alate-afternoon downpour – when the air is light and cool, when thereisalso the dangerofskiddingonthe wetleaves. It feels as if she could eject herself out of her bodylikeanarrow” (AG, ). Sarath observes her from awindow and comments that “This is not the Anil he knows. Just as she, in this state,isinvisible to herself, though it is the stateshe longsfor” (AG, ). She givesfreeexpression to all her previous emotional restraint: “She lies under the sound and witnesses her brain coming back, lightingits candle in the dark. And breathes in and breathes out and breathes in and breathes out” (AG, ). 238 Sidia Fiorato for the reconstruction of Sailor’sfacial outlines by going to the villagein which the victim resided and immersing himself into its everydaylife and its inhabitants.⁵² In this way, he juxtaposes his responsive method to an area’sculture to Anil’sforensic methods (as Palipana had alreadydone). Anil’sexperien- ces and encounters are always mediated by Sarath as she cannot speak the lan- guageofher own country anylonger;⁵³ she lamentsthe impossibilityof communicating with Ananda, but for the false reasons.She wishesinfact she could tell him forensic details about Sailor’sbody: “she had long forgotten the subtleties of the languagethey once shared. She would have told him what Sai- lor’sbone measurements meantinterms of posture and size. Andhe–God knows what insights he had” (AG,167). Ananda, by proceeding through arecov- ery of culturalcontext clues,can build abridgebetween Anil’sforensic positivism and Sarath’snuanced acts of interpretation.⁵⁴ It is after workingmany days in contact with Ananda and becomingaffected by his rhythm and attitude to his work thatAnil approaches Sailor for the first time as ahuman being. One night she frees him from the plasticsheets which envelop him and render him ascientificbodyofevidence,and leaveshim to be “washed by the moon” (AG,165), in an imagewhich recalls her own ritual bath by the well. In that same night,while being observedbyAnil, Ananda feels the urge to takeSai- lor in his arms; this signals their first act of communion and communication: as she confesses that “There had been hours when […]she too would need to reach forward and lift Sailor in her arms, to remind herself he was like her.Not just evidence, but […]part of afamily, amember of avillage” (AG,166); she – still unconsciously – acknowledgesAnanda’sperspective.Inthis moment,Anilover- comes the separation between bios and psyché bothonapersonal and professional level and deniesthe flattening of the bios into amere soma with the consequent deprivation of its identity.Asithas been alreadyobserved the psyché manifests itself in the world through the body; as the psyché cannot be reached

 Ananda “established himself by the public well. He chattedwith anyone whosat near him, […]and watched the village movearound him, with its distinct behavior,its local bodypostures and facial characteristics” (AG, ).  Anil realizes her inability to use her native languageand cannot recover it,nor the part of her identity connected to it; she realizes that she has become astranger in her own country when she meets Lalitha (who symbolizesher strongest emotionalattachment,asshe is the woman that brought her up) and cannot communicatewith her in their old commonlanguage. Herlinguistic displacement will accompanyher throughout her journey,until she will become able to overcome it by means of corporeal empathyand communication.  See David Babcock, “Professional Intimacies. Human Rights and Specialized Bodies in Mi- chael Ondaatje’s Anil’sGhost,” Cultural Critique  (): –, . Diasporic Fragments Coalescing: Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’sGhost 239 by the law, the bios enters the ethical and juridical dimension.⁵⁵ Anymanipula- tion of the bios affects its meaningful connection with the psyché,and conversely recognition of the psyché affects the consideration of the bios. Ananda’sreconstruction of Sailor’sface becomes an artistic reinvention, thus transcendingits scientific dimension and attaining acathartic function: the face he recreates is basedupon the victim’sindividual facial features,but at the sametime it transcends them by incorporatingalso those of his own missing wife Sirissa, as well as the traits of his grief for her.Sailor’sfacegives an identity not onlytoanindividual victim, but also to the painofother tortured civilians, and the grief of theirrelatives; the corporeal is thus empowered as a means for the communication and expression of acommunal identity based on the participation in acommunal condition. The bodyemergesas“an agen- tive,interactive presence, capable of generating memories [… and narratives]; [T]hrough the permeation of ’the visible’ with ’the felt’ and ’the sentient,’ the in- expressible can be shared [and attained] by others.”⁵⁶ By concretelywitnessing Ananda’sgrief, learning of his painful life narrative,and his wish for peaceful- ness for every victim, Anil abandons all her restraintsinacathartic weeping. Ananda, approaching her in this moment when she has managed to establish acommunion with the place and the victim, works upon and transforms her bodythrough his artistic touchwhich “crease[s] away the pain around her eye” (AG,183). His touch ties up the loose ends of Anil’sjourney and unites the attitudes of all characters towards the Sri Lankan situation. Anil finally develops into asympathetic and compassionate witness, and this also signals the acceptance of her first reaction when asked to meet forensic studentsinahos- pital upon her arrivalinColombo and her reverting to that condition which she had previouslynegated. The bodyofthe victim she had been called to analyse had stronglyaffected her and led her to translate the time of adeath into personal time: “When she realized it must have happened during her early-eve- ning in the Pettah market,she had to stop her handsfrom trembling. […]Itwas the freshness of the body. It was stillsomeone” (AG,9).⁵⁷ Her new attitude tunes in with the nameless woman introduced in the first pages of the novel, when Anil is workingonaforensic site to identify the corpses of civil war victims. This woman was “sitting within the grave. […]looking down at the remains of the two bodies. She had lost her husband and abrother duringanabduction in this region ayear earlier.[…]There are no words Anil knows that can describe,

 See D’Agostino, Parole di bioetica, .  Marinkova, “HapticAesthetics,” .  At the beginningofher mission, Anil establishes apersonal relationship to the victim, which anticipates the one with Sailor. 240 Sidia Fiorato even for justherself, the woman’sface. But the grief of loveinthat shoulder she will not forget” (AG,2). Moreover,Anil’sreceptiveness aligns her with the other main characters.Sarath recalls the discovery of some rock carving from another century of awoman bending over her child and remainingincontemplation before it, “Palipana’sarm following the line of the mother’sbackbowed in affection or grief. An unseen child. Allthe gestures of motherhood harnessed. Amuf- fled scream in her posture” (AG,153). Gamini, in his dailyexperience of sorrow and physical mutilations of bodies professes to believeonlyinthe mothers sleeping against their children, who come to epitomize the embodiment of care. At this point of the novel, Anil is transfigured in all these symbolic women and enters the symbolic dimension of her home country. Anil’saction of witnessingthe victim’sbodies transforms itself into witnessing the victims’ stories.AccordingtoOndaatje, “The responsibility of adiasporic […]istoavoid generalizations and take into consideration the historical, political, social, and culturalcontexts in which events happen.” ⁵⁸ This is alsoSarath’s request to Anil,that is, not just to studySailor’smurder and the government’s possibleindictment from aforensic viewpoint,but to attempt to comprehend all the factors and the particularities that contributed to such aphenomenon. Ac- tually, in her reaction to Ananda’sreconstructed face, she participatesinPalipa- na’sand Sarath’sown attitude who immerse themselvesinthe context (and con- cretelyinthe sites) of the ancient cultures they study. In this wayAnil transcends and goes beyond Rushdie’simaginary homeland,which she had however al- readysubverted by articulating it in her memory in anegative way, and substi- tutes it for areal one, with which she activelyengages. Through the discovery of Sailor’sidentity,she discovers her own; actually, the establishment of Sailor’s identity does not represent the turning point of the novel but serves to interrogate otheridentities. His skeleton becomes aframework which includes and helps enquiring into alternative truths and identities.⁵⁹

4. Diasporic Forensics

At the end of the novel, Anil presents the resultsofher investigation before the Sri Lankan government board and the scene develops on two different levels. Firstly, Anil shows that she has reached acommunion with the country and

 Jayasuriya, Terrorand Reconciliation, .  Christine Matzke, Postcolonial Postmortems: Crime Fiction from aTranscultural Perspective (Amsterdam,New York: Rodopi, ). Diasporic Fragments Coalescing: Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’sGhost 241 openlyprofesses her affiliation to it: “awestern-influenced hybrid character [finally] subsumeslocalized voices.”⁶⁰ As Sarath observes, her speech “Ithink you murdered hundreds of us” (AG,269)is“acitizen’sevidence;she was no longer just aforeign authority […]Fifteen years away and she is finallyus”(AG,269). Secondly, she reverts to and relies on her Western attitude in her presentation of the facts and claims for the government’sindictment for abuse of human rights and the achievement of justice. This pattern of action,however,iswell known by the government as well, who manages to turn it to its ownadvantage by stealing Sailor’sskeleton (her bodyofevidence) and discrediting both her status and her research; what should have been apublic indictment scene becomes atrial scene against her,which includes alsohints of physical abuse. Notwith- standing her internal and external Sri Lankan journey,Anil fails to understand the context she finds herself in, and seems defeated. However,asHalloran points out,the Sri Lankan government’sobstructionismcannot alter her personal evolution. By workingwith local health workers, she has witnessed how they try to take care of the civil war victims on adailyand individual basis. She witnessed how Gamini tries to “restore the patients’ dignity through direct medical treatment,” as well as the rights to life, security of person, dignity and health that lie at the root of all other human rights.⁶¹ Witnessing theiract of witnessing as the Same,not as the Other,she becomes able to perceive how their action is a defence of human rights no less powerful than the one fostered and backed up by the Western institutions, and basedon“ashared identity between the health professional and the patients as compatriots and fellow human beings.”⁶² In this official forensic context,Sarath abandons his detached attitude and performs his conviction that “he would have givenhis life for the truth if the truth wereofany use” (AG,153).⁶³ First he orchestrates apublic displayofher destitution from the case by displacing the forensic in favour of the archaeological attitude, and thus seemingly siding with the government substitution of Sai- lor’sbody(the bodyofevidence) with an archaeologicalone (a bodyfor schol- arlystudy). His speech leads to her ejection from the buildingand from the country,but in this wayhesaves her from plunging deeper in the condition of all the other Sri Lankan civil war victims. Herpersonifying efforts clash against

 Ryan Mowat, “An Aesthetics of War: The Postcolonial Ethics of Anil’sGhost,” Journal of Post- colonial Writing . (): –, .  Halloran, “Health Professionals,Truth, and Testimony,” .  Halloran, “Health Professionals,Truth, and Testimony,” .  In the novel we aretold how Sarath sacrifices his life to allieviatethe grief of others; “Sarath believed in truth as aprinciple. […]And privately[…]hewould, he knew,also give his life for the rock carvingfromanother century of the woman bendingoverher child” (AG, ). 242 Sidia Fiorato institutional resistance and endanger her own life. Then Sarath bypasses the government and manages to bring Sailor’sbodyonAnil’splane,sothat she maycarry on her investigation in the West and eventuallyaffect the Sri Lankan situation. Sarath faces what he had theorized all along his investigative work with Anil: “what would the truth bring them into?[…]Aflippant gesture towards Asia might lead, as aresultofthis information, to new vengeance and slaughter. There weredangers in handing truth to an unsafe city around you” (AG,156– 157). With his decision of action “he had returned to the intricacies of the public world, with its various truths. […]Heknew he would not be forgiventhat” (AG,276). By overcominghis own detached attitude, he transforms archaeology into ameansofunearthing the structures of injustice. He will payfor his actions with his life and become transfigured into abody, as well as avoice of evidence for Anil’saction, both for her professional task, and the performance of her “diasporic” identity,once she is back in the United States. She bringsback with her his disembodied voice on atape recording, while his bodywillberecognized by his brother in the hospital morgue; both elements represent his testimonyand active witnessingofevents and affect the addressee within their different work attitudes. Gamini performs the lasthuman(e) rights upon his brother’sbody, in asubversion of aforensic bodilyanalysis;heinfact reads on his brother’s bodythe signs of the violence thatbroughthim to his death (likeAnildoes), but he alsoreads the signs of his past life and of their brotherlyrelationship, such as ascar Sarath had gotwhile playing (and in this wayrepeats his brother’s nuanced attitude). Anil carries with her what she experienced in Sri Lanka and the relationship with bothSarath and Gamini, who have citizened her by their friendship (see AG,196); like the woman looking at the corpses of her husband and his brother,Anil embodies the feminine string between them, the one who brought them together(AG,2), in the context of their work approach. “Anil would never getoverher time here” (AG,202)and thereforetranscends the condition of all the other Western professionals, “the hero[es] of Western novels,” who aftertheir job is done do not care anylonger about what happens in the country,asGamini had denounced: “So the war,toall purposes, is over. That’senough reality for the West” (AG,286).⁶⁴ She reflects upon acontinuous influenceofthe two brothers on her life. “Wherever she might be, would she think of them?” (AG,285)thereforeshe seems to have understood and interior- ized Sarath’scontention that “youcannot survive as amonkasifsociety does not exist.You renounce society,but to do so youmust first be apart of it,

 Lehmann, “TransnationalIdentities in Michael Ondaatjie’sFiction,” . Diasporic Fragments Coalescing: Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’sGhost 243 learn your decision from it.This is the paradoxofretreat” (AG,99). The novel ends on ambiguous tones; we do not know how Anil will finallycarry out her investigation, nor if she manages to leave the country,but we are led to assume that,asshe herself had stated in the novel, “Some people let their ghosts die, some don’t” (AG,49). If when she pronounced these words she wastrying to con- vince Sarath about her conception of their work (“Your’re an archaeologist.Truth comes finallyinto the light.It’sinthe bonesand sediment.” / “It’sincharacter and nuance and mood.” / “That is what governs us in our lives, that’snot the truth.” / “Forthe living it is the truth” [AG,255]), now she is called to actuate what Sarath has led her to acknowledge: “Youshould live here. Not be here for just another job.” / “This isn’tjust ’another job’!Idecided to come back. I wanted to come back” (AG,196). Anil represents an alternative model of diasporic subject,aclear instance that the diasporawrites back.⁶⁵ Diasporic authors thus emerge not onlyasnative informants, but foremost as subjects involved with and representing their diasporic community in the same wayinwhich Anil simultaneouslyoccupies a space of belongingand unbelonging. Ondaatje’snovel shows that culturalmemory becomes inscribed in the present; Anil is “as much aproduct of the conflictual narrativesthat constituteSri Lanka’shistory as of Western tradition.”⁶⁶ The past is shaped also through the ideological forces thatshape the present,and the diasporic subject emergesasbelonging “not onlytothe place of origins, but to acomplexlynetworked world”⁶⁷ which allows them to belong to several places or nations (and cultures) at once.⁶⁸ In arewritingofthe detective fiction genre, Ondaatje keeps the figure of the detective (Anil)atthe centreofthe narrative;onthe one hand, this figure serves to question the genre’sfundamental tenets,that is, its metanarrativesofuniversal truth and justiceasheisdefined as “wanting and able to discover the truth even if [s]he is unable to dispense justice.”⁶⁹ On the other hand, in her role also as an ethnic investigator,she acts “primarilyasaculturalarbitrator,[…]expresses the contact between cultural spheres and mediates its inherent tensions.”⁷⁰ Diasporic characters find them-

 See SmaroKamboureli, “The Diaspora WritesBack: Cultural Memory and Michael On- daatje’s Anil’sGhost,” in Diasporic Subjectivity and Cultural Brokering in ContemporaryPostcolo- nial Literatures,ed. Igor Maver(Lanham, MD:Lexingtoin Books, ): –, .  Kamboureli, “The Diaspora WritesBack,” .  Kamboureli, “The Diaspora WritesBack,” .  See Lehmann, “Transnational Identities in Michael Ondaatjie’sFiction,” .  Davis, “InvestigatingTruth, History and Human Rights in Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’sGhost,” .  Matzke, Postcolonial Postmortems, . 244 Sidia Fiorato selvesinthe liminal space created by the meeting of two borders;they are thus characterized as sites of hybridity in adouble sense,but aboveall, they are “in process, they are learning,adjusting, changing, compromising,rejecting, resisting.”⁷¹ Anil underlines the culturallyempoweringaspects of hybridity, the capability to inhabit multiple culturaland historical spaces at once; such condition opens up aspace of negotiation and becomes both aconceptual tool through which to interrogate the constitution of diasporic belongings and adiscursive readingpractice through which to examine the structure of diasporic imaginaries.⁷² Sarath urgesAnil to recreate the papers which might proveher evidence in order to recreatethe role of the Western professional and by large of the Western witness; he wishesthat Anil would not just leave looking at the country with a distantgaze. As Gamini had denounced, “That’senough reality for the West.[…] Go home. Write abook. Hit the circuit” (AG,283). Anil’stext willconcern adiasporic subject’sperspective and, in ashifting of planes, the focus passes thus on Ondaatje’sbook itself, which strivestoreach outside its literary dimension. “One of the major connections between life and art is the performing narrator,whose act of searchingand orderingforms part of the narrative itself:”⁷³ the novel’snarrative presents afragmentedand decentered story which weavesthrough the personal memories and experiences of the four main characters.⁷⁴ Little by little, Anil subsumes the fragments of the other characters,and will eventuallybring them into completion once she is back in the States. Therefore, from this moment,Ondaatje’sperspective takes on: “The specific task of the literarytestimo- ny is […]toopen up in that belated witness, which the reader now historically becomes,the imaginative capability of perceiving history – what is happening to others – in one’sown body, with the power of sight (insight) usuallyafforded onlybyone’sown immediate physical involvement.”⁷⁵ The literarynovel be-

 Ed Christian, “Introducingthe Postcolonial Detective,” in ThePostcolonial Detective,ed. Ed (Houndmills:Palgrave, ): –, .  Härting, “DiasporicCross-Currents,” .  Linda Hutcheon, TheCanadian Postmodern (Toronto: OxfordUP, ): .  Actually, Ondaatje’sstylistic “strategyofusingmanyvoices within the narrative means that the diasporicperspective is not givenmoreprominencethan the perspective of those livinginSri Lanka. So, though we start with Anil’sstory,wegoontohear those of Sarath, Gamini,Palipana, and Ananda, and learn about the sufferingcaused by violence” (Jayasuriya, Terror and Recon- ciliation, ).  Shoshana Felman, “Camus’ ThePlague,orAMonument to Witnessing,” in Testimony.Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History,ed. Shoshana Felman, Dori Laub (New York: Routledge, ): –, . Diasporic Fragments Coalescing: Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’sGhost 245 comes a “witnessing act bearing witness to the witness.”⁷⁶ As Martha Nussbaum observes, literature allows us to attain an ethical stance, inasmuchitoffers the possibilityto“ente[r] imaginativelyinto the livesofdistant others and to have emotionsrelated to thatparticipation:”⁷⁷ the task for literary imagination is “to createthe record […]toimagine […]the producible case” and in this way to “testifytothe value of humanityasanend in itself.”⁷⁸ The final section of the novel is entrusted to Ananda, who unites all the threads of the personal histories of the novel’sprotagonists. It is significantlyti- tled “Distance”,which reechoes the distant gaze Anil presumes she can applyto her mission in her country and which she eventuallyabandons in favour of her personal commitment to it; in the final scene, Anandaisengaged in the restoration of adamaged Buddha statue (its destruction causedbyguerrilla fightings) while another one is being built at the same time.Instead of recomposingthe cracks of its face, he decides to leave the damagevisible: “Up close the face looked quilted. They had plannedtohomogenize the stone, blend the face into aunit,but when he sawitthis wayAnanda decided to leave it as it was. He worked instead on the composure and the qualities of the face” (AG,298). The scars become ametaphor for the scars of the country “all the work he had done in organizingthe rebuildingofthe statue was for this. The face” (AG,299). His second task is to perform the ceremonyofthe NētraMangala, that is the ritual painting of the eyes upon the new Buddha statue, which infused divinity and presenceinto the statue itself.For this reason no mancould stare directlyinto the god’seyes, but used amirror in order to carry on his work. Ananda focusses preciselyonthat final moment, “when the eyes, reflected in the mirror,would see him, fall into him” (AG,302)and thereforeenclose him and at the same time,focus upon him in the surroundinglandscape (and by metaphor locate him within the country). This situation parallels the one previously described abovewhen Anil sees herself reflected upon the glass framing Sri Lan- kan maps.Hereaswell the imageofaperson is reflected on the background of the Sri Lankan landscape but it does not remain on the surface as it is in some wayacknowledged. Anandaapproacheshis task with afusion of Sarath’sand Anil’sstances.While workingonthe damaged statue, as well as while performing the ceremonyonthe new one, Ananda is wearingSarath’scotton shirt and in this waysubsumes him into the ceremony, as well as Anil, whom he explicitly mentions “He [Sarath]and the woman Anil would always carry the ghost of Sar-

 Milena Marinkova, “Haptic Aesthetics,” .  Martha Nussbaum, Poetic Justice. TheLiteraryImagination and Public Life (Boston: Beacon Press, ): xvi.  Nussbaum, Poetic Justice,xviii. 246 Sidia Fiorato ath Diyasena” (AG,301). Sarath is the real protagonist of Ondaatje’snovel for his engagement with Anil and his share in her attitude changeand her realization that “citizenship is located bothinalegal, territorial entity,which is associated with the privileges of sovereignty and the rights of individuals, and in acultural community whereitisassociated with ahistory of shared ethnic and social characteristics.”⁷⁹ Thenarrativesofthe nation-state⁸⁰ are transformed into cultural narratives, but alsopersonal ones which create new myths; an example of this is Sarath, who enters the historical and culturaldimension of his own country and becomes immortal as aresultofhis convictions. “In his work he felt he was somehow the link between the mortality of the flesh and bone and the immortalityofanimageonrock, or even, more strangely, its immortality as aresult of faith or an idea” (AG,275 – 276). The novel thereforeovercomes the geopolitical structure that locksthe text into arigid binary oppositionbetween Sri Lanka and the West and “dramatize[s] diaspora as aform of cultural critique that questions the very categories of identity.”⁸¹ The shaping of national identitiesoccurs within manydiscursive frames – juridical, political,civic, ethical, culturaland literary;the distantgaze that Anil will direct towards Sri Lanka, epitomized by the statue’sdistant gaze afterthe ceremonyisoverand created by Ananda in cultural and experiential connection both with Sarath and Anil, is in- formedbythis consciousness.

 Michael J. Shapiro, “National Times and Other Times:Re-ThinkingCitizenship,” Cultural Studies . (): –, .  “The primary understandingofthe modern ‘nation’ segment of the nation-stateisthat anation embodiesacoherent culture […]the symbolic maintenanceofthe nation-staterequiresa management of historical narrativesaswell as territorial space” (Shapiro, , ). “It is this activity of symbolic maintenance[…]that renders the nation-statean‘imagined political community’” (Sudesh Mishra, “The UnderbellyofDiaspora Criticism,” in Sikh Diaspora: Theory, Agency and Experience,ed. Michael Hawley[Leiden, Boston: Brill, ]: –, ).  Härting, “DiasporicCross-Currents,” .See also Christopher Lee, “SemblanceShame and the Work of Comparison,” in TheSemblance of Identity:Aesthetic Mediation in Asian American Literature,ed. Lee(Stanford: Stanford UP, ): –, . Nilufer E. Bharucha The Indian Diasporaand Laws

Reflections in Literature and Cinema fromthe Jahajis to the Transnationals

The 26 millionstrongIndian Diasporaisspread over 100 countries around the world and can be broadlycategorized into the Colonial Diasporaand the Postco- lonial Diaspora. Thesetwo categories can be further sub-divided into the Inden- tured, Entrepreneurial and Professional for the Colonial Diasporaand Labour, Professional and Entrepreneurial for the Postcolonial Diaspora. The Postcolonial Diasporafrom the last decade of the twentieth century also includes the ‘Cyber Coolies,’ the Illegals,the Transnationals and Global Indians, who flit with their laptops hefted on their shoulders to do outsourced contractsoftware work, or cross oceans and continents in leaky boats or dilapidated vans,orwith their financial teamsstorm into European and American board roomstotake over and make over Western industries,much to the chagrin of the formercolonisers and neo-colonisers,who find it difficult to accept that the Global Indians or Transna- tionalsare doing to them, what they used to do to them. All these Diasporas have been governed by diverse Imperial acts or National Laws that sought to benefit by the labour,the money and the expertise of these Diasporics but baulkedatletting them have equal rights within their countries. These laws wereevolvedfrom the 1830s onwards by Britainand its various colonies to govern and regulate Indian Indentured Labour.Someofthese laws were more discriminatory than others, for instance the infamous stand-off in Vancou- verHarbour in 1914with hundreds of Indians in the ship Komagata Maru,many of whom werejoining their relativesalreadyworkingasagricultural labour in British Columbia. These laws did not in the tradition of British justiceand fair play(!) distinguish between friends and foes of the Empire, so thatanupholder of Imperialism such as CorneliaSorabji was not allowed to cross over from the USAtoCanada in 1931, in spite of her British Indian Passport.¹ There are also the laws of citizenship of Canada,U.K. and the USA, which have governedIndians who have soughtresidence in thosecountries. DiasporicIndians from the Jahajis – the voyagers,the indentured labourers who crossed the Kala Pani (the black waters of the ocean, the crossingofwhich would lead to loss of caste for Hindus) in ships – to their postmodern urban, postcolonial cousins,haveall written on their experiencesinvolving diverse

 CorneliaSorabji, India Calling (London: Nisbet and CompanyLimited, ): –. 248 Nilufer E. Bharucha laws which governed entry or denied entry to Indians into thosecountries.Many of these texts explode the myths about the low ‘mobility’ factor of Indians and the lack of the ‘Return Home’ element in the Indian Diaspora. Thisliterature ranges from the diaries maintainedbythe Jahajis,tothe earliest diasporic literature, to texts that deal with these issues in contemporary times. Not all of these texts werewritten in English or French as the majorityofthese Indian Diasporics and not just the Transnationals of today – who are todayaided by Bollywood in retainingtheir Indian identities – have held on to their languages, cultures,cui- sines and religions. So some references have also been made to texts written in Indian languages. There are alsothe laws evolvedbythe Indian Government in the 1990s and which are still being further developed to deal with Persons of Indian Origins (PIOs), Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) and Non-Resident Indians (Non Resident Indians) and their increasinginterest in returning or partlyreturning to India. With the new Indian regime in place from May2014, there is afurther interest being exhibited by the Indian Prime Minister, whose visit to the USAinSeptem- ber 2014 included awidelypublicised and telecast event at Madison Square Gar- den with Diasporic Indians, at which an announcement wasmade thathence- forth all PIO cards would be valid for the lifetime of the holder,instead of for just 15 years which had been the norm till then.This announcement was ratified by aGovernment of India Gazette notificationissued on 30september 2014.Also announced wasthe fact that soon the PIO and OCI cards would be merged. The President of India has since promulgated the Citizenship (Amendment)Ordi- nance, 2015 with immediate effect so as to amend the Indian Citizen Actof 1955,which declared that all PIO card holders would be notified through the Of- ficial Gazette of the particulardatefrom which they would be deemed to be OCI card holders.² This engagement with the Diasporahas not been restricted to the postcolonial diaspora in the USAbut was also extended to the old indentureddiaspora, when the Indian Prime Ministerhad visited Fiji in November 2014.This diaspora does not impingeascentrallyonthe Indian psyche as do the other Indian diasporas and thus this visit was an acknowledgement of India’sdesire to build upon this old diaspora’sgoodwill in theirnew homeland. Forthe Fijian Indian Diasporathough more than 130 years after the first ships had deposited them in this distant Pacificoutpost of the BritishEmpire between 1879 and 1916,the Old

 Bharti Jain, “Governmentpromulgates ordinancemergingPIO,OCI schemes” ( January ), Times of India (acc.  August ). The Indian Diasporaand Laws 249

Homeland still looms large in their poetry and critical writingsfor instance that of Sudesh Mishra, Brij V. Lal and VijayMishra. Although after the ethnicviolence against Fiji Indians in the 1980s over 100,000 of them have migratedtoAustral- ia, New Zealand, Canada and the USAfrom the 1990s onwards,over314,000 Fiji Indians stilllivethere, even if this figure is down from 339,000 in 1996.³ Also included in this tour of the Indian Prime MinisterinNovember 2014 werevisits to Myanmarand Australia. In Myanmarthe Indian Diasporawas mainlyentrepreneurial and labor in nature and originated from the time when the British Raj administered from India the countries of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Burma (Myanmar). The Myanmarese Indian diaspora is well represented in recent Diasporic writingsuch as AmitavGhosh’s TheGlass Palace (2000) and Tamil films such as Burma Rani,⁴ in which an Indian girl in the Burmese Di- asporahelps three Indian airmen who crash land in Burma duringthe Second World War, freethe country from Japanese occupation forces with the help of the Indian Resistance.There is also Sivaji Ganeshan’sdebut film Parasakhti in which he plays one of the three brothers of an Indian family that livesinRan- goon and who suffers untold miseries due to the Second World War, is reduced to the status of apauper.⁵ The Government of India has declared 2015 as the year of the Diasporaas this year marks the centenary of one of the most influential Indian diasporic’s return to India. It wason9January,1915 that Mohandas KaramchandGandhi, better known as the Mahatma, had returned to India after 21 years in the South African diaspora.The Indian Government has since 2003 celebrated9Jan- uary as the Pravasi Bharati Divas (the Indian Emigrant’sDay)and has on this day honoured manyprominent Indian diasporics with the Pravasi Bharati Samman (Indian Emigrant’sAward). Some of these awardees are Ms.Khorshed Ginwala, the first speaker of the majority governmentofSouth Africa’sparliament, Mr. Phiroze Nowrojee, Advocate and HumanRights Activist from Kenya, Mr.Fareed Zakaria, journalist and TV host,USA,LordBhiku Parikh, PoliticalTheorist,U.K., the late Kalpana Chawala,USA astronaut,Mr. Ujjal Dossanjh, the first Indian origins Premier of BritishColumbia, Canada.⁶

 See the data at and census-of-pop ulation> (acc.  Dec ).  Burma Rani,dir.T.R.Sundaram,  (India: Modern Theatres, ).  Parasakhti,dir.R.Krishnan and S. Panju,  (India: National Pictures, ).  “Pravasi Bharatiya SammanAward, List of Recipients (–),” TheMinistryofOver- seas Indian Affairs (acc.  Au- gust ). 250 Nilufer E. Bharucha

This engagement with the Diasporaisnot anew phenomenon though,asin Colonial and then in Nationalist India too, there was areachingout to the Dia- spora. In the earlyyears of the twentieth century MahatmaGandhi’sstruggle for racialequality in South Africa bore fruitfor the diasporic Indians in the form of scathing enquiries by C.F. Andrews among others that ultimatelyled to the abolition of the indenture system. It wasAndrews,anAnglican priest, educa- tionist and social activist in India, who had met Gandhi in South Africa and per- suaded him to return to India. In 1915 Andrews and W.W. Pearson weresentby the British Indian Governmenttoinvestigatecomplaints made by,among others, Totaram Sandhya, areturningindenturedlabourer,about the ill treatment of indenturedlabour by plantation owners in Fiji. Andrews had also visited Indian indentured labour in British Guyana and also recommended an end to this system in that colony.⁷ Gandhi had also sent Andrews as his emissary to Mauritius to find out the condition of the indentured labour there. The reports submitted by Andrews led to the beginning of the stoppage of further indentured labour transports within the BritishEmpire. In the inter-war years, afterthe official end of indenturedlabour,Indian nationalist leaders had lobbied with India Office in London to securebetter political rights for overseas Indians, both former indentured labourers as wellasoth- ers. This became politicallyimportant with the Nationalist Struggle for India’s independence which had gainedmomentumduring this period.⁸ In the years following independence in 1947, Indians in Diasporawere, however,urged to identify themselveswith their new homelands.⁹ The growing social,cultural and political distance between India and its Diasporacontinued from the 1950s to the 1980s. Achanged perspective on its diasporabegan in India, in the 1990s with the phenomenal growth of the Indian economyand the increasing political influenceand economic strength of the Diasporain their new homelands. Inspired by the Chinese economic growth fuelled by diasporic remittances, the Indian government alsosought to woo its own diaspora. The year 2000sawthe appointment of ahigh-level committee on the Indian dia- sporabythe Government of India and the dispensation of the PIO and OCI cards,

 See C.F. Andrews, Impressions of BritishGuiana, :AnEmissary’sAssessment,ed. Basdeo Mangru (Chicago:Adams Press, ).  Details about these meetings,reports and letters areavailable in “Indians Overseas: Aguide to source materials in the India OfficeRecords for the studyofIndian emigration –,” The British Library (acc.  Dec ).  K. A. Ray, “Roots of Ambivalence:Indenture, Identity and the Indian Freedom Struggle,” in Ethnicity,Identity,Migration: TheSouth Asian Context,ed. Milton Israel and N. K. Wagle (Toronto: Centrefor South Asian Studies,University of Toronto, ): –. The Indian Diaspora and Laws 251 recentlyrevised, which gave Indian diasporics legal rights within India, such as the right to purchase property though they cannot take part in the political process within India, nor do they have the franchise.

1. The Diasporaand Economics

The economic kickback of these new policies has resulted in diasporics being able to invest financiallyinIndian companies and their FDIs (Foreign Direct In- vestment) have led to asignificant growth of the Indian stock market.The Indian Overseas Ministry websiteputs this symbiotic relationship between India and her Diasporarather well on its website:

The emergenceofsignificant Diasporas has in recentyears brought into sharp focus two keyfacts.First,thereisalarge expatriate population of skilled people from emerging economies in the developed world. Second, overseas communities can constituteasignifi- cant resource for the development of the countries of origin. The movement of the highskil- led and low skilled workers from less to moredeveloped economies and back opens several new opportunities for development.Toview the Diaspora onlythrough the lookingglass of remittances and financial flows is to takeamyopic view.Not all expatriates need to be in- vestors and their development impact measured onlyinterms of financial contributions to the home country.¹⁰

As noted by Bharucha,¹¹ the Indian film industry too, especiallythe Hindi film industry,known as Bollywood now,has been cashinginonthe Diasporaaudi- ence for along time. It alsohad its traditional markets in the Arab World and in the countries that formed the erstwhile Soviet Union. However,the spread of the Indian Diasporaand its changingconstitution from Labour,toEntrepreneurial, to Professional, to Academic, to Transnationalhas also meant an exponential in- crease in the audience of Hindi Cinema.Bollywood has also garnered new audi- ences in France and Germany. These new audiencesare drawntothese Bolly- wood films by the transnational nature of these cinematic texts.

 “India and its Diaspora,” TheMinistryofOverseas Indian Affairs (acc.  August ).  Nilufer E. Bharucha, “Global and Diaspora Consciousness in Indian Cinema: Imagingand Re-imagingIndia,” in Indian Diasporic Literatureand Cinema (Bhuj:Centrefor Advanced Studies in India, ): –. 252 Nilufer E. Bharucha

2. Laws Governing the IndentureDiaspora

What makes the Indian Diasporainteresting from alegal point of view is that it began in the nineteenth century when the European countries were beginning to re-organise themselvesinto modern nation states,and these states were created and governedunder the aegis of anetwork of laws. The Humanitarian project in most European countries which had gotafillip with the French Revolution which had been spurred on by the ringingslogan of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité meant thatthe European nation states found themselvesunderthe obligation of treating theiroverseas colonial subjects with the same democratic concern. In the 1830s, after along drawnout battle,the Abolition of Slavery Actof1833 was passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom which made slavery illegal (the buyingand selling of slaveshad alreadyended with the Slave Trade Actof 1807), in all parts of the British Empire with the exception of the territoriesheld by the East India Companyand the Islands of Ceylon and St.Helena. Slavery was legallyendedinIndia by the India Slavery Actof1843. In an excellent entry in the Encyclopedia of the Indian Diaspora,¹² entitled “The AgeofColonial Capital,” Brij V. Lal has argued thatthe plantation owners who suffered huge monetary losses as aresultofthe end of slave labour were soughttobecompensatedtothe tune of millions of pounds and this was incorporated into the Actitself.However what alsosoon became essential wastofind areplacement for slave labour in aform that would neither contravene the new laws nor offend the sensibilities of the liberals and associations thathad been formedinBritaintofreethe slaves. Forsome time the planters especiallyin the Caribbeanislands experimentedwith freed slave labour (termedapprentices by the Actof1843) to run their plantations augmented by indenturedlabour from England,Ireland and Germany, which was not uncommon from the seventeenth century onwards.However,the continuation and docility offered by slave labour could not be replicatedinthese labourers.The vast reservoir of labour in the In- dian possessions of the East India Companysoon began to appear very attractive to the former slave owners and began to be seen as agood replacement. However,after the abolition of slavery these labourers could not be transported as easilyaswerethe slavesacross the vast distances of the BritishEmpire. So aset of rules and new laws had to be put into place for this purpose. Inden- tured labourers werenot new to the British Empire and had as noted earlier been taken to the New World and this practice continued in some form or the other

 Brij V. Lal, “The AgeofColonial Capital,” Encyclopedia of the Indian Diaspora,ed. Brij V. Lal, Peter Reeves, and Rajesh Rai (Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, ): –. The Indian Diasporaand Laws 253 well into the twentieth century.However,these indentured labourers were white and to some extent protected under the laws of their country of origins in Eu- rope. Forthe subjects of BritishIndia, stillunder the rule of the East India Com- pany, therewerenosuch laws in place and they had to be created so that this form of indenturedlabour should not begin to look like the earlier,now abolish- ed, slave labour.The National ArchivesofBritain provide important information on the various acts which were passed by the Britishparliament and legislation enacted by the British Colonies themselvestocontrol and regulate the outflow and inflow of Indian indenturedlabour. The first outflow of Indian indentured labour took place between 1834 and 1837 to Mauritius under rudimentary contracts. Mauritius accordingtothe Colo- nial Office records of the National ArchivesofBritain was first settledbythe Dutch in 1598. The Dutch laterabandoned the islands in 1710 and they wereoc- cupied by France in 1715.The French East India Companychanged the name of the islands to Ile de France. After the British conquered the islands in 1810 the name was once again changed backtoMauritius.¹³ In 1837,through British Indian Government Regulations, the flow of labour from India to the other Britishcolonies was brought under stricter control. As aresultofthese regulations the agent who soughttoship such labourers had to present to the concernedBritish official the contracts signed by these labourers. The contracts werefor five years and after five years they could be renewed for another five years. At the end of the first or second contract the labourer had to be giventhe optionfor returningtoIndia, rather to the port of departure. At first these regulations wererestricted to the port of Calcuttabut then wereex- tended to Madras. These regulations even sought to control the maintenance of certain standards on board the ships that carried the indentured labourers to their place of work. However,asliterature writtenbydiasporic Indians shows, these regulations weremore often than not better honoured in their breach thanintheir observance.¹⁴ By 1839,fourteen shipshad transported over 25,000 indentured Indian labourer to Mauritius. At first recruitment wasleft to European firms basedinCal- cutta who employed local recruiters to getlabour from inland.Public pressure on the regularization and transparency of the recruitment process bothin India and in Britain lead to the Governmentofthe Bengal provincein1837taking

 “Colonial Officeand predecessors:Mauritius,Original Correspondence,” TheNational Ar- chives (acc.  August ).  See, for example AmitavGhosh, TheSea of Poppies (London: John Murray, )and The River of Smoke (); Sanadhya Totaram, Bhoot Len Ki Katha – The Storyofthe Haunted Lines ()and My Twenty One Years in Fiji (). 254 Nilufer E. Bharucha an interest to ensure thatthoserecruited understood the terms of contracture. This again as has been pointed out by critics such as Brij Lal in TheEncyclope- dia of the Indian Diaspora (2006) and creative writers such as AmitavGhosh in TheSea of Poppies (2008) was an extremelydubiousprocess as the indentured labourers weremore often than not illiterate and were afraid of crossingthe Kala Paani. So they were usuallykept ignorant of their actual destinations and mode of transport.The Government of Bengal however began to takenote of reports of abuse and neglect of the labourers and of the unsafe shipsinwhich they were transported to Mauritius. HenceAct Vof1937ofthe British Government of India stipulated thatemigrationofcontract labourers was subject to their appearance before an official appointed by the provincial government; the contract should be in English and the Vernacular and must specify the wages and nature of work; it must name the employer,etc.¹⁵ This however did not stop fraudulent recruitment or abuse of the labourers.Soin1838acommittee was appointed and it stronglycritiqued the indenturedsystem and most importantly recommended the employmentofastipulatednumber of women in each batch of indentured labour transported overseas. This was for several reasons,asifthe men had their wiveswith them they were more likelytostayonintheir new homelands, after the end of their indenture;the presenceoftheir own women would also prevent the miscegenation that the Empire dreaded so much and reduce the possibilities of alternativesexual practices abhorrent to those times. In Britain therewas an attempt to canvas support among the British public against what was by then called the ‘coolie trade.’ The planters who wereben- efitting from the indentured labour however soon started their own campaign for the continuation of the indentured system. This led to the Government of India ActXVof1842which sought to further control and supervisethe system of indentured labour.This act provided for the appointment of emigration agents at the port of embarkation in India and aprotector of emigrantsinthe port of disem- barkation. All ships used for transporthad to be licensed by the Government of India and had to ensure the nutrition and medicalcare of the indenturedlabour and also specify the length of the voyage and the destination. However there was no provision for actual implementation of this Actand the stipulations of the Act wereonce again obeyed more in the breach than in observance. By the 1850s indentured labour was allowed to be transported to the Carib- bean colonies on the same conditions as prevailedinMauritius, and this in spite of the high rates of mortality on the transportships. Out of the twelve ships

 Brij V. Lal, Chalo Jahaji: On aJourney through Indenture in Fiji (Canberra: ANU EPress, ): –. The Indian Diasporaand Laws 255 which left for the West Indies the averagemortality rate wassome times as high as 31%and the averagewas over 17 %. In the 1870sthe Government of India and the Provinces sought to distance itself from the recruitment of indentured labour as they felt it would cause labour shortageintheir own provinces and also they wanted to avoid the whiff of the continuingcritique of the system to float into their own backyards. The Nobel LaureateinLiteratureSir V.S. Naipaul hails from this background of indentured labour in Trinidad. Hisearlyworks especially AHouse for Mr.Biswas is in the words of VijayMishra, “anovel that begins and ends with death within the confines of ahouse that encapsulates the diasporic negotiation of space in terms of the history of diasporaand its sites.”¹⁶ The first transport of indenturedlabour to Fiji took place in 1879.The Fiji islands had been ceded to Britain in 1874 and Sir Arthur Gordon the first Governor of Fiji had earlier been the Governor of Trinidad and then Mauritius. There he had seen the successful induction of Indian indentured labour in the plantation economyofthose islands. The indentured labour in Fiji alsohad to sign an agreementbefore they were transportedthere. The word ‘agreement’ wascor- rupted to ‘girmit’ by the labourers who then defined themselvesas‘girmitiyas,’ those of the agreement.What was alsoimportant with regard to the indentured labour in Fiji was the presenceofasubstantial number of women, as by 1870 the Indian Government had made it mandatory for each group of indentured labour to have at least 40%offemalerepresentation. As observed by C.F. Andrews in his report of 1916 however,these women werevery shabbilytreated by both the planters and theirown men.¹⁷ There was widespread outrageinIndia against the conditions of the indentured labour in Fiji and the system was brought to an official end in 1916 and the indenture agreements of all existing labourers in Fiji werecancelled from 1January 1920 onwards. The 1920ssaw the growth of the Indo-Fijian population as it was then augmented by not just the freed girmitiyas but also by free migrants from Gujarat and Punjab. After the independence of Fiji from Britishcolonial rule in 1970,the ethnic unrest against the Indo-Fijians by the Fijian Samoans,led thosewho wereabletodoso, to leave Fiji mainly for Australia and New Zealand.¹⁸ These changingcircumstances of the Indo-Fi- jians are recorded in the literature producedbythem in English and Hindi. The earliest example is that of the alreadymentioned Totaram Sanadhya’smemoir Bhut Len Ki Katha (The Tale of the Haunted Lines) which has stood witness to

 VijayMishra, “The Old Plantation Diaspora of Classic Capital,” in TheEncyclopedia of the Indian Diaspora,ed. Brij V. Lal (Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, ): –, .  C.F. Andrews, Impressions of BritishGuiana.  Brij V. Lal, “Fiji,” in TheEncyclopediaofthe Indian Diaspora, –. 256 Nilufer E. Bharucha the livesofthe girmitiyas on the sugarplantations and theirdeprivedlives in the Lines or Barracks, where they lived. Sudesh Mishra’spoem “The Time is Out of Joint” is written in the North Indian Bidesia tradition of longingand nostalgia of the immigrant for his homeland.¹⁹ Yetanother island nation where labour was taken to workonplantations, this time of tearather than sugar,was the island of Ceylon, now known as Sri Lanka. The majorityofthe labour taken there wasfrom the Madras Presidency of British India and was ethnic Tamilian Hindu. They became known as the Plan- tation or Upcountry Tamils. There wasalso amuch older group of Tamilians who had livedinSri Lanka for centuries, as aresult of the close culturaland trading ties between the kingdoms of South India and Sri Lanka. They werethe Eelam Tamils who livedgenerallyinthe coastal North Eastern parts of the island. The Tamil labour migration to Ceylonisconsidered to be ‘free’ as opposed to the indentured system which prevailedinother British colonies.However,this ‘free’ labour wasrecruitedunder the Kangani or Maistry system under which contractors in the Madras Presidency recruited labour,first for the coffee plantations in the 1830s which wereset up in the highlands of Ceylon by the British planters,and then from 1880s onwards for the tea plantations. The coffee plantations had to be turned over to tea when in thatdecade they werehit by a fungus infestation. The British India government did from time to time issue or- dinancesand set up rules and regulations to ensure safe and just workingenvi- ronments for the Plantation Tamils. An ordinanceissued as earlyas1865sought to ensure hygienic living conditions for the Tamil workers, which was, however, not very effective.In1904 the Ceylon Labour Commission was set up to provide a fairer system of recruitment as compared to the one offered by the Kanganis. In 1920 the passing of the British India Government’sEducation Ordinance meant that the plantation owners had to provide education for the children of the Plan- tation Tamils. By this time ethnic disharmonyamong the natives of Ceylon, the Singhalese, who followed the Buddhist religion and the Tamils had broken out. The Singhalese resented the Tamils, whom they sawasoutsidersand foreigners and wanted them to be sent back to India. When Ceylon was granted independence from Britishrule in 1948, these resentments took on amore political colour and ultimatelyled to the long-drawn-out civilwar between the Singhalese and the Tamils, which in turn forced manyofthe Tamils into yetanother diaspora, this time as refugees underlegallyadministered refugeequotas in European countries such as Germanyand in the USAand Canada. Amillion Sri Lankan Tamil refugees had alsobeen givenrefuge in India duringthe 1980s at the height

 Sudesh Mishra, “The TimeisOut of Joint,” Span  (): –. The Indian Diasporaand Laws 257 of the ethnic conflict thereand the resultant Indian Peace Keeping Force(IPKF) sent to Sri Lanka by the Indian Government and the Tamilian resentment against it as it was seen as favouring the Singhalese, had led to the assassination of the Indian Prime MinisterRajivGandhi by aSri Lankan Tamil militant group in 1991. The travails of the Sri Lankan Tamils are recorded in Literatureand cinema.One such writer is Dominic Jeeva, who is alsoaDalit (belongingtothe lowest Hindu caste). He wrote his collection of shortstories in Tamil Pathukai (1963) among manyothernovels and stories.Healso edited ajournal Mallikai which started publication in 1966 and was the bastion of progressive writing.Another Sri Lan- kan Tamil writer is Thelivathai Joseph, who has written on the livesofplantation Tamils in novels such as Kudai Nizhal (2013). By the 1980s the worseningethnic clashes between the Tamils and the Singhalese led to alarge number of them moving to European countries,Canadaand Australia. Thus emergedthe double diasporic Sri Lankan Tamil discourse. Apart from the usual diasporic tropes of longingand nostalgia this writing began to displaynew metaphors basedon the new homelands. These writers wereused to being discriminated against on the basis of their different religion and culturebut now they werealsosubject to colour and racial discrimination and this is to be seen in their diasporic texts. Writers from the Western/double Sri Lankan Tamil diasporainclude the poets Jeyapalan, Vijayendran and Aravinthan. The important novelists are Karunakar Moorthyand Partipan. In their Western diasporathe Sri Lankan Tamils weresub- ject to the laws of the countries that gave them refuge and to the refugee quota system, evolvedbythe United Nations HighCommissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) which was established in the aftermath of the Second World Warin1950. As for the colonial laws governing indentured Indian labour,in1882the Gov- ernment of India passed the Emigration Act(XXII), which with some modifica- tions in 1908, governedindentured emigration until the end of 1916.

3. Free Migration in the ColonialPeriod

Not all thosewho went into diasporafrom India however wereindentured labourers.There was also free migration duringthis period. Servants,traders, lascars (sailors) and sepoys(soldiers) travelled as free migrantsduringthe colonial period. Indian sepoys and lascars weresentonoverseas campaigns by the British in India. The forebears of manyIndian diasporics in Canada for instance werethe soldiers who on the wayback to India through Canada from Eu- ropean wars stayedback there. Indian domestic servants oftenaccompanied their English masters to Britain and then returned with or without them to India, or stayedback. 258 Nilufer E. Bharucha

Traders mainlyfrom the West and South of India went to set up small and large trading companies in South and East Africa, Burma, Singaporeand Malay- sia. They were often called the Dokkawallahs,the shop keepers, dokka being a corruption of the Hindi word Dukan,meaning shop. M.G. Vassanjiinhis novel TheIn-Between WorldofVikram Lall (2003) provides astrikingpicture of the livesofsuch traders in East Africa. During this period the British adventuring in China, the Opium Trade and the resulting Opium Wars also meant that a large number of Indian traders, servants,lascars and sepoys found themselves in the Chinese ports of Nanking and what became the British outpost colony of HongKong. AmitavGhosh has dealt with this history of the Indian diaspora in the second book of his Ibis Trilogy, TheRiver of Smoke (2011). In South Africa, too, the descendants of the indenturedlabour and the free traders oftenemployed Indian professionals such as lawyers to arguetheir causes with the colonial government of South Africa. One such Indian lawyer was the young Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi who wasemployed in 1893byDada Ab- dollah aGujarati businessman settled in Natal. Gandhi soon became immersed in the political activities of the Indians there and wasin1894 the first secretary of the Natal Indian Congress which was foundedtocounter the move to disen- franchise the Indians there through the Indian Disenfranchisement Bill. It was in South Africa that Mohandas Gandhi the man, slowlybecame the Mahatma(i.e., ‘the evolvedsoul’). It was here that he alsodeveloped and honed the tool of passive resistance or soul power – Satyagraha. This tool which he took back with him to India in 1915 eventuallybrought the British Empire to its knees and was instrumental in the gainingofindependence by India. Gandhi had during his time in South Africa brieflyreturnedtoIndia in 1901, but then had been called back to Natal by the Indians there in 1902. Inspired by the Gita, the Bible, Ruskin’s Unto This Last (1860,published in book form in 1862) and Tolstoy,heembraced alife of increasingself-abnegation. On Phoe- nix Farm and then Tolstoy Farm gottogetheracommunity of like-minded thinkers, who were committed to not just fighting the unjust laws of the colonial regime, but also combatingthe inner contradictions of the Hindu religion, such as the caste system and untouchability.Someofthe campaigns led by Gandhi wereagainst the so-called ‘Black Act’ of 1907under which all ‘Asiatics’ had to be compulsorilyregistered, finger printed and at all times had to carry this cer- tificate of registration. This humiliating and shameful act was stronglyresisted through Satyagraha. Gandhi’slongstand-off on this with General J.C. Smuts, landedhim in jail several times. When Smuts reneged on the promise givento Gandhi to repeal the act by August 16 1908, Gandhi and his followers publicly burnt thousands of these certificates.Yet another lawagainst which Gandhi had launched Satyagraha was the South African Supreme Court order of 1913 The Indian Diaspora and Laws 259 that had declared that henceforth Hindu and Muslim marriages would no longer be recognized. The agitation against this ruling broughtthousands of hitherto almost sequestered Indian women out on to the streets against this lawwhich deprivedthem of the status of wivesand reduced them to concubines. This period was the heydayofthe Indian Nationalist movement and Gandhi and his relentless campaign against unjust South African laws brought him and the Indian diasporics there to the notice of the Nationalists in India. Gopal Krish- na Gokhale, one of the leaders of the Indian National Congress,visited Gandhi at the Tolstoy Farm in 1912.The Indian National Congress (INC) at its annual ses- sions in 1911, 1912 and 1913 expressed empathywith the Indians in South Africa. Gokhale in fact had become Gandhi’smentor afterhis visit to him in South Af- rica, and like C.F. Andrews who had become afriend of Gandhi’s, urgedhim to return to India. Gandhi returned to India in 1915 and his induction into the In- dian national movement is then history that culminatedinthe end of the British Raj and the beginning of the end of the British Empire too. The INC also played an important role in the ultimate abolition of the indentured labour system, as between 1915 and 1920 it created astrongpublic opinion against this form of labour export from India. The INC also drew into its folds associationsofdiaspor- ic Indians across the globe in its fight against the British Empire. In his presidential address of the INC annual session in 1926,Srinivas Iyengar had said:

The status of Indians abroad,whether in South Africa, or Kenya, in Fiji or Guinea [Guyana], in Ceylon or Malaya, in America or Australia, depends inevitablyupon the status of Indians in their own land; and the Swaraj [independence] for India depends in its turn upon the braveand unfalteringspirit of our kith and kin across the seas.²⁰

In the 1920sand 1930s Indian leaders such as Sarojini Naidu, Jawaharlal Nehru and Ramaswami Naicker ‘Periyar’ visited Kenya, Malaya Ceylon, Burma and Sin- gapore to meet with the Indian diasporics there. TheINC alsochampioned the South Indian merchants in Burma when the colonial authorities soughtto bring in unfair legislation in 1941thatwould have adverselyimpacted the trading interests of these merchants. This close interaction with the Indian diaspora experiencedalong hiatus once India became an independent nation in 1947. Although the first Prime Min- ister of India did try to keep the diasporainmind, the fledgling nation could not fulfil its promise of grantingIndian citizenship to its far flung diaspora, which by then had been offered the British Commonwealth Citizenship. By acceptingthis

 Qtd. in Gyanesh Kudaisya,“Indian Leadership and the Diaspora,” TheEncylopedia of the Indian Diaspora, –, . 260 Nilufer E. Bharucha citizenship the diasporics lost their right to Indian citizenship as the Indian Cit- izenship Actof1955declaredthat anyone who had “voluntarilyacquired the citizenship of another country [should]cease to be the citizen of India.” Nehru then urgedthe Indians abroad to “identity themselveswith and integrate in the mainstream of social and political life of the country of their domicile.”²¹ When the Indian diasporawas expelled from Uganda and put under pressureinKenya in the 1970s, the Indian governmentthen under the leadership of Prime Minister IndiraGandhi, did not extend political support to them.

3. Post-Imperial Migration

In the post-Imperialperiod beginning with the late 1940s and well into the 1980s, Indian labourers and professionals who went to work in the old Imperial centre, i.e. Britain, or in the Commonwealth, i.e. Canada, Australia, New Zea- land, or in other parts of the world, mainlythe USAand the Arab Gulf countries, did so under the immigration laws of thoselands and receivedlittle or no support from the Indian government in case of exploitation or oppression by their employers or racist attacksbythe general populations of their host lands. This trend however was reversed in the 1990s, and in recent years the Indian government is more active in the protection of the rights and livesespeciallyofits migrant labourers, as was demonstrated in the air lifts it had organised to bring home Indian workers during the Gulf Warin1990 –1991, negotiations to freeIn- dian hostages duringother Gulf crises²² and more recentlythe airlifts organised to bring home the Indian nurses and labourers who werecaught in the cross fire between the Syrian government and the rebelforces there in 2013.One of the In- dian writers who have written on the experiences of Indian labour in the Gulf is the bi-lingual, English and Marathi, writerVilas Sarang. In the post-war period between 1948 and 1961there was large-scale migration from India of skilled and semi-skilled labour as well as professionals to the U.K. The BritishNationality Actof1948 introduced the Citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies and even considered as subjects of the British Em- pire all subjects of the newlyexpandedCommonwealth. In reality the immigration of Sub-Continentals, Africans and thosefrom the Caribbean wasrestricted by policy. While some politicians in boththe labour and conservative regimes

 Qtd. in Kudaisya, “Indian Leadership and the Diaspora,” .  See Government of India, MinistryofExternal Affairs Iraq++A+Reverie> (acc.  Dec ). The Indian Diasporaand Laws 261 wanted to encouragemigration from the commonwealth others wanted to prevent what was called coloured migration. TheImmigrationAct of 1962officially restricted coloured immigration but was not very effective. There is an interesting Bollywood film entitled Patiala House which deals with this period of rampant racism in the U.K., when Indian immigrants were beaten up and packets containing faeces weredelivered in theirletter boxes.²³ Transmission (1992),anovel by Atima Srivastava, has alsodealt with racist attacks on Indian immigrants. Forthe first time in 1965there was afocus in the policy of the UK government in favour of professionals from India: doctors,dentists and research scientists – this was alsothe time when there was aparallel angst in India about the ‘brain drain’ to the West.

4. Migration to the UK by Indian Diasporics from Africa

Also in the 1960s and early1970s highlyskilled and qualified Indians migrated to the UK from the formerEast African colonies duetothe ‘Africanisation’ of these countries. Under the British Nationality Actof1964 the White settlers in Kenyaand other East African colonies with UK-born fathers or grandfathers also had their Britishpassports restored. However,when thousands of persons of Indian origin began migratingtothe UK especiallyinthe late 60s, the UK Government in just three days hastilyenacted the second Commonwealth Immigration Actin March 1968 to denyentry to these former colonials. British liberals werehorrified by what they sawasone of the most dishon- ourable of acts in the history of immigration policy,asunder this Act, the former colonized were denied entry into Britain which had projected itself as the Mother country and was now treatingthe former colonials as undesirable step-children onlyonthe basis of their colour.Ironicallythe hitherto Whites-onlypolicies of the former daughter colonies of Canada,Australia and New Zealand were being eased around this time – Canada in 1967, Australia in 1975,New Zealand in 1974.This led to those Indian diasporics who weredenied entry into Britain moving instead to these countries.However the NationalistsinBritainsuch as Enoch Powell thoughtthatthis policy was too generous and would cause racial tensions.

 Patiala House,dir.Nikhil Advani,  (India: Hari Om Entertainment, ). 262 Nilufer E. Bharucha

We have Indian diasporic writers and film makers who have documented these new migrations of Indians who had livedinEast Africa. Gurinder Chadha, the British film maker from East Africa, has portrayed the lingering aftertasteof racism and oppression in her film Bend it Like Beckham,asexperiencedinKenya blendingwith the racism in the new home in Britain.²⁴ Indians studying at British Universities is atradition thatgoes back to the nineteenth century.Gandhi as well as Nehru to mention onlytwo of India’sna- tionalist leaders had studied at British Universities. The Indian writerMulk Raj Anand, author of the path-breaking Untouchable (1935), had been astudent at Cambridge in the 1920s. Although the flow of Indian studentstoBritain has dwindled considerably since the 1990s and channelled itself to countries such as the USA, Canada and even Australia and New Zealand, thereare still many Indian students at British Universities today. In large measure this drop in numbers is duetoBritain’svisa laws. SunetraGupta and AmitChaudhri represent the Indian student diasporain Britain and their booksportray not justdiasporic life in Britain but that of Indian studentsthere. Chaudhri’s Afternoon Raag (1993) juxtaposes his Oxford student life with India. Gupta, whose Ph.D.was from the University of London, is now a professor of Theoretical Epidemiologyatthe University of Oxford. In her novels beginning with Memories of Rain (1992) she writes mainlyofcross-cultural relations. SalmanRushdie is the most illustrious British writerofIndian origin and after the 1989 fatwa issued against him by the Iranian Ayatollah, the most problematic too. His texts represent not just the diasporic setting of Britain but also the Indian subcontinental locales as seen through the prism of his diasporic location.This is the case with his two earlynovels Midnight’sChildren (1981) and Shame (1983). In the controversial TheSatanic Verses (1988) thereisthe British setting,apart from the disputed sections on Mecca.The chapters on London are a damning critique of Britain’simmigration laws which demonize and dehumanize immigrants. This is adirect engagement with immigration laws and its dispens- ers who detain ‘illegal’ immigrants in several detention centres. Rushdie’scollec- tion of shortstories East, West Stories (1994) alsolooks at the issues of racism and identity construction in diaspora. Accordingtothe 2011 UK Census, therewereapproximately4,214,000 South Asians (Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis) in England and Wales representing around 7.5% of the population. Thisisupfrom 2,331,423South Asians in the 2001 census.Those of Indian origin comprised 2.5% of the population, with

 Bend it Like Beckham,dir.Gurinder Chadha,  (UK: Redbus Film Distribution, ). The Indian Diasporaand Laws 263 those people of Pakistani origin comprising2.0 %, around 0.75 %wereofBangla- deshi origin, with around 1.4% other Asian.²⁵

5. Immigration Legislation in Canada

As one of the daughter colonies of the Empire, thereisalong history of Indian immigration to Canada. Sikh troops stationed in HongKongtravelled via Canada to Britain for the coronation of King EdwardVII in 1902. Between 1903 and 1908 over 5000 Sikhs, returned upon de-mobbing to work as labourers on the farms and lumber yards in BritishColumbia. There were quick repercussions to this in- flux of ‘Hindoos’ though most of the immigrants wereSikhs. In 1907anAsiatic Exclusion Leaguewas formedinB.C.toexpel the East Indians as they were called there and threatened violence against them. In response to these popular demonstrations against the Indians, the B.C. government disenfranchised the East Indians and also madethem ineligible for Government jobs. There was a call to extend the Head Taxlevied on Chinese workers to the East Indians. This was shot down by the BritishIndia government fearing repercussions in India against them. On 8February 1908 the federal government of Canada without naming the East Indians broughtinalegislation thateliminated East Indian immigration to Canada. People from India werecalled East Indians in Canada and the USA, to distinguish them from the other fallaciouslynamedIndians of the North Americanand South Americancontinents.InIndia the East Indians are Roman Catholic Christians who live in Mumbai and in Thane District and are thoughttohavebeen converted to Christianitybythe apostle St.Bartholomew. This Order-in-Council introducedthe stipulation of ‘continuous journey’ for eligibility of migration to Canada. Journeys from India, China and Japan to Canada then required ahalt at Hawaii. This led to the infamous Komagata Maru incident in 1914when aSikh, Gur- dit Singh, hired aJapanese shipnamed Komagata Maru and undertook anon- stop voyage from HongKong to Vancouver. The ship reached Vancouveron 23 May1914. The 376East Indian passengers on board were legallyBritish subjects with the right to travel freelyinthe BritishEmpire, including Canada. They wereinspite of having fulfilled the ‘continuous journey’ rule not allowed to disembark in Vancouver. The stand- off lasted till 21 July 1914and even water

 See Officefor National Statistics,UKat (acc.  Dec ). 264 Nilufer E. Bharucha and food supplies were sought to be cutoff to the ship to encouragethe putative immigrantstogiveupand return home. Some passengers gotsick and one died. Finallyon23July3passengers who could provethat they werereturning residents wereallowed to disembark and the ship left the harbor under armed navalescortfrom HMCS Rainbow.The would be immigrants werenot allowed to disembark from the ship in Singapore from wheremanyhad boarded and wereforciblybrought to India wherethe ship was docked near Calcuttaatthe Budge Budge port on 29 September of the sameyear.The police boarded the ship to arrest Baba Gurdit Singh but he escaped. In the resultant firing 19 of the passengers werekilled. Gurdit Singhand the passengers werelinked to the anti-British Gadar movement and wereseen as dangerous insurgents.²⁶ The remainingpassengers werethen taken to the Budge Budge railwaystation and sent to Punjab. Gurdit Singhhad then remained in hiding until he was convinced by Gandhi to give himself up in 1922. In 1952the governmentofIndia erected amemorial at the Budge Budge station in the form of the Sikh dagger, the kirpan,and it was inaugurated by Jawaharlal Nehru India’sfirst Prime Min- ister.In2013,the Budge Budge Railwaystation was re-named the Komagata Maru Budge Budge Station in memory of the men who werekilled there on that long agobut not forgottenday of 29 September 1914. The Indo-Canadiancommunity in Canada marked the 100th anniversary of the Komagata Maru incident on 23 May2014. In Vancouveratthe Burrad Inlet,Coal Harbor,from wherethe immigrants had been turned away,the Cana- dian politicians, offered apologies and reparations to the Indo-Canadians of todayatthe Komagata Maru memorial.Astamp was alsoreleased in commem- oration of this event.Conferences and workshops wereheld at universities across Canada marking the journey of the Komagata Maru, which debated past and present issue concerning immigration and multicultural laws. The Indian Government too launched ayearlong celebration of the Komaga- ta Maru related incidentsofresistingdiscriminatory immigrationlawswith release of stamps and symposiums.²⁷ Afilm by Ali Kazmi, Continuous Journey,was released in 2004 on this event.²⁸ Deepa Mehta, the Indo-Canadianfilm maker is also making afilm on KomagataMaru. The Indo-Canadian poet Sadhu Binning’spoem No More

 T.R. Sareen, “The Ghadr Party,” in We Fought Together for Freedom: Chapters from the Indian National Movement,ed. Ravi Dayal (Delhi: Oxford, ): .  Pratul Sharma, “Komagata Maru: Centenary Celebrations Begin” ( October ), Indian Express (acc.  August ).  Continuous Journey,dir.Ali Kazimi,  (Canada: TVO, ). The Indian Diasporaand Laws 265

Watno Dur/No Morethe DistantHomeland (1994) evokes the KomagataMaru incident too in parallel Punjabi/English lines. Another poet Ajmer Rode had written apoem called Apologytomark the 75th anniversary of the Komagata Maru’s turning away from Canada, in which he has written: “Ibow my head and /pro- foundlyapologise /for what we did to the Komagata Maru /passengers seventy five years ago.”²⁹ Hereit’sthe Canadiannation itself and not the diasporathat is rememberingthe event. The continuous journey ruling remained on the legal codeofCanada till 1947and the East Indian population in Canada dwindled with manySikhs leaving for the USA, mainlyCalifornia.Although in 1918 the CanadianGovernment had lifted the ban on the East Indians bringing in their wivesand children they werestill disenfranchised and this ban on voting was lifted onlyin1947, in which year there wereonly3360 East Indians in Canada. In the 1960sthe Trudeau governmentliberalized immigration policies and these less discriminatory legislations weredrawn from the Immigration Actof 1952. In 1966 there was aWhite paper on Immigration that broughtinthe Points system for immigrants. In 1976 the Green Paper on Immigration tightened entry for the ‘independent class’ of East Indian immigrantsbut openedupagain the ‘familyreunification’ and ‘refugee’ classes. Between 1971 and 1991 Canada also receivedalarge number of the Indian Diasporafrom Fiji, East Africa and the Caribbeanislands. Over 25,000 came onlyfrom Fiji, 7000 from Ugandaand 80,000 from Guyana. Between 1998 and 2002 migrantsfrom India entered under the ‘skilled worker’ and ‘familyreunification’ classes. Indo-Canadians constitute3.08%of the Canadianpopulation according to the 2006 census and number 962,665.³⁰ Some of the high-profile writers and film makers of Indian origins in Canada are Rohinton Mistry,Shauna Singh Baldwin, Ramabai Espinet,M.G.Vassanji, Anita RauBadami, Deepa Mehta and Ali Kazmi.Mistry’snovels Such ALong Jour- ney (1991), AFine Balance (1995), Family Matters (2002) do not have much of a focus on Canada but his collection of short stories Tales from Ferozsha Baag (1987) have three stories set in Canada which are scathing critiques of the much-vaunted Canadian policy of Multiculturalism. Shauna SinghBaldwin’s We are Not in Pakistan (2007) is about immigrant women and living in diaspora in different settings. Ramabai Espinet’sdiaspora trajectory to Canada is deflect- ed through the old colonial indentured diasporaofthe Caribbeanislands. Her

 Qtd. in Mishra, TheLiteratureofthe Indian Diaspora: Theorizingthe Diasporic Imaginary (Ox- fordand New York: Routledge, ): .  See Statistics Canada,  Census of Population https://www.statcan.gc.ca/census-re censement//index-eng.cfm (acc.  December ). 266 Nilufer E. Bharucha writing is still about the old Kala Paani diasporaand evokes images of living in this diaspora, especiallyinTheSwinging Bridge (2003). Badami is of the new postcolonial diaspora,who went to live in Canada onlyinthe 1990s. Her novel Tell it to the Trees (2011) is about an Indo-Canadian familyand has aCana- dian setting unlikemost of her other books. Vassanji’stwo bookscentrallylocat- ed in Canada are TheGunnySack (1989) and No New Land (1991). Racism, oppression and trauma as well as the East African and Canadianlocales are the common threads thatrun through these texts.Deepa Mehta’sacclaimed Ele- ments Trilogy³¹ – Earth, Fire, Water,isset squarelyincolonial and postcolonial India but two of her films do deal with the diasporic Canadian situation – Sam and Me,³² and Bollywood/Hollywood.³³ The former is astory of connections between different immigrantstoCanada divided by race, religion, cultureand generations. It’sthe story of Nikhil the young Indian immigrant and the old Jewish man Sam, for who he is hired as acaretaker.This is in asense afilm about Cana- dian multiculturalism. The latter film is acelebration of Bollywood and its inspi- ration Hollywood. It is ahilarious story which yetisserious in the critique it offers on the Indo-Canadian community,its patriarchal orientations and homophobia.

6. Immigration to the United States of America

The USAhas in the post-imperial, postcolonial period been the most favoured destination for Indian immigrants. Accordingtothe data available on the websiteofthe Migration Policy Institute, 1.9million persons of Indian origins livedinthe USAin2011.³⁴ They were the largest group of immigrants after the Mexicansand the Chinese. The majority of these immigrants are highlyeducated and fall within the topmost earning brackets.The origins of this migration can be traced to the students at USAuniversities which is the largest group of foreign studentsatthese universities after the Chinese. These Indians could be those who hold Green Cards giving them permanent residence in the USAorthose

 Earth, dir:Deepa Mehta,  (Canada:Crackingthe Earth Films Inc., ); Fire,dir. Deepa Mehta,  (Canada: Zeitgeist Films, ); Water,dir.Deepa Mehta,  (Canada: MongrelMedia, ).  Sam and Me,dir.Deepa Mehta,  (Canada: Deepa Mehta &Robert Wertheimer, ).  Bollywood/Hollywood,dir.Deepa Mehta,  (Canada: MongrelMedia, ).  JieZongand Jeanne Batalova, “Indian Immigrants in the United States” ( May ), Migration Policy Institute (acc.  August ). The Indian Diasporaand Laws 267 who have become naturalized citizens. There is also avery large number of In- dians who hold on to their Indian passports and are the NRIs – the Non-Resident Indians. The majorityofthese Indians live either in California or in New Jersey. In the 1990sanew breed of IT professionals began to flock to the USA. Many of these professionals are contractedfor afixed period and then return home giving rise to the term ‘cyber coolies.’ These Indians work mainlyinCalifornia and giventhe present fluctuating global economymay onlybetransnationals on out- sourcecontracts rather than immigrants who would become diasporics. As the IT industry grows in India and Indian cities such as Hyderabad and Bangalore set up IT hubs to lureback the IT professionals who are in amoresettled diaspora in the USA, thereare alarge number of highlyeducated IT professionals who are returninghome to India. India’sscientific organisations and especiallyits successful space programme is alsobringingback some of its scientists. The Bollywood film Swades – We,the People tells the story of Mohan (played by the Global Bollywood icon Sharukh Khan), ahighlyqualified Indian scientist, who has studied at the University of Pennsylvania and now works as aProject Manager for NASA and livesinFlorida.³⁵ Mohan returns to India for his nanny Kaveriamma and goes to her villageinsearch of her.There he comes face to face with the rural realities of aglobalizingIndia. He bonds with an idealistic young woman who has been looking after Kaveriamma. At the end of the film Mohan has to decide whether or not he wants to return to the USAasbothhis nannyand his new loverefuse to leave the village. However,Mohan does not have to reallymake achoice between his old and new homelands as he is in aposition to return home to India and work from therefor his employers in the USA. This is what makes Mohan and Indians like him transnationals rather than the classic diasporics. The New Jersey diasporic Indian group is more diverse and is composed of engineers,doctors,scientists and others. The majority of these first generation diasporics would be Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) with Green Cards,who would have retainedtheir Indian passports for personal,emotional or economic reasons, having property,parents and siblingsinIndia. Scattered across the USA are also Indians who are academicians,engineers,doctors,independent entre- preneurs,motel and petrol station owners and workers and small shop keepers. MeeraNair’sfilm Mississippi Masala has engaged with the last mentioned group of Indian diasporics expelled from Uganda and who had settledinthe USA.³⁶ In the southofthe USAthey are at one and the same time the victims

 Swades – We,the People,dir.Ashutosh Gowarikar,  (India: UTV Motion Pictures, ).  MississippiMasala,dir.MeeraNair,  (USA:The Samuel GoldwynCompany, ). 268 Nilufer E. Bharucha and the perpetratorsofracism.The Indian familywhich had to leave Uganda due to the policy of Africanisation adopted by the dictator IdiAminfind themselves in the deep South of the USAinGreenwood Mississippi. Here while the parents battle racism from the White population, their daughter falls in lovewith ablack man. The parents then found themselvesonthe other side of racist prejudices as they did not want their daughter to marry ablack man. TheNamesake (2003) by Jhumpa Lahiri is focused on the Indian diasporics who belong to the group whose route to the USAwas through the academia. In this novel the Indian origins professor Ashok and his wife Ashima live quiet lives in auniversity town with their children Gogol/Nikhil and Sonia. This book analyses the question of diasporic identity constructions among first and second generation Indian diasporics. Accordingtostatistics provided by the USAMigration Policy Institute, Indian diasporics are the most recent of the immigrants in the USA, with 52%having entered the USAafter 2000.Sothis is reallythe Global Indian diaspora, with over 29%ofthese immigrantsbeing IT professionals. These bland but positive statistics however do not provide the completepic- ture. The history of Indian immigration to the USAisnew,yet not as new as it is made out to be by the Migration Policy Institute’swebsite.³⁷ Indian immigrants did not suddenlyappear on the American scene in 1965once the USAimmigra- tion laws liberalizedthe restriction on the entry of Indians into that country.The Indian aspiration to be part of the land of immigrants, the land of the American Dream, goes backtothe end of the nineteenth century.Punjabi peasants first appeared in California and Washington to work on its orchards and in its sawmills. They werethough Sikhs, called Hindus like in Canada,from wheresome of them had come in abid to escape the racist policies of that country.Bythe earlytwen- tieth centurythough these Indian immigrants were being subjectedtoracial attacks in the USAtoo and there wasthe formation of the Asiatic Exclusion League which sought to keep out these Hindu immigrants. The immigrants werealsonot allowed to own property as adisincentive to immigration. In 1901 the first batch of students from India arrivedinthe USA. They studied mainlyatthe University of California,Berkley and at the polytechnic at San Luis Obispo. These werepoliticallyaware men who weresoon brought within the ambit of the Indian nationalists. Lala Lajpat Rai the Indian nationalist visited the USAand gave lectures to the Americanpublic on the platformofthe Boston Anti-

 Monica Whatley,Jeanne Batalova, “Indian Immigrants in the United States” ( August ), Migration Policy Institute (acc.  August ). The Indian Diaspora and Laws 269

Imperialist League. Politicalexiles from India also made theirway to the USA and in 1913 the Gadhar (meaningRevolt in Urdu)party or the Hindu Association of the Pacific Coast was formed. With the breaking out of the First World Warin 1914, the British in India wereafraid of the Gadharmembers fermenting trouble against them in India and in the USA. However with the Americans enteringthe war in 1917, the Gadharites lost their support base in the USA. The 1917Immigration Actpassed by the USAblocked the entry of all Asians into the USA. Forthose who werealreadythere, Naturalised Citizenship was re- served for ‘White,’‘Aryan’ and ‘Caucasian’ immigrantsonly. This lead to several cases being filed by Indian immigrants who claimed to be either White or Aryan. This was of course the beginning of the heydayofthe pseudo-scientifictheories of racial superiority which culminated in the Nazi genocides of Jews, Gypsies and other undesirable races. The Immigration and NaturalizationService (INS) between 1923 and 1926 even cancelled the American citizenship alreadygranted to Indians earlier and placed themunder the Alien Land Law(1913). As aresultthe Indian population in the USAdeclinedsharplyand it was onlybecause of the altered circumstances of the Second World WarthatIndian immigrants could again gain entry into the USA. Afraid of Indians aligningthemselveswith the Japanese and thus opening up another front in the Eastern Theatre of the war,the Americans soughttore- storethe right to Naturalisation and Citizenship for Indians, which finallycame through in the Actof2July 1946.This was not an unfounded fear as the Indian nationalist SubhashChandraBose had left the INC by 1939 and after abrief incarceration by the Britishhad escaped from India in 1941. He had in the fashion approved by Indian and Western political thinkers (Kautilya and Machiavelli) allied himself with his opponent’s(the British) enemies, the Germans and the Japanese. Ironicallyfor Hitler,Bose was acceptable as an ‘Aryan’,though the USAhad deniedthis sobriquettohis fellow countrymen and deprivedthem of Americancitizenship. The exploits of the Indian National Army(INA) set up by Bose have been portrayed by AmitavGhosh in TheGlass Palace (2000), wherethe British Indian Armyofficer,Arjun, has to deal with the terrible conflict between conscienceand loyalty,inthe jungles of Burma wherehecomesface to face with not justthe Japanese invaders but alsothe Indian National Army which was collaborating with the enemiesofthe BritishEmpire. At the end of this war in 1945which over amillion Indian soldiers had died once again, as they had in the First World War, the British were still in control of an India thatwas on the brink of freedom. However,the laws of British India had held the INAsoldiers to be traitors to the Empire and they werecourt martialed between 1945and 1946. During the trials amutinybrokeout in Mumbai(then Bombay) among the Naval Ratingsand then had spread to Karachi, Madras and other ports. Themen charg- 270 Nilufer E. Bharucha ed with treason by the Britishweredefended by acommittee set up by the Indian National Congress. These Congress men who werealso lawyers trainedinBrit- ain, were Jawaharlal Nehru, Bhulabhai Desai, TejBahadur Sapru, K.N.Katju and Asaf Ali. These trials raised questions of not just military lawbut also civil and constitutional laws as the INAhad been commanded by Bose who had in 1943taken over not just as the leader of this armybut also set up aprovi- sional government of free India, underwhich the INAhad fought against the British in the Second World War.³⁸ As for the USAithas legislated on the entry of Indians through several Acts since the one of 1946.The Immigration Actof1965set aquota of 20,000 for each country in the ‘Eastern Hemisphere.’ The ImmigrationPolicyCentre of the Amer- ican Immigration Councilwebsitesaysthat thereare several ways in which an Indian could immigrate to the USA, s/he could go under the familyre-unification scheme for those who are alreadyAmericancitizens, they could also become LPR (legalpermanent residents) or Green Card Holders or seek naturalization as American citizens after five yearsoflivinginthe USAorbeing born there (under the 14th Amendment).³⁹ There are also employment basedvisas keeping in mind the needsofthe labour market.Aquota for refugees and asylum seekers is also available under the RefugeeAct of 1980.However Indians constituteless than 1% of refugees to the USA. The USAalsohas to deal with alarge numberofunauthorized illegal immigrants from Mexicoand other Latin Americancountries.There are instancestoo of Indians overstaying and illegallydoing work in the USAonTourist Visas. Writers of Indian origins in the USAhavedealt with manyofthese immigration related issues. BharatiMukherjee in Jasmine (1989)has intertwined the stories of legal and illegal immigrants from India, Vietnam and LatinAmerica. Her stories in TheMiddleman and Other Stories (1988) collection had also touched upon these issues earlier.Kiran Desai’s TheInheritance of Loss (2006) has asection set in the USAwherethe illegal immigrant Bijuworks almostas slave labour in Indian and even some Americanowned restaurantsand cafes. He links up with other illegals from the African continent tooinakind of Broth- erhood of the DeprivedDiasporics. Godfrey Joseph Pereira toohas written about the ill-treatment meted out to illegal diasporics by otherIndians in his first novel, Bloodline Bandra (2014). Herethe illegal is not an assistant cook or kitch-

 L.C. Green, “The Indian National ArmyTrials,” The Modern Law Review . (): –, –.  “Howthe United States Immigration System Works:AFact Sheet” ( March ), American Immigration Council (acc.  August ). The Indian Diasporaand Laws 271 en assistant like Biju, but an educated journalist from India who is employed by an Indian newspaper on the promise of getting him his work permit.Inreturn he is treated like aslave and made to live in almost inhuman conditions,though not as bad as thoseinwhich Biju had to exist. The Indian Diasporainthe USAhas alsobeen active in the field of film making. Cosmopolitan is afilm by Nisha Ganatra, about an Indian immigrant in New Jersey who is suddenlyabandoned by his daughter and wife.⁴⁰ Confused about himself, his life, his identity he takes up with his neighbor an American woman, who he had earlier considered ‘loose moraled’.Theydevelop awarm and tenderrelationship but ultimatelyshe too leaveshim. MeeraNair’s The Namesake,⁴¹ based on Lahiri’snovel of the samename alsodelvesinto the issue of identity construction, hybrid identities and identity confusion. These issues mainlyrevolve around the character of Nikhil/Gogol and begin with his name itself. Nair’searlier film Monsoon Wedding is set in India but with Indo- Americanand Indian protagonists who gettogetherfor awedding in Delhi.⁴² What follows is the tumblingout of familyscandals and the final denouement of ahappy ending with the conflictingidentities and moralvalues being at least partiallyresolved. The journey of the Indian diaspora across time and spacenow stretches from the 1830s to the second decade of the twenty-first century and is spread out across more thana100 countries.From being the derided coolies in their new homelands they have become influential politicians and prosperous busi- nessmen and industrialists.The descendants of the indentured labour have been knighted by the Britishand awarded Pravasi Bharati Awards(Indian Emi- grant’sAward) by their old Homeland. Manyamong them have stood witness to their livesand those of theirancestors in literature and cinema. They have written and made films so that those who come after them maynever forgetthem, what they had endured and what they have in spite of everything achieved. Their lives, their past and present werewoven togetherintightlyknit laws that created the skeins across oceans and continents and gave them an identity that included elements of Indiannessand elements of their new worlds.These laws mayattimes have been unfair,blatantlyracist and discriminatory but the Indian diasporics kept workingwithin the legal and constitutional systems of their old and new homelandstomake for themselvesamore fair system of justice.

 Cosmopolitan,dir.Nisha Ganatra,  (USA:Gigantic Pictures, ).  TheNamesake,dir.Meera Nair,  (USA:Fox Searchlight Pictures, ).  Monsoon Wedding,dir.MeeraNair,  (USA:USA Films, ).

Avtar Brah Articulations Across Diaspora, Law and Literature

Global migrations are akey feature of today’sworld. They rangefrom the movement of labour migrants to that of elites such as the personnelofmultinational corporations, documented and undocumented workers, students, refugees and asylum seekers.Some migrations are ‘voluntary,’ whereas asignificant number of migrants are ‘trafficked’ from country to country.Accordingtothe UN (2013) Trends in International MigrantStock,¹ some 232millioninternational migrants are living in the world today. Of these, 72 million are found in Europe. While women comprise about 48 percent of all international migrants, considerable differences exist across regions.At51.9percent,the proportion of female migrants is the highest in Europe. In 2013,the total number of refugees in the world was estimated at 15.7 million, arelativelylow proportion of the total number of people on the move. During the period 2000 –2010,the global migrant population grew twice as fast thanduringthe previous decade. In 2013,the international migrantscomprised about 3.2percent of the world population, and political discourses in some receiving countries about ‘being swamped’ grossly exaggerate the proportion of the migrants in the popular imagination. In any case, the economic and social impact of global migrations is significant. Iamconcerned in this paper not with migration in general, but rather with those groups that form diasporas. Of course, not all migrations resultinthe for- mationofdiasporas. Onlythosemigrantswho ‘settle elsewhere’ from acommon ‘place of origin’ and createa‘home’ away from ‘home,’ and in whose social imaginary the place of origin holds some significant resonance, maybedescribed as diasporas.There are many different diasporas in the world, and within the academy, the studyofdiasporas is now awell-established field, with certain features shared with, but retainingadistinctiveness from ‘Area Studies.’ As is now well acknowledged, diasporastudies is an interdisciplinary field of endeavour.Dia- sporacan be adescriptive termdelineatingahistorical diasporasuch as that of the Jews, African origin Blacks or South Asians.But it can also be deployed as a concept which comprises aset of investigative technologies which theorise and analyse the socio-economic, cultural political and psychic relationality within and across diasporas.² Iuse the concept of diasporahere in this sense. This

 See (acc.  Dec )  Avtar Brah, Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities (New York: Routledge, ). 274 Avtar Brah paper arisesfrom acolloquium which was held to try and attempt to explore in- terconnections between the field of diasporastudies, literature and law. Fordec- ades now,law and literature as well law in literature has occupied an important place in the academy. Similarlythe study of diasporic texts is well established within literarystudies. However,the links between these fields of studyand diasporastudies is less well developed. How might this triangulation develop further? One wayofdoing this might be by identifying common thematics, concepts, and theoretical perspectivesacross these distinctive fields. This, in my view,may provefruitful in taking this objective forward. How might these areas be interconnected in and through these common threads?How might this specific type of transdisciplinarity be practiced?What are the linking elements?Ilist below some of these common elements which maybeanalysed in hoping to develop the triangulation of the three fields: a. citizenship is aconcept central to all three areas; b. law, governance and governmentality are themes that link lawtoliterature and diaspora studies; c. the position of refugees and asylum seekers has acommon resonanceacross all threeareas; d. the feminist concept of intersectionality underpins all these areas; e. questions of identity and difference feature across all three areas.

It is not my intention to address all these aspects sequentiallyorinthe same depth. Rather,Iaim to examine adiasporic text and see how issues thatlink the three areas feature across this text.Thisisfollowed by amore substantive discussion of immigration lawand citizenship in order to tease out the intercon- necting themes. Ibegin with Mohsin Hamid’snovel TheReluctant Fundamental- ist wheremanyofthe aboveconcerns are central. This is adiasporic novel par excellence, set in Pakistan and the USA. It contains an incisive commentary upon personal and political experience forged within contemporary modalities of transnationalism. It opens with the following words:

Excuse me, Sir,but mayIbe of assistance? Ah, Isee Ihavealarmed you? Do not be fright- ened by my beard: Iamalover of America.³

 Moshin Hamid, TheReluctantFundamentalist (London: Penguin, ): ;further references in the textabbreviatedasRF. Articulations AcrossDiaspora, Law and Literature 275

And so ensues an intricate narrative of love,anger,and ambivalence. The novel stages acontestation between male facial hair – which came to signify a ‘terrorist’ in the post-9/11world of the US-led ‘WaronTerror’–and the mighty power of America.The Pakistani male protagonist is amigrant in America duringthe years preceding and following the 9/11 destruction of the Twin Towers,the symbol of corporate power in New York. In the aftermath of this attack, the sight of a beard grown by Muslim men producedfear because in popularimagination beard came to stand for ‘extremism.’ Yetironically, beards wornbyMuslim men alsoinscribed aglobal subaltern posititonality, giventhe inequalities between the countries of the global North and South, and the prevalence of circuits of racialised discourses.The novel is about Changez, ayoung man of Pakistani origin who goes to America to study. He falls in love with ayoung woman, Erica, who would seem to inhabit afantasy world steeped in the memory of her dead boyfriend. From the beginning,the relationship appears to be doomed,as Changez could onlybeapoor copy of the boyfriend. In the course of the unfold- ing narrative,Erica falls ill and is taken into aCare Home whereshe gradually fades away with anorexia and depression, and eventuallyispresumed to have committed suicide, although this event is not witnessed by anyone. Thisfading away maybeunderstood as ametaphor for the estrangement of Changez from America which he had grown to love. Changez is abrilliant student at Princeton University wherehebeats off stiff competition upon graduation, and manages to secure aprestigious job as management consultantwithin corporate America.But his world of high life under- pinned by transnational capitalism crumblesinpost-9/11New York.Henow faces racialdiscrimination. In this social climate, we witness the emergence of anew politicisedidentity on the part of Changez, although its precise features remain ‘unknowable.’ The novel describes an imagined conversation between Changez, and an anonymous Americanman who accordingtoChangez might well be an undercover CIA operative,although this is never confirmed. Changez tells his life story to the American, in response to the latter’squestions.The novel is manythings, but at one level it marks an encounter between the power of global corporate capital and the formation of subjectivities or identitiesinand through asymmetrical power relations. These identities are produced within cultural difference,within ‘dialogicity’ which as JanetWilson argues:

[…]informs the novel’snarrative structure – amonologuethat delineates adialogue – and accounts for the impact of the enigmatic climax as Changezretains ambiguity of voice, incident,and character right up to the last minute.⁴

 Janet Wilson, “The Contemporary Terrorist Novel and Religious Rundamentalism:Richard 276 Avtar Brah

Initially, Changez is an enthusiasticparticipant in the intricate workings of Americancapitalism, but later he becomes disillusioned and dissociates himself from it.Heloses his job, because he can no longer be the keen member of staff that he used to be, and his colleagues begin to show suspicion and distrust towards him. He returns to Pakistan wherehehas to reconstruct his own gaze so that he does not view Pakistan as he believes outsiders do. But he still carries fragments of America within him. He tells his American interlocutor:

Ihad been tellingyou earlier,sir,ofhow I left America. The truth of my experience com- plicates that seeminglysimple assertion; Ihad returned to Pakistan, but my inhabitation of your country had not entirelyceased. Iremained emotionallyentwined with Erica and Ibrought somethingofher with me to Lahore – or perhapsitwould be moreaccurate to saythat Ilost something of myself to her that Iwas unable to relocate in the city of my birth. (RF 195)

This quotation narrates the predicament of all diasporic identities. They negotiate multiple spatialities and temporalities. Different and differential landscapes of memory jostle with each other.Varying and variable modalities of ‘homing desire’ are juxtaposed within its realms.These identities are marked by the complexity of subjectivities underpinnedbymultiplicity and hybridity.The power of this novel, indeed perhaps all novels – resides in the wayitcan vividlyportray the workings of subjectivity and identity alongside social and structuralrela- tions. This novel raises anumber of issues, thematics and concepts that are pertinent to our discussion. One of these is citizenship in bothits legal sense (Changez can onlyhold avisa so long as he has ajob) and citizenship in the broader sense in that his sense of belongingisput into question. Citizenship would seem to be akey connectingtheme and concept across law, literature and diasporastudies. In the most general sense citizenship is about membership of apolitical community.Assuch it involves arelationship between rights, duties, participation, and identity.Citizenship laws govern who belongsordoes not belong to anation state,orasisthe case with the EU,toasupra-national organisation. Whatrights do migrants have in asociety?Ofcourse, rights may be distinguished between civic, political and social rights,and identity can refer to either political or cultural identity.Inthis broader sense citizenship is about economic, socio-culturaland political issues as they impact upon people. Legal issues are framed by wider concerns in acountry.The British Nationality

Flanagan,Mohsin Hamid, Orhan Pamuk,” in Burning Books: Negotiationsbetween Fundamental- ism and Literature,ed. Catherine Pesso-Miquel, Klaus Stierstorfer (New York: AMS Press Inc., ): –. Articulations AcrossDiaspora, Law and Literature 277

Actof1981, for example, was instituted amidst the circulation of massive anti- immigrant racialiseddiscourses.Margret Thatcher was at the forefront of anti- immigrant rhetoric when during atelevision interview in 1978,she suggested that the Britishway of life needed special protection because she feared that the “country might be rather swamped by people with adifferent culture.”⁵ Sev- eral decades later such sentiments still abound. Ishall return to this point later. Overall, therehas been aclose connection between immigration and nationality lawinBritain and elsewhere. Thus the circumstances under which migrants acquirecitizenship or are refused it,and the ways these events are experienced hold interest for thoseworkingindiasporastudies, literarystudies as well as the studyoflaw. Hence, below Iexplore the ways in which the development of Brit- ish immigration lawmarks diasporic experiential formations.

1. RhetoricsofImmigration Law

By coincidence, 2014 was the 62nd anniversary of the 1962Immigration Act – and this would be agood place to start.Asisnow well known, the post WWII period witnessed an economic boom. There werelabour shortages in Britain – especially in areas wherethe white workforce did not wish to be deployed because the jobs were low-paid and accompanied by poor workingconditions.Britain turned to its formercolonies to fill these labour shortages. The workers came predomi- nantlyfrom the Caribbean and the South Asian sub-continent and found them- selvesdoing low-skilled and semiskilled jobs. There was asmall fraction of professionals such as doctors some of whom would be spread in isolated areas wherethe British doctors did not want to work. Accordingtothe 1948 Nationality Act, migrants from the former colonies had open entry into Britain and had the legal right to workand settle there. Al- though this period has been described by some as the ‘liberal hour’ of immigration, in actual fact both the Labour government of 1945–1951and the Conserva- tive governmentofthe 1950s considered various ways of curtailing immigration from the ‘New Commonwealth.’ This terminologyofNew Commonwealth wasa code for what was then called the ‘coloured’ immigration. It was duringthis time that alinkage was established between ‘race’ and immigration in policy debates and in popular political and media discourses.⁶ It was against this racialised po-

 Margaret Thatcher,TVInterview for Granada World in Action,  Jan ,(acc.  Dec ).  John Solomos, Race and Racism in Britain (London: PalgraveMacmillan, third ed. ): esp. –. 278 Avtar Brah litical climate thatthe riots of 1958 in Notting Hill and Nottingham took place. Although the riots involved attacks on black people by white youth, the political and media commentaries made it seem as if it was the presenceofblack people that was the problem. The riots served to bring to nationalprominenceissues that had previouslybeen mainlythe subject of discussion in local areas or within government departments. The riotswereusedbythe pro-immigration control lobby to support their arguments for the exclusion, even expulsion, of what weretermedas‘undesirable immigrants.’ The introduction of the 1961Immigra- tion Actwas preceded by anti-immigrant rhetoric bothwithin parliament and in the media, accompanied by aresurgence of right-wing groups.The immigrants werepresented as taking jobs away from whiteworkers, adrain on welfarere- sources, and athreat to the ‘English Wayoflife,’ themes which are still familiar to us today. The legislation was introduced by the Conservative Party and was opposed by the Labour Party,but once in power Labour also gave in to what has been described by scholars as ‘state racism.’ Since the 1962Immigration Actcame into operation due to the political campaign against immigration of People of Colour,itwas not surprising that many of its clauses sought to control the entry of these Commonwealth citizens into Britain. One aspect of the 1962Immigration Actwas that it gave exemption from control to Britishcitizens living in independent Commonwealth countries provided they held Britishpassports. This included alarge number of European settlers and asizeable number of Asians in Kenyaand Uganda. Between 1965and 1967, some of these Asians started to migrate to Britaindue to Africanisation policies of those countries.Asection of the media and certain Members of Parliament began to clamour for action against this inflow of British citizens and aheated debate ensued. The Labour Party succumbed to this pressure and introduced the Commonwealth Immigration Actof1968. This Actwas specificallydesigned to control the entry of Asians from East Africa. Under this lawany citizen of Britain and its colonies who held apassport issued by the British governmentwould be subjecttoimmigration control unless (and this is the keypoint)they or at least one parent or grandparent had been born,naturalised or registered in Britain as acitizen of Britain or its colonies.This clause institutionalised aracial underpin- ning to the legislation as most of the whitecitizenswith aconnection by descent weregiven the right of entry.Despite this, the continuingarrival of the dependants of NewCommonwealth migrants kept the numbers game high on the political and media agenda and the pressuregenerated resultedinthe introduction of the 1971 Immigration act which qualified the notion of citizenship by differenti- ating between citizensofBritain and the colonies who were ‘patrial’ (read White) and thereforehad the right of abode, and ‘non-patrials’ (read People of Colour) without connection via descent who did not.There was now no automatic entry Articulations AcrossDiaspora,Law and Literature 279 into Britain for commonwealth people who werenot white, yetthe political discourses focussed on the curtailing of immigration went unabated duringthe period of Margret Thatcher and John Major. Although the proportion of dependants of people of colour settledhere and the fiancés from the South Asian subcontinent of British Asian women was small, these groups were seen as athreat to the British wayoflife. According to Margaret Thatcher,the Britishpopulation felt “swamped by people with adifferent culture.” Cultural difference was now became acode for the undesirability of Black and Asian minorityethnicgroups.Asian women marrying menfrom abroad had to provethat theirrelationship wascontractedfor the primary purpose of marriage, implying that these werebogus marriages. There werecases of virginity tests thatwereconducted on Asian women, and Asian children arriving in Britain underwent x-rayexaminations to establish theirage.All these measures were instituted in order to provethat the applicants weregenuine candi- dates under the Immigration Rules. Whilst the government has now introduced apoints-based system for potential applicants for entry into Britain, the Home Office Website still says thatifyou are aCommonwealth citizenand one of your grandparents was born in the UK, youcan applytocome here to work.⁷ Well, whiteCanadiansorAustralians or New Zealanders are much more likely to have grandparents born in the UK than people from Asia or the Caribbean. During present dayBritain, immigration from the member states of the European Union has again become asubjectofmajor controversy.Inthe recent European Parliament election in May2014, the party that gotthe highest level of popular vote, the UK Independent party,ran specificallyonananti-immigration and anti-EU platform. This is the first time that aparty other than the Labour party and the Conservativeparty has won the popularvote in anational election since the 1906 general election. It is also the first time since 1910 general election that aparty other than Labour or Conservative won the largest number of seats in anational election. The anti-immigrant sentiment was crystallised by NigelFar- age, the leader of the UK Independence Party,when he statedinanLBC radio interview in May2014that British people would be wary of Romanian families moving into their street.When pressed about the fact that his ownwife was Ger- man, he said that people would know the difference between living next door to Romanians and Germans. There is thus ahierarchyinhis view between Eastern and Western Europeans.

 See “Ancestry Visa” ( April ), GOV.UK (acc.  August ). 280 Avtar Brah

During the 1990s, the treatment of asylum seekers and refugees wasamajor cause of political conflict across Europe and it remains one of the most contro- versialitems of the political agenda with increasinglystringent controlsonthe entry of asylum seekers and refugees. The predicaments of being arefugeeor asylum-seeker interrogate the very notion of citizen,nation state and nationality. As Giorgio Agamben notes:

If refugees (whosenumber has continued to growinour century,tothe point of including a significant part of humanity today) represent such adisquieting element in the order of the modern nation-state, this is aboveall because by breakingthe continuity between man and citizen, nativity and nationality,they put the originary fiction of modern sovereignty in crisis.Bringingtolight the differencebetween birth and nation, the refugeecauses the secret presuppositionofthe political domain – bare life – to appear for an instant within that domain. In this sense, the refugee is truly “the man of rights,” as Arendtsuggests,the first and onlyrealappearance of rights outside the fiction of the citizen that always covers them over.Yet this is preciselywhatmakes the figure of the refugeesohard to define politically.⁸

In other words, “the refugee must be considered for what he [sic] is: nothing less than alimit concept that radicallycalls into question the fundamental categories of the nation state […]”⁹ The refugeeispartiallyconstituted in and through legal protocols.Incon- temporary Europe sh/e is the “new dispossessed” as Patricia Tuitt puts it.¹⁰ In manycountries of Europe, there are racialised discourses which represent refugees and asylum seekers as ‘bogus’ economic migrants, who are intent on cir- cumventing immigration law. These claims have led to the erosion of rights of refugees and asylum seekers,sothat the persecuted in the country of origin face another form of persecution as they reach the place wherethey seek refuge. Interrogatingthese legal regimes of power is acritical mode of intervention today.

2. FormationsofCitizenship Discourses and Practices

Ihaveargued that there is aclose link between immigration and citizenship, both in terms of lawand the broader conceptions of citizenship.These concep-

 Giorgio Agamben, HomoSacer:Sovereign Powerand BareLife,trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen (Stanford: StanfordUP, ): .  Agamben, Homo Sacer, .  Patricia Tuitt, Race, Law,Resistance (London: The Glass House P, ). Articulations AcrossDiaspora,Law and Literature 281 tions interconnect diasporic concerns with legal and literary treatment of the subject. How do we think of citizenship in the current context of global mobility? If citizenship is about membership of apolitical community,what does this membership consist of?Who is included and who is excluded and under what circumstances?Where do the boundaries of citizenship lie? These are some of the questions that animate the following discussion of changingconceptions of citizenship. As membership of apolitical community,citizenship involves arelationship between rights, duties, participationand identity. In the classicalliberaltradi- tion of modern liberal thoughttherehas been greater emphasis placed on rights and dutiesand much less on participation and identity. One mayidentify two distinct models of citizenship. Firstly, there is the model which foregrounds market and state-centred conceptions of citizenship that represent aformal and legallycoded status. On the otherhand,there is aview of citizenship that focusses upon substantive dimension of participation in civic community.The first conception is primarilyabout nationality whereas the second notion is much more about active citizenship.Whereas the liberaltradition has focussed on the issue of rights,the conservative tradition has tendedtofavour responsi- bilities of citizenship. The republican and communitarian forms of citizenship have givencentrality to participation. Akey debate in the discourse of citizenship is about the tension between citizenship as the pursuitofequality and the recognition of difference. As is well known, from the beginning the term citizenship involved exclusion. Exclusion could takethe form of subordination to non-citizen statusaswas the fate of slaves, children and women. No account of citizenship can avoid this fact that it was originallyconstructed on the basis of certain categories of persons. In away,the history of citizenship has been an ongoing contestation for the removal of inequities and inequalities. Although all citizensare conceptualised as equal before law, there are differences in the life chances of different groups in society. Famously, T. H. Marshall has distinguishedbetween civil rights, political rights and social rights. He suggests that these rights wereachieved over three hundred years with social citizenship emerging with the development of the modernwelfarestate. The latter was not fullyrealized until the twentieth century.Importantly, Marshall recognised thatequality in lawand politics could easily co-exist with social inequality.Social rights took the form of social welfarecov- ering housing,health, education, unemployment benefitsand pensions. These together with those of civic and political citizenship served to alleviate the impact of structural inequalities of capitalism. But inequality has not been eradi- cated due in part to deeper antagonisms between capitalism and the welfare 282 Avtar Brah state. As critics have alreadyargued,¹¹ the welfarestate has not onlynot reduced inequality to the degree Marshall expected but in some ways exacerbated it.It might be argued that social citizenship has to adegreeboughtoff dissent. Delantyinhis book titled CitizenshipinaGlobal Age offers afivefold critique of Marshall’stheory which is relevant to contemporary understanding of citizenship. First he pointstothe contemporary challengeofculturalspecificities and rights. Followingthe work of scholars such as I. M. Youngand Isin and Wood,¹² he argues how the politicization of the issues of gender and race, for instance, indicate thatpolicies of universal equalitywill not be adequate to tackle these inequities and inequalities. Hence, some conception of ‘difference’ is necessary in the recognition of group rights.That is to saythat,weneed adifferent model of rights if we are to take full cognizance of the rise of claims to culturalrights and group rights. Second, there is the challengeofglobalization which signals major transformations in economy, culture and society.For instance, the nation state is somewhat eroded by global processes and global social movementshave pointed to the limits of moderncitizenship. Third, there is the challengeofsub- stantive over formal citizenship. Marshall would appear to underplaythe sali- ence of participation as akey element of citizenship.Ofcourse, the rights of citizenship did not come from abenevolent state but emergedasaresultof centuries-longstruggle and contestation through which various rights wereachieved. The point is thatcitizenship is not merelyaquestion of rights but also involves political identificationand commitment to the political community. Afourth element of Delanty’scritique is thatMarshall did not question the link between nation and state.That is to saythat,the state as the provider and guarantor of rights, and the nation as the focus of identity.Todaythis link- agecannot be taken for granted. In the context of globalisation, the state is no longer entirelyincommand of all the forces that shape it.Thismeans that there is no perfect equivalencebetween nationality,asmembership of the political community of the state, and citizenship as membership of the political community of civil society.This is clearlyevidentinthe case of immigrantswho, as we have seen above, can possess formal citizenship in the sense of nationality and yetbeexcluded from participation in the society in which they live.Fifth, Marshall, accordingtoDelanty,took for granted the strict separation between

 Claus Offe, Contradictions of the WelfareState,trans.John Keane (Cambridge,Mass.: MIT Press, ); Gerard Delanty, Citizenship in aGlobal Age: Society,Culture, Politics (Buckingham: Open UP, ); Classes,Power and Conflict: Classical and ContemporaryDebates,ed. Anthony Giddens,David Held (Los Angeles: UofCaliforniaP,).  Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton: PrincetonUP, ); Egin F. Isin, Patricia K. Wood, Citizenship and Identity (London: Sage, ). Articulations AcrossDiaspora, Law and Literature 283 the privateand the public realm which has been radicallycontested especially by feminists. These concerns have introduced critical reappraisal of citizenship. There have been other pressures on citizenship too. The arrival of neoliberalism,for example, has had amajor impact on discourses of citizenship. Neolib- eralism has been accompanied by governmentpoliciessuch as decentralisation, deregulation,privatisation, and monetarism. The concept of citizenship in neoliberal discourse replaces the citizenwith the consumer.Neoliberalism poses a very serious challengetothe liberalconcept of citizenship with the return of citizenship to the market. Other approachestocitizenship thathaveabearing on areappraisal of citizenship are: communitarian, social democratic and feminist approaches.The broad rangeofpositions thatcan be termedcommunitarian locate civil society in community.Instead of afocus on rights and duties,ittends to emphasize participationand identity.Itcritiques moral individualism in favour of acollectivist conception of citizenship which is however distinct from socialist conceptions because the focus here is culture rather thanmaterial conditions. Communitari- anism construes self as always culturallyspecific and as such it maybeseen as advocating culturalparticularism against liberalism’smoral universalism. Self is seen as socially constructed and embeddedinculturalcontext.Inthis it has ashared vision with multiculturalism.Communitarians accept thatdifferent culturalgroups might have different conceptions of the common good. While the liberal idea of ‘difference’ stands for individual freedom, communitarian notion of ‘difference’ standsfor the group’spower to limit individual freedom.¹³ Of course, Liberals such as Will Kymlicka believethatliberalism can be reconciled with multiculturalism.¹⁴ There is however atension between multicultural and communitarian versions of citizenship. The concept of community in communitarian discourse is not an open one. In other words, minoritized and incoming groups must adapt to the dominant cultural community in order to participate in its political community.This is an assimilationist view of society.The communitarian perspectives, especiallyintheir conservative forms tends to stress family, religion, tradition, and what in general might be called aculture of consensus. Those social divisions in society which signal conflict,asfor instance gender divisions, do not receive significant attention. It is likelytoignore social struggles, in particularinthe private domain. Feminist theories of citizenship on the other hand are characterized as paying greater attention to the relationship

 Zygmunt Bauman, PostmodernEthics (Cambridge,MA: Basil Blackwell ).  Will Kymlicka, Liberalism, Community,and Culture (Oxford: OxfordUP, ). 284 Avtar Brah between citizenship and democracy.They reconceptualising identity and participation in away that challenges the privateand publicdivide. But before consideringfeminist perspectivesoncitizenship, Iwish to briefly comment upon radical theories of citizenship and democracy because these are intimatelyconnected to feminist theories. The various stances on radical democracy can be seen as carryingout advo- cacy of democratic citizenship whereby citizenship is re-politicized by democracy.There was arevival of civil society around the emergence of new social movements duringthe 1970sand 1980s which served to concretise democratic citizenship. These developments, which foreground radical democracy of partic- ipatory citizenship, could be seen to be somewhat different from civic republi- canism.Here, for instance,the primary goal is the transformation of the relationship between state and society by initiating social changethrough transforming politics. It is significant that the new social movementsmade democracy central to their political project and thereby made an impact on citizenship. The rise of the new social movements from the late 1960s brokefrom the older movements in that they soughttobring politics out of the state into society.Their extra-par- liamentary nature and ability to mobilize large segments of population is especiallysignificant.The idea of civil society was recovered as these movements va- lorised the political within the social.Incentral and Eastern Europe, for instance, the idea of civil society was an important part of the democratic struggle thatsought to address the democratic potential of the social and thereby made possible anew kind of politics beyond the state. One important dimension to this which has been the subjectofconsiderable discussion is the question of collective identity.The politics of radical democracy was based on the formation of collective identity around acommon goal and brought amore meaningful dimension to citizenship.

3. Feminist Citizenship

Feminist approaches to citizenship challengethe private-public dichotomythat is typical of liberalism. Feminist approaches interrogatethe assumption that there is onlyone public, arguing thatcivic republican theories of citizenship from the point of view of women and other disadvantagedgroups have not made amajor advanceoverliberal theories. Feminist theories foreground the po- liticizationofthe private as well as apluralist view of the public domain. The point of departure for feminist theories of citizenship thus differsfrom conventional liberaland communitarian approaches. Articulations AcrossDiaspora,Law and Literature 285

The universality of liberal conceptions of equalitytogether with the communitarian notion of aunitary ideal of community have been contested by feminists. Neither rights nor participation offer adequate models when issuesofpat- riarchyare concerned. As we have seen, communitarians seek to accommodate culturaldifferencefrom the vantage point of the dominantgroup. Although it speaksofculture, communitarianism does not in general begin from multiculturalism but from adominantgroup which must accommodateculturaldiversity. These perspectivesprivilegethe dominant group whose values become univer- salisedand hegemonised and as aresultmay servetoexclude women and other marginalised groups.Rather,group differenceisastarting point for femi- nism and thus there can be no unitary community but aplurality of cultural forms. Liberal and communitarian as much as civic republican theories assume that citizenship is the expression of alreadyautonomous citizens. Theseautono- mous subjects are construed as workingwithin ahomogeneous society which is patentlynot the case, as no society is homogeneous. And subjects are produced in and through discourse. Feminist theories of citizenship build upon notions of radical democratic citizenship.For theorists such as Iris Marion Young, the homogenous ideal of universality must be rejected for amore differentiated notion of rights. Similarly, Ruth Lister argues for what she calls ‘adifferentiated universalism.’¹⁵ She argues for interconnectingpolitics of solidarity with apoli- tics of difference. The political subjectistheorised as made up of multiple, fluid identitiesthat emerge out of the multiple differentiations of groups across axis such as gender, race and class. Feminist conceptions of identity alsodiffer from communitarian theories in thatthey do not see identity as fixed, whether referencing the privatedomain or apublic notionofthe common good. Here, identity is theorised as contested and always open to definition. Theorists of citizenship also speak of Cosmopolitan Citizenship. Overall, as we have seen, the debate on citizenship has been dominatedbytwo quite opposed positions – one predominantlyliberal and the second largely communitarian. These have been challenged by radical democracy,feminist theory and those workingonmulticultural/anti-racist themes. In contrast to the approaches that use the nation state as the territorial reference point cosmopolitan citizenship goes beyond the nation state. These developments are closely connected with processes of globalisation. We cannot however jettison attentiontothe nation state, since citizenship invested in the state stillgoverns manyrights including the right to settle in acountry.Migrants, refugees and asylum seekers,for instance, know what it means not to have rights of acitizen when residinginana-

 Ruth Lister, Citizenship:Feminist Perspectives (New York: NYU P, ). 286 Avtar Brah tion state. However the concept of the cosmopolitan citizenship that does not dispense with the nation state requires serious consideration. The European Union is agood example of aconcrete kind of cosmopolitan public sphere. Al- though we know that European Union can serveasFortress Europe, it can also provide opportunities for solidarity across European countries in favour of work against racism, sexism, homophobia, disability and so on. Cosmopolitan citizenship must however be linked with community,although we must bear in mind that concept of community is sometimes hijacked by nationalist discourses. Cosmopolitan citizenship needs to develop anotion of citizenship which feminists have prioritised: that is, community is never homogeneous and the power dynamics between different social groups within acommunity must be taken on board.

4. Citizenship and Multiculture

As we noted earlier,the main axisofcitizenship defining the boundaries of inclusion versus exclusion have historicallybeen based on intersectingsocial divisions such as class gender,race, ethnicity,sexuality and disability.The history of citizenship during the past two centuries can be viewed as an ongoing struggle on the part of the disenfranchised, the marginalised and the dependent to be included in the ranksofthe “citizen.” Although there have been significant ach- ievements, in some ways these struggles continue today. Forexample, women did not gain the vote in Switzerland until 1990.While millions of people are on the move globally, questions of citizenship become increasinglycomplex and questions of culturaldiversity assumegrowingimportance. Although multiculturalism has been under attack in more than one country in Europe, it is important to note that as Kivisto and Faist point out,¹⁶ multiculturalism has been a response to the demands on the part of marginalised groups for collective rather than individualisticsolution to exclusion, inequality and recognition. There are manyreasons for these attacks on multiculturalism,especiallyinBritain. These include the changed political climate following 9/11 in 2001;the racialised riots in Northern English citiesduring2001;7/7 bombings in London in 2005;the unleashing of Islamophobia since the Satanic Verses Affair of the 1980s; the Den- mark Cartoons affair of 2007 and currently, the WaronTerror; the global political and economic crisis; and the crisis in Iraq and Afghanistan. All this has made

 Peter Kivisto,Thomas Faist, Citizenship:Discourse, Theoryand Transnational Prospects (Mal- den, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, ). Articulations AcrossDiaspora,Law and Literature 287 anti-immigrant politics mainstream from France to Germany, from Holland to Austria, from Sweden to Switzerland. These attacks on multiculturalism have come from both the right and the left of the political spectrum.¹⁷ The arguments of thoseopposed to multiculturalism maybegrouped in three broad categories: 1. First argument is that multiculturalism is divisive and as such threatens national unity.But this argument assumesthat there is at base ahomogeneous mono-culturalsociety when in fact all societies are heterogeneous marked by social differentiations of region, language, class, gender,ethnicity,sexuality, and so on. These differentiations make for complex culturalvariations within asocial formation. Britain, for instance, is not multicultural simplybecause of the presence of minorityethnic groups but because it is composed of four national cultures,manyregional cultures over and abovedifferent class cultures and so on. Iwould arguethat nationalunity is broughtabout by acommitment to equality, justiceand ‘difference’ in an atmosphere of mutuality rather than to anotion of mono-culture. In some cases discourses of national unity maylead to negative nationalisms,although,ofcourse, some form of national unity is adesirable thing,and different social groups in Britainshare enough in common to regard themselvesasBritish albeit sometimes in ways that mobilise ahyphenated identity such as British Asian. In the context of current Islamophobia, it is sometimes assumedthat Muslims do not identify with the Britishnational identity,but evidence suggests thatthis is not the case and amajority of Muslims do indeedre- gardthemselvesasBritish. And, even the minority who do not consider them- selvesasBritish,dofullyparticipate in the socio-economic and political life as Britishcitizens. These national identitiesmay co-exist with transnational identitiesbut they have palpable resonanceinthe national culture. 2. Asecond argument put forward by the opponents of multiculturalisms is that multiculturalism serves to ‘ghettoise’ marginalised groups rather than as- sisting them to enter the mainstream. There are, however,manyreasons for the concentration of groups and they are not always negative.People maydecideto live wherethey mayshare acultureorlifestyle or ethnicity with the residents. On the whole, among majority ethnic groups,middle class and upper class residents live in different areas from working class residents.But that process is rarelyde- scribed as ‘ghettoisation.’ Minority ethnic groups maybeconcentrated in agiven area not simplybecause of cultural reasons but alsodue to socio-economic ones. These groups are likelytobedisadvantagedand as such they maycongregate in low income areas on the basis thatthey cannot afford to live in more prosperous

 Ali Rattansi, Multiculturalism: AVeryShort Introduction (Oxford: OxfordUP, ). 288 Avtar Brah areas.So, it would seem thatculturalproclivity maynot be the onlyreason for ‘ghettoisation’ but socio-economic conditions and discrimination might equally be responsible. In order to assist these groups to enter the mainstream, it is the structures of inequality and discrimination that need to be dismantled, not multiculturalism. 3. Thirdly, thereare criticisms of multiculturalismfromthe left of thepolitical spectrum.One such criticismhas been that cultural diversitymay underminepro- gressive alliances. Howeverthisistoassumethatcultural diversityinvariably leadstoculturaldivision. Iwould suggestthatitisthe social hierarchiesand powerdifferencesthatcreatecultural divisionsratherthanmulticulturalism. It is also argued on theleftthatpoliticsofrecognition maymeanthatthe politics of redistribution areignored.Thiswould seem to be aweakargumentbecause multiculturalismitselfcannotbeheldresponsible forlackofattention to socio- economic inequality.Indeed,ethnicminorities tend to be oneofthe most disad- vantaged groups in societyand largesectionsoftheseare at thebottomofthe scale. They need politics of redistribution as much if notmorethanthe majority group. Oneofthe argumentsonthe politicalleftinBritain during the1980s used to be,and Iwas aproponentofthis position,thatthe discourses of multicul- turalismoveremphasizedcultural diversityand didnot payenoughattention to structuralquestions of classand racism. This wasavalidcriticism,and people spokeofantiracismasamore appropriatemeans of tackling inequality as op- posedtomulticulturalism. Hencemulticulturalismand antiracism became oppo- sitional perspectiveswheninfactthey were complementary. Thetwo need to be joined together with equalattention to issues of cultureand structural inequality. It is important to emphasise thatmulticultural citizenship is not defined onlyinrelation to the state, crucial though this is, but also in relation to civil society.What is needed is amulticultural citizenship which is undergirded by acommitment to equalityand democratic citizenship.AccordingtoCharles Tay- lor,equalitymay refer to equal as in ‘equal dignity’ and equal as in ‘equal respect.’ The former appeals to people’scommon humanityand applies to all members in auniform way. The latter,that is equal respect,refers to an understanding that differenceisalsoimportant.AsTariq Modood notes,

There is, then, deep resonance between citizenship and multicultural recognition. Not only do both presuppose complementary notions of unity and plurality,and of equality and difference,but the idea of respect for the group self-identities that citizens valueiscentral to citizenship.¹⁸

 Tariq Modood, Still Not Easy Being British: Struggles for aMulticultural Citizenship (London: Trentham Books, ): . ArticulationsAcrossDiaspora, Law and Literature 289

Some theorists such as Engin Isin have used the term diasprora citizenship instead of multicultural citizenship. Thisisattractive to me as Ihaveinvested considerablyindeveloping adiasporic framework for social analysis.However, Isuppose,ifweare to retain the term multiculturalism, partlybecause it is not just an analytical termbut also part of the populardiscourse, Iaminfavour of a critical multiculturalism or critical interculturalism and acitizenship that takes on board racism,culturalpluralism, class, race, ethnicity,gender, homophobia, and disability altogether.Feminists have over the last two decades spoken of intersectionality to focus upon the interrelationship between these different axes of differentiation. Iaminagreementwith Nira YuvalDavis that citizenship must be understood in terms of its articulation with different axis of intersectionality.¹⁹ In debates about multicultural citizenship,there are thosewho assume that multiculturalism is in conflict with genderequality.Hereapicture of stereotypic patriarchal treatment of girls and women in minority communities is invoked as away of discrediting multiculturalism. Forinstance, the question of arranged marriages is often raised when in fact the problem is not with arranged but forced marriages. Iamagainst forced marriages as are manyother members of Asian communities.But great manyarranged marriages are not forced marriages. It is ironic that patriarchal practices amongst minoritycultural groups are castigated when there are manypatriarchal inequalities such as unequal payfor women compared with men which are stillprevalent in manywestern societies. Feminists have long argued against this binary between supposed progressive West and traditionalnon-West.Manyopinion makers who claim to stand up for minoritywomen in these debates are hardlyfeministsthemselves. This is not to suggest thatpatriarchal practices should not be criticized. Farfrom it.But this must happen against all patriarchal practices.And they must take the broader context of global power inequalities into account.Questions of cultural differenceneed to be contextualised against the backdrop of cultural hierarchies that mark the livesofdifferent groups of women. Iwould use afeminist yardstick to address difficult questions of cultural difference,²⁰ but it must be afeminism that is simultaneouslyanti-imperialist and one that is alive to the unequal power relations between different parts of the globe. Unfortunately, these days discourses about cultural difference tend to prior- tise assimilation. Thisisareversal of the gains previouslymade through political

 Nira Yuval-Davis, ThePolitics of Belonging:Intersectional Contestations (London: Sage, ).  Anne Phillips, Gender and Culture (Cambridge:Polity P, ). 290 Avtar Brah activism and campaigns.For instance, as long agoas1966,the then Home Sec- retary of Britainargued against the notionofassimilation and in favour of integration. He said that integration should be viewed not “as aflattening process of assimilation but as equal opportunity accompanied by culturaldiversity,inan atmosphere of mutual trust”.But todaywhen politicians use the termintegra- tion, they meanassimilation. Integration is designed to incorporate incoming groups into the economy, society and political life. But adiscourse of integration as amaskfor assimilation seeks to flatten cultural difference. The right to cultural difference has become acritical arena of contestation today. This reappraisal of different conceptions of citizenship can be seen to foreground themesthat are simultaneouslyrelevant to diasporastudies, literary studies and law. Finally, abrief comment now on the wayinwhich lawdiaspora and literary studies maybeinterconnected through the concept of governance and governmentality. To think of lawinthe broader sense foregrounds MichelFoucault’sconcept of lawasgovernance and governmetality.²¹ It is linked with his notion of disciplinary power with its focus on techniquesofsurveillance, and displacing bodies. This concept is intertwined with his view of power as bothcoercive and productive.Although Foucault maybeseen to counter-poselaw to regulation, Hunt and Wickham arguethat discipline and lawsupplement each other and form distinctive and pervasive forms of regulation at the very heart of modern government.²² Law, they suggest is never unitary – rather it is acomplex of practices,discourses and institutions. The prison, for instance maybeconstructed within ajuridical frame work but it operates with disciplinary techniques. In diasporastudies, bothlaw as juridical framework as well as in terms of disciplinary discourses,practices and institutions are important.Diasporic literary study provides awindow upon these working- out of processes. Diasporastories are the ground on which realities of encounters with lawand disciplinary power are playedout.Citizenship law, immigration lawand statutes of international governance are all relevant to the life chances of migrants. There is thus a clear link between diasporaliterary studies and law. If legal discourses are adynamic product of the articulation of complex social, historicaland personal forces embedded within rationalities and technologies of power,then questions of identity and differencehaveacritical bearing

 Re-Reading Foucault: On Law,Power and Rights,ed. BenGolder (New York: Routledge, ).  Alan Hunt,Gary Wickham, Foucault and Law:Towards aSociologyofLaw as Governance (London: Pluto P, ). Articulations AcrossDiaspora,Law and Literature 291 on legal narratives. How are those who have committed an offense constructed or represented in terms of their identities? How is identity to be theorised?There is an on-goingdebate about these concerns. Stuart Hall has deployed both Der- ridean deconstruction, utilising the concept of différance and Judith Butler’suse of psychoanalysis to think through questions of identity.²³ Ibelievethese insights are incisive and bring togetherbothdiaspora,literary legal studies. In conclusion, Ibelievethat the feminist concept of intersectionality is crucial to all three areas.Inessence,intersectionality is about the ways in which different axis of differentiation – gender,class, ethnicity,sexuality,disability and so on – intersect and articulate on multiple and simultaneous levels in the emergence of context specific modalities of exclusion, inequality and subject formation.

 Stuart Hall, Paul du Gay, Questions of Cultural Identity (London: Sage, ).

Janet Wilson Queer Diasporas?LiteraryDiasporaStudies and the Law

This essayaims to examine encounters between the discourses of law, queerness and diasporathrough reference to literaryrepresentation in three novels: Hanif Kureishi’s Buddha of Suburbia (1990),Shyam Selvadurai’s FunnyBoy (1994),and LloydJones’s Hand Me Down World (2010). The purpose of bringingthe interdisciplinary movement of lawand literatureinto dialogue with the field of diaspora in its critical alignment with gaystudies is to identifythe part the lawplays in fictional representations of the alternative structures of experience that queerness and diasporapoint to.Thesecan be traced to movementsofscattering and fracturing and apositioning between various binaries such as nation and diaspora, heterosexuality and homosexuality,original and copy.The social and nationalexclusions duetothe geographical movement and migration that identify diaspora, and the sexual differenceand non-heteronormativity that define queerness, can be summarized as ashared sense of being ‘unhomed.’ Queer theory and diasporastudies are able to be conjoined through the theorization of a ‘queer diaspora,’ ¹ seen as functioning under the terms of contemporary globalization, transnationalism and otherkinds of geographical mobility that involve “unwriting the nation.”² Such alink can be made because, as Cindy Patton says, “queer theories offer new ways of imaginingnovel relations among space, nation and politics” and gaycivil rights discourses have activated such relations through developing aglobalized queer politics.³ The mobile cultures of diasporaoffer similar re-imaginingsofand alternativestothe category of the nation. Significantlytheorisations of diasporaare continuallybroughtinto dialogue with those of queerness, most notablyaround questioning and revising concepts of home, whether these be domestic or the national spaces of the

 See Meg Wesling, “WhyQueer Diaspora?,” FeministReview  (): –;CindyPatton, Benigno Sanchez-Eppler,ed., Queer Diasporas (Durham, London: DukeUP, ); Arnoldo Cruz-Malave,Martin F. Manalansam IV,ed., Queer Globalizations:citizenship and the afterlife of colonialism (New York, London: New York UP, ).  Rosemary MarangolyGeorge, ThePolitics of Home: Postcolonial relocations and twentieth cen- turyfiction [](Cambridge:Cambridge UP, ): .  CindyPatton, “Stealth Bombers of Desire:the globalization of alterity in emergingdemocra- cies,” in Queer Globalizations:Citizenship and the Afterlife of Colonialism, ed. Arnoldo Cruz-Ma- lave,Martin F. Manalansam IV (New York, London: New York UP, ): –, . 294 Janet Wilson homeland.⁴ Andreas Huyssen’scomment that today’s “hyphenated and migratory cultures develop different structure of experience which maymake the traditional understanding of diasporaaslinked to roots,soil and kinship indeed highlyquestionable,”⁵ can be paralleledtothe waythatqueer communities,driven by theiralternative experiences of sexual difference, contest notions of purity and authenticity as linked to the heterosexual norm within the nation state. Gayatri Gopinath develops these parallels into aframework to arguethat the sites of the nationaland the diasporic are “interdependent and mutuallyconstit- utive,” and thattheiressentialised identity conceptsoforiginality and authenticity basedonaprivileging of heterosexuality and the nation state can be contested from a “‘queer diasporic’ positionality.”⁶ Both categories highlight alternative constructions of kinship, community and society,are sensitive to issues of exclusion and assimilation,and in aglobal eramovebetween transnationaland translocal filiations as well as between local and community ones. The parallels between queer and diasporic discourses in being eccentric to normative structures and models of social and national autonomyextend to their oftentenuous relationship to the lawinits normative function. Subjects who fall into these categories mayundertake transgressive acts of doubtful legality that requiresome legal adjudication over and validation of their legitimacy; that is, they question, transgress or reassert legal boundaries through various en- actments and infringements. In novels and othernon-fictionaland literary genres,representations of the lawand legal practices that refertothe interdisciplinary relationship between literature and lawcan be read in relation to the parallels between queerness and diaspora. Legal discourses,practices and terminology, that is, mark the tensions between the alienatedand outsider position of diaspora/gay subjects and their shifting allegiances to family, community,social

 See for example, Anne-MarieFortier’slink between queer migrations and Avtar Brah’sconcept of “homingdesires” (Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities [London: Routledge, ]: )in“Making Home:Queer Migrations and Notions of Attachment,” in Uprootings/regroundings:Question of Homeand Migration,ed. Sara Ahmed (Oxford: Berg, ): –, .  Andreas Huyssen, “Diaspora and Nation; Migration into Other Pasts,” New German Critique  (): –, ;qtd. in Fatima El-Tayeb, European Others: Queering Ethnicity in Post- national Europe (Minneapolis:Uof Minnesota P, ): –;El-Tayebcritiques conventional models of diaspora which posit the homeland as ageographical entity and nostalgia for return as key to the diaspora experience, by contrast to models which see host societies as sites for the makingand enactment of citizenship. See also Francois Kral, Critical Identities in Contemporary Anglophone Diasporic Literature (London: Palgrave, ): –.  Gayatri Gopinath, “Local Sites/Global Contexts:The transnational trajectories of Deepa Meh- ta’s Fire,” in Queer Globalizations, –, . Queer Diasporas? Literary Diaspora Studies and the Law 295 milieu to which they can claim to belong.Both groups are subject to discrimination from mainstream positions of ethnicity,gender,and nationality; and both are also conscious of their potentiallytransgressivenature, because of the confusion over rights of belonging, and the need for legitimation of their position. The readings thatfollow focus on narrative constructions of personal identifications with and/or political imaginings of diasporic queerness: those which lead to transgression and exposure of the flaws in normative familyand sexual constructions (HanifKureishi’s TheBuddha of Suburbia), or which accompany the crisis of belongingcausedbythe breakdown of lawand order in parallel with the individual discovery of homosexuality(Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy), or which provide ametaphorical dimension to such frameworks by way of approaching the borderline state of the illegitimate,stateless refugee(Lloyd Jones’s Hand Me Down World). The queer diasporamodel which challenges essentialist non-historicalcon- structionsofnational belongingthrough foregroundingadiaspora positionality (or state of being) alongside sexual ambiguity,and which explores tensions and complexities arising from being eccentric to norms of home and belonging, is illustrated and contested in Hanif Kureishi’sself-reflexive,satirical novel, The Buddha of Suburbia. Heterosexual relationships and marriages are seen to be at odds or in collapse, offering elliptical images of family life and the life of the nation because the novel examines them from the perspectivesofmarginal gender and ethnicpositions, albeit ones that are rooted in the domainofpopular culture. The ethnicallyhybrid and bisexual protagonist, Karim, born of aBritish mother and Indian father,provides the dominant point of view by which Kur- eishi satirizes British society of the 1980s. Karim’ssexual experimentation through abrief liaison with Charlie, the son of his father’smistress, Eva, and the ‘queering’ of his familylife through the breakup of his parents, is explored further through the sub-plot concerning an arranged marriagebetween Karim’s cousin Jamila and anewlyarrivedmigrant,Changez, aMuslim friend of her father.The fraughtrelationship between Jamila and Changez evolvesinto an alternative familygroup that eventuallyoffers Karim aform of ‘belonging.’ Karim’ssocial and ethnic repositioning in the more challengingmetropoli- tan milieu takes the form of amini-migration from the suburb of Bromley wherehewas brought up, to London’sWest Kensington. His newlycosmopolitan life style is overshadowed by the loss of his family, which disintegratesatthe same time as his father abandons his mother and moves in to live with Eva. Karim has to come to terms with displacement and uprootingcaused by his parents’ failed marriageaswell as by his decision to pursue an increasingly mobile life which in the course of the novel takes him from London to New York and back again. Thereversals and contradictions of Karim’sposition in living outside 296 Janet Wilson or at odds with his familyand temporarilyasatransnational subject,extend to his Oriental heritagewhen, as afledglingactor,hehas to playthe part of Mowgli in astageadaptation of RudyardKipling’s TheJungle Book. The role introduces him to his Indian ethnic and culturalfiliations although he has never visited his ancestral ‘homeland’;that it has no meaning for him other than through his father’sposturing as afont of Oriental wisdom (as the novel’stitle “the Buddha of Suburbia” confirms) to middle-class, left-wingcouples,once more reinforces the skewed identity referencingthattakes place for the second generation diaspora subject. Through Karim and his sometime lover,Jamila (as the daughter of his father’sclosest friend she is seen as his cousin), Kureishi challenges the bourgeois values, religious nationalism and sexualized discourses that are reproduced in the Asian diasporaashegemonic structures of belonging. The ‘queer’ alternative familyiseffected through Jamila’sopting for asame sex relationship afterbear- ing achild (tosomeone who is not her husband) and, more improbably, Changez’ unconditional and unconsummated lovefor her despite this rejection of his affections and his potential to father achild. Described as a “disabled immigrant”⁷ because he is handicapped in one arm,and caricatured as an inef- fectual husband and son-in-law, Changez adjusts to this sexual dismissaland Ja- mila’soverturning of the patriarchal hierarchy. The novel’scontesting of the values of purity and authentic origins inherent in the value system of arranged marriages is reinforced by the communal living arrangementswith his wife and new partner as he movesintosupport Jamila’salternative lifestyle by taking up the role of child carer.Itends on apositive note with the reassurance of anew norm of stability.For Karim these transformations are acceptable, if not welcome, because, paradoxically, it is onlywith Jamila and Changez that he can feel “part of afamily.”⁸ Kureishi’squeer diasporaconstructs adivergent social practice and foregrounds tensions between the traditionalcustoms of South Asian society in particular the practice of arranged marriages and second generation British-Asian diasporans’ rejection of them.Itreconfigures the stigmatised patriarchal values of Indian society with the experimental sexuality of the protagonist’sown generation in its radical answer to Karim’sneed to come to terms with his “homing instinct.”⁹ Although his own search remains outside the boundaries of the novel and his sense of loss and nostalgia involves ambivalenceabout his current state

 Hanif Kureishi, TheBuddha of Suburbia (London: Faber and Faber, ): .  Kureishi, Buddha of Suburbia, .  See Avtar Brah, Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities (London, New York: Rout- ledge, ): , . Queer Diasporas? Literary Diaspora Studies and the Law 297 of unbelonging, the new familystructure representing areinventing of home, is a provisional solution. Moregenerallythe novel is indicative of the eraofThatch- er’sBritainwhen the second generation of British Asian migrantswas finding a voice to deal with racial discrimination and wasgaining culturalascendancy. Sexual fluidityisone aspect of this mobility while the incompleteness and pluralism of cosmopolitan identity maps onto the diasporic experience of living between cultures: namelythat identities, because innatelydisplaced and multiple, can be made and remade while living diasporically, the experiencesofwhich, as Stuart Hall says,are neither essential nor pure, but heterogeneous and diverse.¹⁰ Kureishi’sacceptance of differencelies in acknowledging the transformative nature of diasporic identitiesinterms of gender,ethnicity and culture, and this is extended to disability as Karim looks upon the unfortunate Changez with affection and endorseshim in his new role at the end. Syam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy (1994) and LloydJones’s Hand Me Down World (2010) are novels in which representations of exile,migration or living in dia- sporaraise issues of gender and sexuality,civil rights and citizenship that can be read from alegal perspective:that is, the lawcounterpoints the activities of sexuality and diasporaand provides adeterminingcontext for them. As narrativesofexile and migration their ‘queer diasporas’ bypass the conventional diasporic model basedonthe pull of return to the homeland and they challengethe constructions of belonging that are associated with the standard model of citizenship. As with TheBuddha of Suburbia,the compulsions thatmobilizetheir protagonists into exile and unhomeliness lead to aqueered sense of home and belonging; this involves implicit critiqueofassumptions about genealogies of origins and original purity,the destabilising of notions of authentic place, and the introduction of affiliative ties and new or alternative constructions of national belonging. The textscan be paired in that they both concern expulsion from an originary point of belonging: FunnyBoy,anovel about the protagonist’sdawning awareness of his homosexuality,pivots on his “traumaticdisplacement from the lost heterosexual ‘origin’,” which is metaphoricallyaqueer migration.¹¹ In Hand Me Down World the heroine abandons her home to search for her child,

 Stuart Hall, “NegotiatingCaribbean Identities,” in New Caribbean Thought: AReader,ed. Brian Meeks,Folke Lindahl (Kingston: Uofthe West Indies P, ): –, .Daniela Carpi, “Focus: Identity,” Polemos:Journal of Law,Literatureand Culture . (): –, .  See David Eng, “Out Here and Over There:Queerness and Diaspora in Asian American Stud- ies,” Social Text .– (): –, . 298 Janet Wilson

‘queering’ the heterosexual norm by alienation, loss and illegitimacy:that is, she exists symbolicallyoutside the boundaries of nation, home and familyinways similar to non-heteronormative sexuality wheresuch positioning is often crimi- nalizedbecause seen as deviant:¹² in the novel this is literallyrealized, for she is imprisonedonallegations of murder.Together they raise questions about the efficacy of the law, when it is suspended in the state of emergencyasinFunnyBoy, and when it demonstrates alack of understandingofcases of illegal immigration, domesticdrama and personal abuse as in Hand Me Down World. In the six interlinked episodes of FunnyBoy by Shyam Selvadurai, the protagonist,Arjoe’semerging sense of his homosexuality and potential displacement from the nuclear familyisparalleled in the breakdown of national order following the Tamil-Sinhalese riots in the early1980s, and in the novel the burning of the family home, expulsion from Colombo, and the family’smigration to Canada in 1983. Naturalizedmodels of family,kinship and nation come under question; for the novel unravels local, essentialised discourses on gendertoex- pose their dependence on certain exclusions and marginalizations; the fore- groundingofthe violence, sabotage and atrocity occurringinthe Tamil-Sinhal- ese struggle for political power suggests that nationality is non-filiative. In contextualising this personal crisis as aparallel narrative to the political drama of civil war – the collapse of the law, and struggle for completenation- hood – Selvadurai rewrites the narrativesofexile and ‘comingout’ which are usually associated with Anglo-Americanwriters like Alan Hollingshurst and Ed- mund White, as Gayatri Gopinath shows in her readingofthis novel.¹³ The bildungsroman-type narrative develops through convergences between Arjun’sdis- covery of his ownpsycho-sexual natureand the growingracialand religious tensions between Sinhalese and Tamil in Chapter Five, “The Best School of All.” The rigid colonial ideologies and punitivepractices of the teachers at The Queen Victoria Academycoexist with the anarchic but equallybrutalbehav- iour of the boys.Racial standoffs and ethnic clashes between teachers as well as between boys and teachers and between different factions of boys,allow other forms of differencetocarry on below the surface. To the innocent Arjun, the exclusions of gender epitomised by homosexual acts are little different from other racialand ethnic exclusions and forms of marginalization apparent in the sim- mering feuds within the school. The beginningsofhis self-discovery – of his emotional core, sexuality,and voice – take the form of aviolent outburst after

 Gayatri Gopinath, “Nostalgia, Desire,Diaspora: South Asian Sexualities in Motion,” Uproot- ings/Regroundings:Question of Homeand Migration,ed. SaraAhmed (Oxford: Berg, ): – , .  Gopinath, “Nostalgia, Desire,Diaspora: South Asian Sexualities in Motion,” , –. Queer Diasporas? LiteraryDiasporaStudies and the Law 299 he is canedfor being unable to recitebyheart the lines of Henry Newboldt’s poems “The Best SchoolofAll” and “Vitae Lampada.” He rips the poems into pieces yelling, “‘Idon’tcare… Ihate them. Ihate them.’”¹⁴ His rebellion against his coloinal education continues when he mangles the poems at arecital at the school prize-giving, “reducingthem to disjointed nonsense” (FB,281), so betraying his school’sand his parents’ principles and values. In the scenes of homosexual awakening which follow,Arjoe’sconfused emotions alternate between horror at beingphysicallyinvaded, and agrowinglove for his moresexuallyexperiencedschool-friend, Soyza. Alegal discourse from this point synthesises the different strandsofpersonal and political change: Ar- joe’ssubsequent self-recrimination at breakingthe moral code and betraying his family’svalues –“Ihad committed aterrible crime against them, against the trust and lovethey had givenme[…]. Iwanted to cry out what Ihad done, beg to be absolvedofmycrime” (FB,262) – is paralleled to the worseningpolit- ical crisisinSri Lanka, as acurfew and ongoing atrocities and acts of criminality become commonplace. Divisions widen as the police and armycollude with the destruction they witness and “just stood by,watchingand some of them even cheered the mobs and joined in the looting and burning” of Tamil shops (FB,291). Arjun’sguiltand fear of domestic disintegration are correlated to the destruction of values of citizenship and social ties at the macro level: “Iwas no longer apart of my familyinthe sameway.Inow inhabited aworld in which they did not understand and into which they could not follow me” (FB,285). His distress at his departure from aheterosexual norm becomes met- onymic of the national crisis that culminates in the family’sexile to Canada. In the final chapter, “Riot Journal: An Epilogue,” multiple discourses,gendered, familial and national – overlap and convergeinanew discourse of diasporathat foregrounds unbelongingand alienation: his father’srealisation –“it is very clear we no longer belong in this country”–is echoed in Arjoe’s diary entry: “Ilong to be out of this country:Idon’tfeel at home in Sri Lanka anylonger,will never feelsafe again” (FB,304). The process of becoming ‘other’ to himself, sexuallyaswell as ethnically, in comprehending marginalization and difference, makes Arjoe acutelyalive to the new dangers surrounding them: “every sound makes me realize how frighteninglydifferent this dayhas been so far” (FB,287). In aparallel scene to his earlier rebellion of rippingup the colonial poems, this recognition of losing the familyhome forces his own voice to emerge.

 ShyamSelvadurai, Funny Boy (Harmondsworth:Penguin, ): .Further references in the text,abbreviated as “FB”. 300 Janet Wilson

[H]ot angry tears began to wellupinmeasIsawthis final violation. Then, for the first time, Ibegan to cry for our house. Isat on the veranda steps and weptfor the loss of my home, for the loss of everythingthat Iheld to be precious.Itried to muffle the sound of my weeping,but my voicecried out loudlyasifitwerethe onlyweapon Ihad against those whohad destroyed my life. (FB,311)

The protagonist’scomplexly-gendered sexual identity remains uncertain by the end of the book as he realises thathis life has been destroyed as much by large,impersonal forces as by his own psycho-sexuality.Likewisehis parents, whose social rank,ethnic belonging and belief system are destabilized in the crisis, as their stake in the nation is threatened, decidetoemigrate. The new space of Canada is gestured to in the ending as apoint of arrival thatopens up aworld of differencerather than of habitation: of belonging among strangers,denunci- ation of the ethnic, religious absolutism of the Civil War, greater toleration of ethnic and sexual differencethan in Sri Lanka. Arjoe’sfinal glimpse of the char- red ruins of the familyhouse anticipates atype of boundary crossing,asaform of changerather thanthe legal transgression into the exile of the refugeeheroine of Hand Me Down World. Thisdisplacement in diasporaforegrounds in Selvadur- ai’snarratives, aheightened awareness of the processes of memory,imagination and identity formation, oftenoccluded in national narratives, in his bringing back and comingtoterms with the violent past.¹⁵ Both FunnyBoy and Hand Me Down World focus on the violent moment of expulsion,demarcated as equivalent to an irrecoverable break with the past. This conforms to amodel of diasporatheorized as athetic break (in Kristevan terms), amoment of permanent rupture from the homeland which creates “a trauma based on an absence,”¹⁶ and it contrasts to the model of transnational mobilityinTheBuddha of Suburbia and novels about transmigration (such as Kamila Shamsie’s Kartography), which feature second generation diaspora subjects who can “span and transgress borders and specific localities with new means of transportation and communication” and reinvent themselvesin diaspora.¹⁷ Whereas in FunnyBoy,psychic shock and traumatic dispossession leading to exile are catalysed by Sri Lankan social upheaval prior to the Civil War, in Hand Me Down World exile is due to private and domestic causes, and

 El-Tayeb, European Others, .  VijayMishra, The Literature of the Indian Diaspora:Theorizing the Diasporic Imaginary (Lon- don, New York: Routledge, ): .  Martin F. Manalansan IV, “Diasporic Deviants/Divas: How Filipino GayTransmigrants ‘Play with the World’,” in Queer Diasporas,ed. CindyPatton, Benigno Sanchez-Eppler (Durham, Lon- don: DukeUP, ); –, . Queer Diasporas? Literary Diaspora Studies and the Law 301 is triggered by the abduction of the protagonist’schild. Her search for her son begins in the illegal journey across the Mediterranean from Tunisia on arefugee boat to Sicilywhereshe swims to shore, experiencing this as arebirth: “Iwas not the sameperson who boarded the board with its human cargo.When I crawled ashore Ihad shed that skin,Ihad changed in all sorts of ways.”¹⁸ De- spite the hint of transformation, this comment presagesthe shock of exile with its material and psychic losses, its “loss of the sense of self and of history,”¹⁹ and the problem of reconstructing anew culturalidentity.Italso recalls Kristeva’sconcept of the rootless foreigner’sstate of abjection dueto such radical fragmentation.²⁰ Jones’snovel can be interpreted through the dual optic of aqueer diaspora and alegal study, as afictional representation of legal processes. The dispossession and homelessness of the protagonist,whose name is eventuallygiven as Ines, duetothe illegal abduction of her child by adoptive parents, fits the model of queerness labelled by David Eng as “queer kinship,” thatis, the re- alignment of family relations through adoption. In Jones’snovel, however,the new alignment of parents and ‘adopted’ child is undermined by the actions of Ines as the bereft biological mother.²¹ Her physical dislocation as an illegitimate, wandering refugeeprovides ametaphorical framework of legal transgression due to the ‘queering’ of personal and social norms. In this story of covert oppression and exploitation, the theft of Ines’schild catalyses her actions of dubious legality that are eventuallysubjected to legal processes and judgments. At the same time it offers areassessment of the meaning of home as the deception over surrogacy and adoption suggests that the domestic ideal of home as represented by the nuclear familyunit,here represented by the wealthycouple who steal her child, is available onlyfor the privileged elite.²² ForInes the structures of homeand belongingare undermined after she is unknowingly utilised as an

 LloydJones,Hand Me Down World (London: John Murray, ): .Further references in the text,abbreviated as “DW”.  Delys Bird, “The ‘Settling’ of English,” TheOxford History of Australia,ed. Bruce Bennett, Jennifer Strauss (Melbourne:Oxford UP, ): –, .  Julia Kristeva, Strangers to Ourselves (New York: Colombia UP, ):  (translation by Leon Roudiez of Étrangersànous-mêmes [Paris: Fayard, ]); Anna Smith, Julia Kristeva: Readings of Exile and Estrangement (London: MacMillan, ): .Iam indebted to Anna Smith for reading and commentingonadraft of this article.  David Eng, “Transnational Adoption and Queer Diasporas,” in TheRoutledge Queer Studies Reader, ed. Donald E. Hall, Annamarie Jagose, Andrea Bebell, Susan Potter (London, New York: Routledge, ): –, .  Lucinda Newns, “Homelessness and the Refugee: De-valorizing displacement in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s By the Sea,” Journal of Postcolonial Writing . (October ): –, –. 302 Janet Wilson incubatorfor achildless couple, and the baby is abducted after birth by the father,Jermayne. The loss of the maternal relationship destabilises other normativ- ities of gender,sexualityand belongingsuch as citizenship and nationhood. David Eng defines the “queer kinship” model used of transnational adoption, as aprivileged form of contemporary immigration²³ arising from “new social formations and identities” enabled by transnationalmovements and the as- pirations of wealthyupper-classsubjects.But the “queer reorganization of familial norms”²⁴ that adoption/abduction entails are challenged by Ines as she intervenes to gain access to her child. Herstory is one in which illegal migration allegedlyinvolvesmurder:the narrative structure consists of the evidence of witnesses – those whom she meetsonher waytofind the child – in the form of first person narrative voices collected by an inspector,afunctionary of the court.Ines’sown account,written from prison, acts as apersonal form of testimony. When read from the interdisciplinary angle of ‘lawinliterature’ (as a fictional version of acase studythat mediates legal issues), therefore, her story of wrongful imprisonment suggests the limitations of the lawinindividual cases wheresubjects are situated outside their social and national boundaries. The narrative foregrounds the issue of human rights because Ines, ignorant of her entitlements (she signed the adoptionpapers withoutrealizingher surro- gacystatus, she did not go to the police, she lacks ID or passport), decides to search for her child by following the adoptive parents and illegallymigrating to Germany. After she arrivesinEurope from Tunisia, making her wayfrom Sicily to Berlin whereshe sleeps roughamong other social straysand outcasts,she eventuallylocates Daniel, her son, and his father.Her nomadic existence, hand to mouth survival, and directionless riding the trains and wandering in parks and other public places make her little different from the Roma with whom she mingles in the Alexanderplatz. Ines’sdestitution and illegitimacy can be comparedtothe chosen anonymity of manyrefugees and asylum seekerswho abandon all personal possessions, including their official identity so these cannot be used against them.²⁵ In existential terms, she is like Kristeva’srootless foreigner who acquires different guises and appears as different personas.²⁶ In the first section of the novel LloydJones presents Ines as apsychological studyofdepersonalization by stressingher anonymity to all those she meets on the road. Her refusal to give

 Eng, “Transnational Adoption and Queer Diasporas,” .  Eng, “Transnational Adoption and Queer Diasporas,” .  Newns, “Homelessness and the Refugee,” .  John Lechte, Julia Kristeva (London, New York: Routledge, ): . Queer Diasporas? Literary Diaspora Studies and the Law 303 aname at first,her uncertain ethnicity and unknown origin, the aura of mystery, her invisibility and blankness which, it is discovered, come from ashutting down of communication –“she would go silentand it would be as though she wereno longer therepresent” (DW,107) – are all suggestive of the shock of exile. Abjec- tion for Ines takes the form of partial silence,the asocial “polymorphic mutism” of the alien who is unable to reflectonher position;²⁷ silence also suggests passive resistancetopower structures and awilling dehumanization in order to recover her child. Information about her is also withheld in the testimonials and first hand reports giventothe inspector by the men who assist her in her journey from SicilytoBerlin and those she meetsthere, because these witnesses do not want to revealtheir exploitation of her. That Ines reachesher human limit in the obsession to recover her child as his ‘real’ mother,appears in her prioritizing of motherhood in ahierarchyof need and economyofdesire: she bestows sexual favours for cash in order to payher fare from North Africa, and then in Berlin steals objects d’art from her employer,trading them for money to paythe hourlyfee that Jermayne extorts from her in order to see the boy.She says:

The goal of seeingmyboy,ofgettingmyboy back in my arms.Aneed such as that obscures everythingelse. Even physical pain will bend to its will. … That kind of feeling[masculine desire]isnothingcompared to the need Ifelt,and so Icould satisfy him. (DW,214– 15)

Ines’salienation from the conventional structures of morality,citizenship and belongingdue to her separation from her child givesher asymbolic status as an outsider.Cut off from her space of national origin and unable to consider anyreturn, she negates the woman’ssymbolicrole as an emblemof‘home’ in the constitution of the nation; instead she resembles the non-heteronormative subjectwhose sexuality is “criminalized, disavowed or elided” because it constitutes “athreat to nationalintegrity.”²⁸ Her value system means she locates herself outside national categories: “But what is more important thanone’sown child. Countries don’tmean anything.Not to me they don’t” (DW,188). Home instead is an uncannyspace of difference, made meaningful onlythrough being with her child, in contrast to places whereshe was sheltering that provide no sense of ‘homeliness’,and that are what Lucinda Newns calls “non-homes.”²⁹ Significantly, after her first brief contact with her son, Ines condemns those ref-

 Kristeva, Strangers to Ourselves, .  Gopinath, “Nostalgia, Desire, Diaspora: South AsianSexualities in Motion,” .  Newns, “Homelessness and the Refugee,” . 304 Janet Wilson ugees and asylum seekers among whom she was earlier living as “stupid people. They don’thavehomes” (DW,240). The social and legal risks that Ines incurs by living outside the normalcat- egoriesofcitizenship lead to acompleteoverturning of her precarious arrangements to recover her role in her son’slife. In section three, the novel turnstoher imprisonment and introducesher first person voice in the form of a “prison narrative”:she is carrying out asentencefor manslaughter for allegedlykilling a woman who befriended her in Sicily, because having fled the scene of accidental death, she laid herself open to arrest,trial and imprisonment. This legal dimension concerning her current incarceration, revealedonlyinthis section, offers a retrospective readingofthe entire novel which is conceivedasthe reconstruction of acase of unjust conviction: the first two parts consist of testimonygiven by those who meet Ines on her journey,includingthe inspector who collects the evidence, to represent the extenuatingcircumstances which ‘explain’ how the crime occurred and its lack of reporting. The inspector’ssympathetic presencesuggests ahuman rights angle; for the novel raises questions about the efficacy of the public lawand its procedures in cases of illegal immigration, domestic drama and personal abuse which involvediminished subjecthood,loss of official identity and familial ties. It asks not onlyhow far the public lawand its regulations are able to meet the individual’sexperience related to their personal and domestic life;³⁰ but further,interms of international law, how effectively cases involving refugees or illegal migrants who lack the protectionofthe lawand live outside their national boundaries are arbitrated. Such issues might be framed by the alternative citizen-based model of diasporabased on an “individual’suniversal personhood rather than her passport” that critics Yasemin Soysal and Fatima El- Tayebpropose in theirrenegotiations of belonging.³¹ Such legalities are brushedaside in Ines’saccount and the skewingofjus- tice is impliedinthe narrative emphasis on the haunting effect she has on those around her,notablyonthe inspector who had “the impossibletask to try and piece everything back togetheragain” (DW,296), who in Ines’swords “sometimes said he’dfelt inhabited by me” and who followed “my footsteps between Sicily

 Maria Donata Panforti, “The Homeand the Law. AComparative LawContribution,” in Con- structions of Home. InterdisciplinaryStudies in Architecture, Law,and Literature,ed. Klaus Stier- storfer (New York: AMS Press, ): –, .  Yasemin N. Soysal, Limits of Citizenship:Migrants and Postnational Membership in Europe (Chicago:Chicago UP, ), qtd. in El-Tayeb, European Others, .Kristeva, invoking French universalism,also advocates auniversal transnational principle of humanity abovethe historical realities of nation and citizenship; see Nations without Nationalism (New York: Colombia UP, ): . Queer Diasporas? Literary Diaspora Studies and the Law 305 and Berlin” (DW,298). His role becomes apersonal, humanitarian one as he visits Abebi, Jermayne’swife and Daniel’sadopted mother,who by then has asked her unscrupulous, grasping husband to leave.Asanadvocate for Ines, he pleads for her access to the child upon release. The conclusion, therefore, suggests that prison, along with other hardships and deprivations that Ines has suffered from is, from her point of view,onlyone more obstacle in her way, and that her ability to endurethe sentenceovercomes questions of injusticeand illegality. In terms of Ines’sdesire for essentialised gendered belongingthrough the mother-child relationship, the novel can be read as simultaneouslyareaffirma- tion of filiative relations,and acritique of patriarchal power.Yet its focus remains on the queeringofsocial norms and values when perceivedthrough one individual’sstruggle in exile/diasporaagainst insurmountable class differences and an indifferent legal system: Ines’sillegality as arefugeeand her imprisonment,Jermayne’sexploitation, and the concluding hinted-at at reunion with the child, show ‘queerness’ as ongoing.Inthis sense it illustrateswhat David Eng describes as “issues of queerness, affiliation and social contingency that define contemporary diasporas.”³² More indirectlythe novel can be read as acritique of the lawfor its failuretoacknowledge the circumstances of victi- mized individuals involved in domestic abuse who have abandoned their homelands, and are driventotake unnecessary risks. The inspector who visits Abibe to talk about Ines might represent the human side of the lawthatseeks for more tolerance and flexibility in ways argued by legal commentators like Peter Fitzpa- trick and EveDarian-Smith who claim thatthe lawshould become less autono- mouslydetermined and more “responsive and indeterminate, capable of extend- ing to the infinitevariety that constantlyconfronts it.”³³ Examining these threetexts through the dual lens of aqueer diaspora and using alaw in literature approach suggests new ways of nuancing current reading practices.All three show how national structures are being ‘queered,’ rejected, challenged or reformulated by new global mobilities, transmigratory processes and migratory patterns that lead to the contestation of legal boundaries and exclusions, as diasporasthemselvestakecontradictory and incompatible forms. The constitutive tensions in the relationship between diasporaand the nation state dominate FunnyBoy,inwhich the ethnicallydivisiveSri Lankan civil war for power over the nation-state,aturbulent decolonisingprocess, invokes conservative notions of the diasporaasmobilizedbyroots,soil and kinship.

 Eng, “Transnational Adoption and Queer Diasporas,” .  Peter Fitzpatrick, EveDarian-Smith, “Laws of the Postcolonial: An Insistent Introduction,” in Laws of the Postcolonial,ed. Peter Fitzpatrick, EveDarian-Smith (Ann Arbor:Uof Michigan P, ): –, . 306 Janet Wilson

TheBuddha of Suburbia provides evidence of acosmopolitan diasporafrom the perspective of the second generation diasporan subject for whom all structures are queered – family, community,sexual, national; it overturns traditionallaws of custom and heritagesuch as Muslim or Hindu weddingpractices, and introduces performativity and the stageasemblems of the transformative consequences of migration. Finally Hand me down World drawsonthe increased mobility associated with globalization and transmigration, exposing the widening gapbe- tween the affluent elites advantagedbynew entitlementssuch as international adoption,and the impoverished and homelesswho lack the legality,power and wealth to benefit from the law’sprotection. The lawisinstrumental in the sur- veillance of movementsofrefugees who might acquirenew identities, for living outside the lawnecessarilyraises questions about individual motivation: signif- icantlyInes is arrested not just for alleged murder but for taking her ‘victim’s’ name. Queering and the ‘queer kin’ argument align her story with other prison narratives spoken by or of women in prison – such as Ines’sfellow prisoner who has killed her husband – as their desperation and desire for self agency in domesticsituations drivesthem to commit punishable offences.³⁴ In the end Hand Me Down World raises issues that are relevant to all diaspo- rasinasking how rights are guaranteed for those outside the frontiers of their homeland, and suggeststhat some redefinition is required of the status of subjects who lack full citizenship because living in host countries away from their community and at the mercyofunfamiliar legal and justicesystems.³⁵ This studyofliterary queer diasporassuggests the growingpresenceofnew formations of community and identity which, while critical of the patriarchal and sexual norms endorsed by the lawwithin and beyond the nation state,nevertheless remain exposedand vulnerable to the conformist pressures they exert.

 See for example, the Arabic novel by Salwa Bakr, TheGolden Chariot,trans. Dinah Manisty (Cairo:The American UinCairoP, []).  Kral, Critical Identities in ContemporaryAnglophone Diasporic Literature, . ChiaraBattisti Unaccustomed Earth: Diasporaonthe Developing Reel

DorotheaLaWnge, “Migrant Mother.DestitutepeapickersinCalifornia; a  year-old mother of seven children. February ”,LibraryofCongress, Prints and Photographs, see http:// www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa/PP/.

Amother,her face marked with preoccupation, her gaze carelesslyfacing away from the photographer’sobjectivethus making the imageevenmore dramatic, kids hiding theirfaces hencedeepening her sorrow,ababy sleeping in her arms underlining,with his innocence, alife of uncertainty and trauma:their mother’s. The visual details of the human body’spliable materiality become, in this image, allusive traces framing the conceptual premise and the foundations for our reflection on the specific links between diaspora, diasporic cosmo- politanismand photography. “Migrant Mother,” the title of this iconic picture of the Great Depression in America,implies issues thatare representative of diasporic events. It recalls 308 Chiara Battisti the theme of migration, the idea of motherhood/motherland as asourceofidentity as well as the grounds for self-identification. As far as the first aspect is concerned, that is to saythe concept of migration, it is important to bear in mind that the term diasporahas acquired, in contemporary diasporic discourse, awider rangeofmeanings. The “ancient word”¹ diasporawas deeplyintertwined with Jewish history since, throughout the centuries, it referred to the exile of the Jews from their historic homeland and their dispersion throughout manylands, signifyingaswell the threat of violence implied by that dispersion. Another earlyhistorical reference is the Black African diaspora, beginning in the sixteenth century with the slave trade. These early historical references reveal aconception of diasporaasanexperience of displacement which is not voluntarilychosen. Todaythe new currencies of the term in globaldiscourses fuse and confuse the once clearlydemarcated social parameters of national identity, geography and belonging, thus questioning the rigid meaning thatthe termpreviouslyhad.Diasporaand, more specifically, “diasporacommunity” seems to be increasinglyapplied to expatriate minority communities,being used as metaphoric designations for several categories of people and different patterns of migrations and return migrations. According to Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur,infact, the termdiasporanowadays is used “to speak of and for all movements, however privileged, and for all dislo- cations, even symbolic ones.” Nonetheless,Braziel and Mannur caution against an uncritical application of the term “to anyand all contexts of global displacement and movement.”² Such adjacency to all the forms of travel – the most obvious example is the category of transnationalmigrants, thatis, “those who shuttle backand forth for short workingperiods abroad and visitingmigrants temporarilyinthe country”³ – can in fact acquire the connotation of an imperi- alistic gesture.⁴ In considering the implications of the terms diaspora, diasporic and diaspora-ization (neologism introducedbyStuart Hall⁵ in order to highlight the connotation of diaspora as aprocess rather than as astate), Iwould under-

 Paul Gilroy, “Diaspora,” Paragraph: AJournal of the Modern Critical Theory . (): – , .  Jana Evans Braziel, Anita Mannur,ed., “Nation, Migration, Globalization,” in Theorizing Dia- spora (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, ): –, .  Luis Eduardo Guarnizo, “The EmergenceofaTransnational Social Formation and the Mirage of Return Migration among Dominican Transmigrants,” Identities . (): –, .  Caren Kaplan, Questions of Travel: Postmodern Discourses of Displacement (Post-Contempo- rary Interventions) (Durham: DukeUP, ).  Stuart Hall, “New Ethnicities,” in Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies, ed. David Morley,Kuan-HsingChen (London, New York: Routledge, ): –, . Unaccustomed Earth: Diaspora on the Developing Reel 309 line how it is preciselysuch multiplicityofmeaningsand their ambiguous se- manticmigration which make them objectsofdebate and theorization. Letus consider,for example, the semantic ambivalence inherent to the term diaspora itself which includes aliteraryand negative connotation to communities of people dislocated from their homelandsthrough migration, immigration, or exile as aconsequenceofcolonial expansion, and an etymological meaning (it derives from the Greek term diasperein,from dia-, “across” and sperein, “to sow or scatter seeds”)evoking the scatteringofseeds and thus the fertilityofdispersion. The current consensus on definitional criteria seems to individuatethe following featureswhich are considered essential in order to define adiasporic group:dispersion to another location, ongoing orientation towards a ‘homeland’, and group boundary maintenanceovertime.⁶ This fairlyaccommodatingdefini- tion of the term diasporacan be reasonablyappliedboth to archetypical cases such as the Jews or the Black Africans, and also to specific non-traditionalmi- grant groups as part of discussions about globalization and transnationalism.⁷ Thereforethe narrative of the new migrations and new exilesidentifies the markers of the contemporary worldindeterritorialized diasporas, in which neither home, nor nation, nor identity are fixed.

In the post-national world that we see emerging, diaspora runs with, and not against,the grain of identity,movement and reproduction. Everyone has relativesworking abroad. Manypeople find themselvesexiles without reallyhavingmoved very far – Croats in Bos- nia, Hindus in Kashmir,Muslims in India. […]Others find themselvesinpatterns of repeat migration. [There] are [other] examplesofanew sort of world in which diaspora is the order of thingsand settled ways of life areincreasinglyhard to find. The United States, always in its self-perception aland of immigrants,finds itself awash in these global diasporas, no longer aclosed spacefor the melting pot to work its magic, but yetanother diasporic switching point.⁸

Appadurai’sframework (which describes the United Statesasjust “another diasporic switching point” rather than as the magic place of melting-pot fulfilment) offers away “to theorize nationhood and belongingasaprocess always in changeand always mediated by issuesofclass, ethnicity,gender and sexuality.”⁹ The continuous flux of tangible and intangible resources(people,

 RogerBrubaker, “The ‘Diaspora’ Diaspora,” Ethnic and Racial Studies . (): –;Kim Butler, “DefiningDiaspora, RefiningaDiscourse,” Diaspora . (): –.  Michele Reis, “TheorizingDiaspora: Perspectiveson‘Classical’ and ‘Contemporary’ Dia- spora,” International Migration . (): –.  Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large:Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis:Uof MinnesotaP,): .  Evans Braziel, Mannur, “Nation, Migration, Globalization,” . 310 ChiaraBattisti capital, information, ideas, culturalsymbols) across the borders not onlychal- lenges the notion of national community necessarilybounded by its geographic borders,but also the idea of identity,thus suggesting afragmentation of the identity duetomultiple belonging. Forthis reason

borders and diasporas arephenomena that blow-up – both enlarge and explode – the hyphen: Arab-Jew,African-American, Franco-Maghrebi, Black-British. Avoidingthe dual axes of migration between the distinct territorial entities,the hyphen becomes [an interstitial] time-space; [it is] an imaginary homeland where the “fragmentation of identity” is conceived not as akind of pureanarchic liberalism or voluntarism, but […]asarecognition of the importance of the alienation of the Self in the construction of forms of solidarity.¹⁰

Among the several reconceptualizations of aconcept which dates back to two millennia ago, but which is still connotative,aspreviouslyhighlighted, of contemporary global realities,Ibelievethat – in atransnational context in which “the infosphere […]isgoing to impose itself on the geosphere”¹¹ – the critical perspectiveswhose aim is to investigate the role and the social implications of the so-called diasporic “mediascapes”¹² acquirefundamental importance. The media are in fact significant agents for diaspora, identity and community

 Smadar Lavie, TedSwedenburg, ed., Displacement, Diasporaand Geographies of Identity (Durham, London: DukeUP, ): .  Paul Virilio, interviewed by James Der Derian “The Subject: Speed Pollution: Real Spacevs. Realtime” (), Wired (acc.  March, ).  Appadurai maintains that the social imaginary is composed of five interconnected dimensions of global cultural flow:ethnoscapes (flow of migrants and people travelingthe world for study, work, and as political refugees); financescapes(flow of funds and financial transac- tions and data); mediascapes (flow of symbols and information); technoscapes (flow of technologies); ideoscapes (flow of ideas often directlypolitical).The processes of globalization arethus linked to patterns of cultural and historical imagination and Appadurai describesthis articulation of the imaginary as: “The image, the imagined, the imaginary – these areall terms that di- rectustosomethingcritical and new in global culturalprocesses:the imagination as asocial practice. No longer mere fantasy (opium for the masses whose real work is somewhereelse), no longer simple escape (fromaworld defined principallybymoreconcrete purposesand structures), no longer elitepastime (thus not relevant to the livesofordinary people), and no longer mere contemplation (irrelevant for new forms of desire and subjectivity), the imagination has become an organized field of social practices, aform of work (in the sense of both labor and culturallyorganized practice), and aform of negotiation between sites of agency(individuals) and globallydefined fields of possibility. This unleashing of the imagination links the playof pastiche (in some settings) to the terror and coercion of statesand their competitors.The imagination is now central to all forms of agency, is itself asocial fact,and is the keycomponent of the new global order.” Appadurai, Modernity at Large, . Unaccustomed Earth: Diaspora on the Developing Reel 311 since the previouslymentioned links between networks and flows that surpass geographical borders are central to the process of identityconstruction, in general, and of shared identities for diasporic populations. As Myria Georgiu maintains:

The transnationalization of spaces of belongingassociated with diaspora and diasporic communication does not onlyinviteustothink of the complex and rich spaceofcommu- nication for minorities, but it also challengesunderstandings of the nation as abounded and dominant entity that contains identities and communication systems.¹³

In the complex globalized space, not onlydothe media influence, shape and determine the knowledge,attitudes and behaviour of the Western population with respect to contemporary migration, but they alsotransform the sense of distance between people, thus favouring the creation and safeguardingoftransnational communities.Russel Kingand Nancy Wood point out thatthe media “mayinter- vene in the migration process and in the individual and collective experience of migrationinavariety of ways.”¹⁴ Letusconsider the double role and the importance of mediatic images: on the one hand, there are the images transmitted by the destination countries thatprovide asourceofinformation for potential migrants and an incentive to migration, as well as toolsfor learning how to become citizensbyhighlightingthe limitations and boundaries of citizenship and belonging;¹⁵ on the other,there are media images of migrantsthatoftencontrib- ute to the construction of the social perception of migrant identity and, in this way, influencethe process of social inclusion or exclusion of the migrantsthem- selves. Furthermore, media images emanated from the country of origin playan importantrole in the politics and the definitionofcultural identity of diasporic communities.Media environment and online communities develop media spaces which support the safeguard of minority languages, of culturalprojects which aim at the cohesion of the diasporic community,and of spaces for identity,alternative to the mainstream cultureofthe hosting country.Infact,according to William Safran,¹⁶ one of the criteria which characterizes diasporic com-

 Myria Georgiou, “Diaspora in the Digital Era: Minoritiesand Media Representation,” Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe . (): –, .  Russel King, NancyWood, ed., “Preface and Acknowledgments,” in Media and Migration: Constructions of Mobility and Difference (London, New York: Routledge, ): vii–ix, viii.  Nick Couldry, Media, Society,World: Social Theoryand Digital Media Practice (Cambridge: Polity, ).  William Safran, “Diasporas in Modern Societies:Myths of Homeland and Return,” Diaspora: AJournal of Transnational Studies . (): –. 312 ChiaraBattisti munity is that the group maintains amyth or collective memory of their homeland; and they relate “personally or vicariously” to the homeland to apoint whereitshapes their identity. Media images allow migrantsto“maintain (to some degree) emotional and social ties with ahomeland.”¹⁷ In spiteofthe critical emphasis on empathetic power of visual communication –“seeing comesbefore words,”¹⁸ affirms John Berger – when considering the issue of diaspora, thereseems to be alack of sustained critical discussion on the role of still photography. In the introduction to their volume Media and Migration: Constructions of Mobility and Difference,Russell King and Nancy Wood, for example, acknowledge having omitted athorough discussion on the role of still photography, and the alleged reason for such omission is subse- quentlygiven as such:

[M]igration is essentiallyamobile, ‘narrativised’ experience – i.e, it is the story of ajourney that begins in the home country,region or locale and, assumingthe migrant is successful, ends in the chosen destination (whether anew country,region or city). […]Thus,itisthose modes of media – television, film, the newspaper article – that can tell the unfoldingstory which areconsidered best suitedtorenderingthe migrant experience.¹⁹

Similarly,when consideringthe specific example of SebastiãoSalgado, awell- known photographer,but also amigrant settled in aworld of migrants, several critics have underlined that his photographic work is often so aesthetically pleasing to be almostcold and sterile. Defenders of his work, by contrast, arguethat the main aim of Salgado’sphotographic art is to moveviewers to action. In order to achieve thoseaims in the most effective way, Salgado developed an aesthetic strategythat “makes it possible to look at the unlookable rather than close their eyes or turn the page.”²⁰ This strategyallows him “the construction of alternative histories through the interplayofindividual and collective subjects, and also through the narrative links running across his projects.”²¹ The first aim of this essayistodemonstrate how photographycan be considered diaspora’sdark room: from images and from imagesequences,infact, the viewer can construct “migrant narratives” that oftenmanagetotell him or

 Brubaker, “The ‘Diaspora’ Diaspora,” .  John Berger, Ways of Seeing (London: Penguin, ): .  Russell King, NancyWood, ed., “An Overview,” in Media and Migration (London: Routledge, ): –, .  Nicholas Wroe, “Man with the Golden Eye,” ( June, ), TheGuardian (acc.  August, ).  Nair Parvati, ADifferent Light: ThePhotography of Sebastião Salgado (Durham, London: DukeUP, ): . Unaccustomed Earth: Diaspora on the Developing Reel 313 her more about the livesofphotographed subjects than the flows, seemingly more articulate, of other media discourses.Such atrope of photographs and photographyasconnected to diaspora, will be analysed in Jhumpa Lahiri’scol- lection of short stories UnaccustomedEarth (2008). The critical analysis will focus in particularonthe short story “Hema and Kaushik,” in which Lahiriin- troduces the character of Kaushik,asecond generation Indian immigrant,who has started the profession of photojournalist.ToKaushik,photographyisphar- makon;thatistosay ameans and atool which stresses the sense of loss of origin and offers, at the same time, the possibilitytoovercome the subject’ssense of alienation with respect to the outer world. However,before enteringLahiri’sdark room,Iwould liketohint at the emotional and critical implications of the second issue evoked by the “MigrantMoth- er,” the iconicpicture which opens this essay; thatis, the idea of motherhood/ motherland as asourceofidentity and as apoint of identification. Dorothea Lange’sphotographic close-uponthe face of the mother becomes not onlyanenigmatic surface which persuades the viewer to share the inner thoughts and feelingsofthe woman portrayed, but it also introducesthe idea of “mother” as ametaphor for the community’ssocial role of protection,nurturing and guide.Naomi Rosenblum, while reflecting on Lange’sportraits, precisely points out the metaphorical value of Lange’sphotographic art,underlining its ability to fusetogether “concept,emotion and form to invest the modernist idea with ahuman face and to stand as metaphors for social dislocation.”²² If our cultureassociates the mother imagery with roots,past and tradition, it is reasonable to assert that the face of the displaced woman portrayedbyLange stands for aculturewhich is grounded in afundamental lack of sense of community and underlines the particularlegacyofmaternal presenceorloss in the diasporic world.²³ Emilia Ippolito comfirms this idea emphasising the role of “displaced women” in the post-colonial rewritingofboundaries. Women, and in particular, mothersbecome “bearer […]oftraditionalfeaturesof[their] cultureboth inside and outside home” and,atthe same time, real and ideal

 Naomi Rosenblum, “Modernist Eye, Responsive Heart: The Work of Dorothea Lange,” in The Human Face,ed. Dorothea Lange (Paris:NBC Editions, ): –, .  Simone James Alexander, Mother Imageryinthe NovelsofAfro-Carribean Women (Missouri: UofMissoury P, ); NancyChodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering (Berkeley,Los Angeles: UofCaliforniaP,); Andrea O’Reilly, Marie Porter,Patricia Hort,ed., Motherhood: Powerand Oppression (Toronto:Women’sPress, ). 314 ChiaraBattisti characters who have “to respond to new pecularities of the changed environment.”²⁴ The issues suggested by the analysis of Lange’simagealsointroduce the second aim of this essay; thatis, to demonstrate how in Lahiri’swriting the trope of photographyleads to creatingasense of rootedness in the immigrant characters of her novel and how this sense of rootedness/unrootedness is often connected to the figureofthe mother who embodies the sense of negotiating the space between the real (m)otherland and an ideal motherland. The ways in which, in JumpaLahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth (2008) and in particular in the trilogyofshort stories “Hema and Kaushik,” ²⁵ photographyand dia- sporainteract are many, and they are apparent at different levels of reading. Afirst,moreimmediate level is the ‘direct’ presenceofphotographic images. These images are not actuallypresent in the text,but instead are present in their absencethanks to the author’sekphrasticability and to the readers’ imagination. Thispresenceinabsence, exemplified by Lahiri’swriting,isadirect referencetothe realization of presenceand loss linked to the artofphotography and introduces another deeper and less immediate level of interpretation. The photographs,which are always amanifestation of both presenceand absence simultaneously, illustrate arhetoric of absence which ambiguouslyimplies the presenceofthe past and the pastness of the present.Such rhetoric allows the reader to experience these vast opposites,asincompatible as the life and death they symbolize. At this interpretive level, photographs as diasporic narration introduce reflections which transcend the confines of literary discourse:

 Emilia Ippolito, “Room as aCatalyst of Differences” in Borderlands: Negotiating Boundaries in Post-Colonial Writing, ed. MonikaReif-Huelser (Amsterdam:Rodopi, ): –, .  Beforeanalysingthe threeconnectedbut distinct stories grouped under the heading “Hema and Kaushik,” it might be helpful to give ashort summary of the storyfor those unfamiliarwith it.The story revolvesaround two characters,Hemaand Kaushik. In the first section of the trilogy, “OnceinaLifetime,” Lahiri narrates, throughthe first person address of Hema to Kaushik, their adolescent meetingwhen Kaushik’sfamilystayedwith Hema’sastheir houseguests.Their families sharethe experience of immigration and they arelinked thanks to their shared culture and common experienceofadaptingtoanew culture. The second part, “Year’sEnd,” is narrated from Kaushik’spoint of view and tells about his life after his mother’sdeath as he deals with unwanted change and faces complex relationships with his recentlyremarried father,stepmoth- er,and two youngstepsisters. The last part “GoingAshore” narrates, throughthe perspective of an omniscient narrator,the casual meeting between Hema and Kaushik. They meet,infact,in Italywhere Hema, now acollege professor,has gone to seek refuge after her tormentedaffair with amarried man and subsequent decision to accept an arranged marriage.Kaushik, asuc- cessful photojournalist,is, at the same time, preparing to accept adesk job in Hong Kong. Unaccustomed Earth: Diaspora on the Developing Reel 315 photographs in fact “don’thelp us much to understand. […]Photographs do something else: they haunt us.”²⁶ The ekphrastic photographic repertorythat “haunts” the novel’snarration, giving it significance and meaning,can be ascribed to threecategories: family snapshots,Kaushik’sfamilytravelphotos,and his professional documentary photos of the destruction and horror caused by war and civil unrest. In the first category is the detaileddescription of the photograph that the thirteen-year-old Hema looks at as she tries to revive her childhood memories of the now sixteen-year-old Kaushik.The picture thatHema examines was taken seven years before at the farewell party organized by her parents for Kaushik’sfamily when they returned to India, areturn considered by Hema’s familyas“awavering,aweakness” because “they should [know] it’simpossible to go back.”²⁷ Her desire to remember is inspired by the sudden, unexpectedre- turn of Kaushik’sfamilytoCambridge.Hema studies the pictures,pasted into an album,ofthe two couples:

There was my father […]Hewas dressed in asweatervest,his shirt cuffs rolled back, pointing urgentlyatsomething beyond the frame. Your father was in the suit and tie he always wore, his handsome,bespectacledface leaningtoward someone in conversation, his green- ish eyes unlikeanyone else’s. The middle part in your mother’shair accentuated the narrow length of her face;the end of her rawsilk sari was wrapped around her shoulders like a shawl.Mymother stood beside her,ahead shorter and moredisheveled, strayhairs hang- ing by her ears. […]There was no evidenceofyou. (UE,230)

The words of the first “migrant narrative” recounted by this photograph are interwoven with the “threads” of vestimentary fashion. The emphasis on masculine elegance(referringtothe “sweater vest,” the “shirt,”“suit,” and “tie”)and then feminine refinement (“the rawsilk sari”)alludes to the concept of “material cultureofsuccess” introducedbyMichael Rowlands.²⁸ He defines the measure of an individual’ssuccess as basedonthe possession and control of the material symbols that indicate social status. Considering that the migrant community and its families in the homeland are continuallyincontact with one another and the images circulating in the transnationalspheres enable migrantstopres- ent their families and relativesback home with visual testimonyoftheirlives in

 Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (New York: Picador, ): .  Jhumpa Lahiri, Unaccustomed Earth (New York: Knopf, ): .Further references in the text,abbreviated as “UE”.  Michael Rowlands, TheMaterial CultureofSuccess:Households and Consumption in Bamen- da (Leiden: African Studies Centre, ). 316 Chiara Battisti their host countries,wecan affirm thatmigrants, by showing this “material culture” to their relativesleft behind, can renegotiate their status in theircommunity of origin. Moussa Konaté asserts that usually “photos of migrants forwarded to their families in the homeland, or those kept as mementos, portray individuals who have profited from theirperiod abroad or thosewell integrated into the receiving culture.”²⁹ Unlikethose photographs conveying the material cultureofsuccess, and in strongcontrast to the messagethatthey transmit,the images commonlyelicited by the word ‘immigrants’ paint adifferent facet of the immigrant life experience, testifyingtotheirtrials and tribulations, theirprecarious existencethroughout their experience of migration. What the analysis of the photograph depicted by Lahiri tells the readers about the processes of self, community,and homemaking in which migrants are engaged, is that photographyoffers individuals in diasporic communities amedium with which to create avision of themselvesthat does not always cor- respond to popularperception. Tina Camptplaces special emphasis on this issue, asserting that “images matter” to immigrants not onlyfor their capacity to at once reduce distances and bring the migrantsand their community closer together,but also and foremost to articulate immigrant people’smultifaceted relationships to their culturalidentitiesand national and cultural belonging. Pho- tography, therefore, has agreat impact on both reader and viewer understanding of the differences within diaspora, since it assumes the double role of “document[ing] and simultaneouslypathologiz[ing] the history,culture, and struggles of these communities.”³⁰ The abovehighlights yetanother aspect of fundamental importance in the analysis of the relationship between diasporic events and photography. The diasporic and migration studies literature in general and Lahiri’snovel in particular testify to the energies devoted to faraway relativesinthe homeland in order to underlinethe emotional value connected to the manyimages circulating in the transnational spheres.Inthe novel, in fact,Lahiridescribes the kind habit Hema’sparents have of “buyingstacks of aerograms at the post office and sending them off faithfullyevery week, asking me to write the same three sentences to each set of grandparents at the bottom” (UE,226).

 Moussa Konaté, “Pictures fromherefor the People over Yonder.Photography in Migratory Circuits” in Shoe Shop,edMarie-Hélène Gutberlet,CaraGnyman (Sunnyside:Jacana, ): –, .  Tina Campt, Image Matters: Archive, Photography,and the African Diaspora in Europe (Dur- ham, London: DukeUP, ), . Unaccustomed Earth: Diaspora on the Developing Reel 317

Diasporicand migrationstudies have also stressed the importance and the role of media images in the potential migrants’ decision-making processes. Media images contribute, in fact,tothe construction of knowledge or impressions about countries to which potential migrants might consider moving.How- ever Wood and King point out how media can alsodistort the picture of destination countries:

Images of wealth and of afree and relaxed lifestyle in the “West” or the “North” arecom- monplaceinthe developingand transformingcountries of the world, and the constant presenceofthese images in globalmedia – in films,television, magazines and advertisements-tends to reinforce their truth in the eyes of the beholders.³¹

The emphasis on the “material culture of success,” revealed in the analysis of Lahiri’s “migrant narrative,” and the awareness of the constant flux of images, in this case photographs,between immigrantsand their relativesback home, leads us to think thatthe migrantsthemselvescollude in reinforcing the authenticity of the distorted images proposed by globalmedia, partlytoimpress,and partlytodenyany elements of failurefirst to themselves and then to their family and friends. The two elegantlyposed familygroups captured by Lahiri’sphotographic writing highlight,with their iconic presence, the value of absence, “pointing urgentlyatsomething beyond the frame.” Lahiri, by using this narration of the “un-seen,” focuses the reader’sattentionand curiosity onto what lies “beyond the frame:” it wasKaushik, of whom “there was no evidence.” This absence introduces afracture between the trope of diaspora and return as connected with anostalgic, backward looking feeling-embodied by bothcouples trying to com- municate an air of success to potential observers back home- and then the attitude of asecond generation that,inthe author’sown words, must come to terms with an “intense pressuretobethe twothings: loyal to the one world and fluent in the new.”³² History,accordingtoRoland Barthes, “is hysterical: it is constituted onlyif we consider it,onlyifwelookatit–and in order to look at it,wemust be excluded from it.”³³ Barthes’ words, together with our previous assertions, underline how history,like photography, becomes asimultaneous illustration of both

 King, Wood, “An Overview,” .  Delphine Munos, “DiasporicHereafter in Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘OnceinaLifetime’,” in AFluid Sense of Self:The Politics of Transnational Identity, ed. Silvia Schultermandl, Sebnem Toplu (Wien, Berlin: Lit Verlag Gmbh &Co, ): – .  Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida:Reflections of Photography (London: Flamingo,): . 318 ChiaraBattisti presenceand absence: specifically, history freezes amoment of the diasporic experience and bequeaths it to posterity;aposterity,however,that sees the moment “beyond the frame” and is onlyabletoperceive asense of absence, loss and distance from that collective memory which has instead considered that specific moment worthyofbecominghistorical fact.And it is preciselytothis sense of absenceand loss which Bidisha Banerjee refers when she asserts that since Hema and Kaushik “have no first-hand experience of migration, for them it involves aphantom loss of homeland.”³⁴ The element which, according to Bane- rjee, defines Hema and Kaushik’sloss as phantasmatic is the very fact that “they cannot access the originary moment of their departure in their memories.”³⁵ Iwould, however,underline the ambivalent nature of this phantasmatic loss, which includes belongingand diaspora. Both Hema and Kuashik em- body, in every moment of their existence, the role of “authenticallymigrant subjects,”³⁶ subjects always in transit and for whom the process itself of home-comingisimpossible. It is that feelingofnever reallybeing “at home,” that inspires the adolescent Hema to equate her temporary move into her parent’sroom in order to leave her room to the guestKaushik, with amigratory event:

Itook my pajamas,some outfits to wear to school, and the sneakers Ineeded for gym. Itook the library book Iwas reading,along with the others stackedonmybedside table. […]Iremoved the locked diary from my desk drawer,though I’dwritten onlytwo entries sincereceivingitfor Christmas.Iremoved the seventh-grade yearbook in which my photograph appeared, the endpapers filled with sillymessagesfrommyclassmates. It was like decidingwhich of my possessions Iwanted to takeonalong trip to India, only this time Iwas goingnowhere.(UE,230)

This passageunderlines how,within the second generation, the notion of ‘home’ becomes complex. To Hema, being at home is aculturallyavailable narrative refracted by familyremembrance and thus marked by acontradictory balance between belonging(that denotesstasis and security,highlighted in the passageby the frequent use of the possessive adjective “my”)and migration (that mobility well represented by the idea of the “long trip to India.”)Hema is always and

 Bidisha Banerjee, “Diaspora’s ‘Dark Room’:Photographyand the Vision of Loss in Jhumpa Lahiri’s ’Hema and Kaushik’,” TheJournal of Commonwealth Literature, . (): –, .  Banerjee, “Diaspora’s ‘Dark Room’,” .  SaraAhmed, StrangeEncounters (New York: Routledge, ): . Unaccustomed Earth: Diasporaonthe Developing Reel 319 never at home in twodifferent cultures,and she must face the challenges of this double belonging. As Alireza Farahbakhsh and MostafaTaghavi Zadexplain

Lahiri’ssecondgeneration characters […]occupy amiddle ground which could easilyturn into abattle ground between the Indian and the American parts of their identities,but they strive to maintain ties to both cultures,identifyingthemselvesasIndian Americans.³⁷

While usually for the first generation “home is the return”;that is, being in and returningtotheir homeland provides first generation migrants some temporary relief of belongingness, the reality of returning to India and then to the States acts as aform of displacement for the otheryoung protagonist of the trilogy, Kaushik, further underlining the complexity of atheoretical conceptualisation of the concept of home and belongingtosecond generation immigrants. It is pre- ciselyupon his return to the States (after the circular migration that caused Kaushik to live his first nine years in the States,then “moveall the wayback to India” and then return once again to the States) that the entire concept of home is challenged for him. Home is experiencedinmovement and must be conceptualised in fluid terms,being “neither here nor there…rather,itself ahybrid, it is both here and there-an amalgam, apastiche, aperformance.”³⁸ Kaushik’sexperience of the present is characterized by apersistent sense of dislocation infused with adesire for return to India when he livesinthe States, and to the States when he livesinIndia. “He was furious that we left,and now he’sfurious that we’re here again,” observesKaushik’sfather,calling him “atypicalAmeri- can teenager” (UE,238), raised in Bombay. Kaushik’smemory of belongingisfractured, marked by deep fissures which bear the traces of bothcultures.Thisdouble presencemakes Kaushik’sworld- view into an “authenticallymigrant perspective” based on “an intuition that the opposition between here and there is itself aculturalconstruction, aconsequence of thinking in terms of fixed entitiesand definingthem oppositionally.”³⁹ It is importanttoobservehow Kaushik’sfractured memoriesofhis American “here and there” are connected to two specific memory traces:the cold and the snow. “‘Imissed the cold,’ [… Kaushik]said. ‘This cold’.The remark remind-

 Alireza Farahbakhsh,Mostafa Taghavi Zad, “‘Subject’:Subjectivity in Jhumpa Lahiri’s ’Going Ahore’,” BEST: International Journal of Humanities, Arts,Medicine and Sciences,  (): – , .  AngelikaBammer,ed., “Introduction,” in Displacements.Cultural Identities in Question (Bloomington:Indiana UP, ), xi–xx, xi.  Paul Douglas Carter, Living in aNew Country: History, Travelling and Language (London: Faber &Faber, ): . 320 Chiara Battisti ed me [Hema] that none of this was new to you. ‘And the snow.When will it snow again?’” (UE,235). The emotionsbrought about by the second memory traceadd an important component to this analysis.Snow,infact,inWestern literature and culture, can be asymbolic tool alludingtoeither purity,light and innocence, or sadness,bleakness and death. In particularifweconsider that snow is actuallyfrozen water,wecan reasonablyunderlinehow the symbolic messagecommunicated by the imageofsnow evokes “frozen emotions.” Beyond the evident connection between that messageand Kaushik’s “frozen” soul, stuck within an unreachable “here and there,” the issue of “frozen emotions” strongly evokes the photographic medium,capable of “captur[ing] atime slice of emotion, afrozen moment of feeling.”⁴⁰ If “home is the return,” to Kaushik being at homeimplies inhabitingacognitive environment⁴¹ wherehis identityis best mediated. He creates acognitive space which does not need time and space coordinates,but instead assures that he metaphoricallystages his (psychological) return to the past; thatis, to his deepest identity, through the use of images. EventuallyKaushik’sjob and lifestyle themselveswill be what distances him from both his origin and host cultures;being aphotojournalist implies not belongingtoany permanent place and distancing oneself from surrounding facts and emotionsthrough the use of the camera. What is more, it is Kaushik’s identity itself that findsrefuge behind the lens of his camera: the places and situations he photographs resonatewith his emotions and make the civil war-torn Guatemala –“He’dnever been in aplace so obviously at warwith itself” (UE,303) – an obvious metaphor for the displaced “Kaushik.” The painful emotions that arise in Kaushik are immediatelysublimated in raw, cold images of places that contain the internal tensions and violence typicalofmuch of the postcolonial world. Such considerations highlight, in amore general take on diasporic and migratory photography, the danger that the lens becomes ascreen shielding both the photographer and the viewer from the explosive,dramatic charge of the witnessed events. Through the reassuring framing of the camera, even horror and tragedycan become akind of performance, causing the photographer and the viewer to remain indifferent to the migrant’splight. Although such indifference can actuallybefound in Kaushik’swork – he in fact confirms feeling “untouched by the situation [heisphotographingadying man], unmoved once he was behindthe camera, shootingtothe end of the roll”

 Colin McGinn, ThePowerofMovies: How Screenand Mind Interact (New York: Vintage Books, ): .  Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt, ThePostcolonial Citizen: The Intellectual Migrant (New York: Peter Lang, ): . Unaccustomed Earth: Diasporaonthe Developing Reel 321

(UE,304) – it does not appear when his work makes him face adiasporic event. In this case, the chaotic upheavals Kaushikexperiencesinhis adolescence are metaphoricallyimmortalized by his camera-wielding adultself. “Theprivate detritus of his life” (UE,308) – his circular migration from States to India and back – becomes public images of the infinite chain-likefences crossed by the photojournalist: “He was reminded of his family’smoves every time he visited another refugee camp, every time he watched afamilycombiningthrough rubble for their possession” (UE,308). With alist of the small, important thingsthat make up alife (“afew plates,afavorite comb, apair of slippers, achild’sstring of beads” [UE,308]) and that evoke the hastilygathered objectsfrom Hema’sfirst diasporic “migration” back to her parents’ bedroom, Kaushik “photographs” the awareness of asecond-generation immigrant of the disempowerment resulting from the inevitability of trying to take root in unaccustomed earth. Seeing the refugeecamps forces him to recognize his inability to avoid “wherever he land- ed, […]form[ing] attachments” (UE,308). Photographytherefore becomes ametaphor for diasporic fragmentation, and it also becomes ametonymyofthe diasporic subject.Kaushikindeedturns himself into apicture. Conscious of photography’scontradictory characteristics of both capturingapresenceand, at the sametime,highlighting absence, Kaushik, in his attempt to distance and absent himself from his family, remains present however “to wash up on his father’sdoorstep, in the form of his photo credit in one of the newsmagazines his father read, announcing that he was alive,in- dicating wherehe’dbeen and what he’dseen” (UE,306). If, accordingtoDon Slater, “we construct ourselvesfor the imageand through the image,”⁴² Kaush- ik’sattempt to make himself atrace of both absence and presencetransforms the static material form of photographs into asubjective extension of the construction of self and identity.Photographs,while not representing him directly, em- bodythe inner laceration of his soul and offer tangible validation of his diasporic migration. In addition, by passing from one ontological realm to another (from the tangible world to the printed pageofanewsmagazine), Kaushik asserts his right to determine an interstitial space for himself – the exact space of the ontological leap – thathas no physical or culturalboundaries. Significantly, he then connects this space to the idea of death: “No one in the world knew whereIwas, no one had the ability to reach me. It was likebeing dead, my escape allowing me to taste thattremendous power my mother possessed forever” (UE,290 –291).

 Don Slater, “Domestic photographyand Digital Culture,” in ThePhotographic Image in Dig- ital Culture,ed. Martin Lister(New York: Routledge, ): –, . 322 Chiara Battisti

This passageconnects Kaushik’ssearch for an interstitial space to the cause of that search: his sense of maternal (motherland) loss. His mother,Parul, is physicallypresent in the first section of the trilogy, “Once in aLifetime,” in which her breast cancer is the hiddenreason for Kaushik’sreturn migration; she becomes,instead, memory trace of an absentfigure in the other twosec- tions, “Year’sEnd” and “Going Ashore,” in which she assumesthe status of an icon who embodies the sense of negotiating the space between the real (m)otherland and an ideal motherland. Manycritics have illustrated the link between death and the diasporic element – alink present also in the previous quotation, in which the idea of “being dead” is immediatelycompared to the word “escape.” They underline diaspora’spsychicdimensionsofsocial death, its loss of the formerself, and its border between life/past and death/present.VijayMishra,⁴³ in particular,has compared “writing diaspora” to “writing mourning,” highlighting the sense of loss and absencepresent in both forms of writing. If this aspect,connected to photography’sdouble edge,iscertainlypresent in the shortstory here analysed, Ithink that the part devoted to Parul assumes different and further connotations. First of all, Iwould clarify how the diaspora/death link does not seem to necessarilyassume negative connotations since, as is well portrayed in the following passage, death seems comforting for Parul. Kaushik’smemories, in fact,link the maternal figure to his darkroom at home, and then link bothhis mother and his darkroom to death:

There were times my mother came down and kept me company, sittingquietlyinthe black- ness as Istruggledtoload film onto the developingreel. Together we would breathe in the chemical smells,their corrosiveness,fromwhich my hands wereprotected by rubber gloves, nothingcompared to what was takingplaceinside her body. […] “It must be some- thinglikethis,” she said once in that perfectlydark, silent,sealed up space, and Iunder- stood without her sayingsothat she was imaginingwhatitmight be like to be dead. (UE,278)

In this passage, as Bidisha Banerjee rightlypoints out, “the chemicals coursing through her bodyand destroyingbothhealthyand diseased cells are compared with the chemicals necessary in the creation of the photograph; the former struggle to delayher inevitable death, while the latter are necessary elements in the

 VijayMishra, The Literature of the Indian Diaspora:Theorizing the Diasporic Imaginary (Lon- don, New York: Routledge, ). Unaccustomed Earth: Diasporaonthe Developing Reel 323 creation of art.”⁴⁴ The suggested interaction between death and creation givesa positive connotation to the idea of death, rendering it almostanecessary moment or passageinthe creation of something new and different. In order to understand the new value the diasporic element takes on in this part of the novel, in which it is associated with apositive perception of death, it is important to restateapreviouslyhighlighted aspect.Atthe beginning of this essay, Iobserved how the term diasporahas acquiredabroader semantic domainwith respect to its original, traditionaldefinition and how it has been expandedtoinclude “wider categorieswhich reflect processes of politically motivated uprootingand moving of population, voluntary migration, globalcom- munications and transport.”⁴⁵ However,asmanycritics have rightlypointed out, ‘diaspora’ still contains essentialfeatures,such as an ongoing orientation towards a ‘homeland.’ Thisorientation is characterized by acollective memory, and arealormythic vision of the immigrant original homeland.What is more,

“they regardtheir ancestral homeland as their true, ideal home and as the placetowhich they or their descendants would (or should) eventuallyreturn. […]They continue to relate, personallyorvicariously, to that homeland in one wayoranother,and their ethno-communal consciousness and solidarity[…]are importantlydefined in terms of the existenceof such arelationship.”⁴⁶

The abovehighlights and validatesasfundamental features of the concept of di- asporaboth the connection with homeland/motherland and the importance of its diasporic construction. In “Hema and Kaushik,” thereare numerous details thatlead us to define Parul as “mother-diaspora”;that is, ametaphorical embodiment of anew diasporic construction of motherland. Her status as symbolic character is made explicit from the first pages of the trilogy, in which she is in the interstitial space between reality and the ideal. The first meeting between Hema and Parul marks the distance between the subject and the object photographed,between ideal construction and real presence: “There was your mother,her slipperydark hair cut to her shoulders […]looking onlyvaguelylikethe woman I’dseen in the picture” (UE,231).

 Banerjee, “Diaspora’s ‘Dark Room’,” .  Judith Shuval, “Diaspora Migration: Definitional Ambiguities and Theoretical Paradigm,” International Migration . (): –, .  William Safran,Ajaya Sahoo, Brij V. Lal, ed., “Indian Diaspora in Transnational Contexts – Introduction,” in Transnational Migrations:The Indian Diaspora (New Delhi: Routledge, ): vii–xxxv, x. 324 Chiara Battisti

Hema’smemoriesofthis meeting draw attention to ajuxtaposition, in the protagonist’sinner soul, between areal mother (Shibani, Hema’smother)and an ideal mother (Parul, Kaushik’smother). The latter,besides beinga“photograph,” and, as such, apotential space of mediation between tangible and imaginary,isalso described in positive terms and connotations which counterpose her to the ordinariness of Shibani: “with her [Parul’s] bright lipstick and frosted eyelids, she looked less exhausted than my mother did. She had remained thin, her collarbone glamorouslyprotruding, unburdened by the weight of middle agethatnow padded my mother’sfeatures” (UE,231 [myemphasis]). Thephys- ical juxtaposition here described introduces adeeper and more problematic opposition between patterns of femininity-motherhood: a “traditional” pattern embodied by Shibani, which aims at preservingand perpetuating arigid diasporic Indianness, and an emancipated pattern, embodied by Parul, characterized by a more glamorous form of westernized Indianness. This dichotomyopens up, in Hema’smind, aspace of re-imagination of both personal identity and female identity basedonmultiple affiliations and identifications, aspace which stresses the symbolicfluctuation between areal (m)other(land) and an ideal mother(land). The traditionalpattern connected with her (m)other adheres to the idea of a migrant mother as “expectedtoreproduce,biologically, and symbolically, the boundaries of [her] ethno-nationalcommunity at atime when such boundaries are under threat and most fragile.”⁴⁷ Such ideas of mother/motherhood/motherland are in fact “other” to Hema, since they implyafixity and continuity distant from the more fluid notion of identity thatshe, as second-generation immigrant, is experiencing. Instead, Parul creates aspace in which to negotiate her emancipation, thus offering Hema new modes of gender identification and anew idea of mother/ motherhood/motherland as an identity that negotiates the demands of bothcultures.Itis, in fact,the woman Hema is looking to as the ideal motherland, who givesher her first bras –“Despite my mother’sprotests, your mother boughtme my first three bras, insistingthat they wereagift” (UE,239) – which become symbolic of anew femalehybridized culturalidentity. However the very fact that Kaushik’smother is undermined by breast cancer, and that she is alreadyill (terminallyill) in the moment of deep female empathy experiencedwith Hema in the fitting room, exemplifies the difficulty,for second-

 Carla De Tona, “MotheringContradictoryDiasporas. Negotiation of Traditional Motherhood Roles among Italian Migrant Women in Ireland,” in Intimacy and Italian Migration: Gender and Domestic LivesinaMobile World, ed. Loretta Baldassar,Donna R. Gabaccia(New York: Fordham UP, ): –, . Unaccustomed Earth: Diasporaonthe Developing Reel 325 generation immigrants, in identifying a “nurturing motherland.” If the gift re- ceivedisfirst presented, and as such receivedbyHema, “as ameans to initiate the young girl into her budding womanhood and as atoken of affection symbol- izing the passing-down of aversion of westernized Indiannessthat the protagonist can easilyemulate,”⁴⁸ the subsequent revelation of Parul’smortal illness – breast cancer;that is, an illness which defies her not onlyinher feminine aspect, but also in her motherlyone – leadsHema also to consider this pattern of motherhood/motherlandasnot feasible, because indissolublyconnected with death, and thereforewith afrozen present. Parul, mother-diaspora, becomes apresenceacross time and beyond physical boundaries, frozen in “aphotograph […]largerthan life and draped with atuberose garland” (UE,252), hungonthe living-room in the house of Kaushik’s grandparents.Thishaunting,phantom figure opensupanother perspective in our considerations on the connection between motherland and diaspora. Kaushik’sgrandparents, in fact,evenasthey have this visual memorial on their wall, consider that their dead daughter could return, not from the after- world, but from the other shore of Boston:

My grandparents had alreadylived in astate of mild mourningsince1962, when my parents weremarried. Occasionallymymother would returntothem, first from Boston and then Bombay, likePersephone in the myth. […]After we called my grandparents from Massachu- setts to tell them my mother was dead, they had held on to the hope that it was onlyamat- teroftime, and that she would board aplane and walk through the door onceagain. (UE,253)

This passagesignificantlyhints at the wayinwhich the diasporic event “contributes to unsettling the representation of the boundary between life and death,”⁴⁹ here reconceptualized in the playofpresenceand absence, turned into metaphor by photography. If within immigrants, the physical and psychological distance of motherland is so vast that the motherland remains frozen in the diasporic imagination as asortofsacredsite or symbol, in the caseofKaushik’sgrandparents, the distance from their daughter,caused by the diasporic separation, made Parul afrozen incorporeal image, divorced from anysense of her singularity and his- toricity,evenbefore her death. “Hema and Kaushik” ends, as it begins, with Hema’snarrativevoice,with aphotograph and an intense juxtaposition of life and death. In this circularity,

 Delphine Munos, After Melancholia: AReappraisal of Second-Generation Diasporic Subjectiv- ity in the WorksofJhumpa Lahiri (Amsterdam,New York: Rodopi, ): .  Munos, After Melancholia, . 326 ChiaraBattisti which seems to suggest,without solving them,all the issues so far analysed, a final phrase offers apromise and opens apossibility.Hema describes her mood swings with an almost musicalpassage: “burningwith new life and mourning your death” (UE,333). With anew awareness announcedbythose words, Hema,now an expectant mother,succeeds in creating her own third-cultural space, between her mother(land)’straditionalspace and the Westernized space of Kaushik’smother(land). Thisculturalspace entails auniquearticula- tion of belonging, an alternative to the previous positions embodied by Parul and Shibani which proposed and offered onlybinary oppositions. In these “third-cultural spaces of belonging[created] through shared experiences, knowledge,interests and values,”⁵⁰ Hema experiencesthe possibilityofmourning and thus softening the burdens of broken filiation and transgenerational memories of loss.Inthis sense, the concluding lines of the story –“It might have been your child, but this was not the case. We had been careful, and youhaveleft nothing behind” (UE,333) – far from being negative,⁵¹ indicate, instead, that Kaushik has not left haunting presences, has not made himself a “photograph” over which and because of which it is impossible to mourn. He has instead given Hema the feeling of having “India within” and of feeling free from memory traces of the past and from the compulsion to return.

 Janine Teerling, “The Development of New ‘Third-Cultural SpacesofBelonging’:British-Born ‘Return’ Migrants in Cyprus,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies . (): –, .  “always alreadysuggestedthe failure inherent in attemptingtoprovide asense of belonging or apossibility of return for her itinerant protagonist(s). […]Hence, the void and absencealluded to in the concluding lines of the story.” Banerjee, “Diaspora’s ‘Dark Room,’ . Leif Dahlberg Melancholic Face-Off: CarylPhillips’ Elegy over David Oluwale

‘RememberOluwale.’ Graffiti on the wall by the Hayfieldpub on the corner of Reginald Terrace and Harehills Avenue.¹

1. Introduction

To the extent that diasporaisdefined on the one hand by the loss of and the longingfor an idealised homeland, and on the otherbythe inability to adapt and emotionallyconnect to the new environment,diasporabears striking resem- blance to Sigmund Freud’sdescription and analysis of melancholia in his 1917 article “Mourning and Melancholia.”² The ability to connect to and integrate with anew social and cultural environment is of course not onlyafunctionof successfulwork of mourning,but also largely dependentonthe hospitality and openness of the host society.³ At the sametime, mourning and melancholia are also found among people who feelthat their country has lost its former greatness, such as territorial dominions or cultural and political importance. In this wayone can identify apsychological condition – both individual and collective – thatculturaltheoristPaulGilroy has called “postcolonial melancholia.”⁴ What

 CarylPhillips, “Northern Lights,” in Foreigners. ThreeEnglishLives (London: Harvill Secker, ): –, .Further references in the text, abbreviatedwith “NL”.  Sigmund Freud, “Trauer und Melancholie” [], in Gesammelte WerkeX(London: Imago Publishing, ): –.English translation in TheStandardEdition of the Complete Psy- chological WorksofSigmund Freud XIV (London: The Hogarth Press, ): –.Further references in the text, abbreviated with “M&M” refer to the English translation. Iamcertainly not the first to point out this connexion between diaspora and melancholia, see e.g., VijayMis- hra, TheLiteratureofthe Indian Diaspora: Theorizing the Diasporic Imaginary (London: Rout- ledge, ): –;Delphine Munos, After Melancholia. AReappraisal of Second-Generation Di- asporic Subjectivity in the Work of Jhumpa Lahiri (Amsterdam:Rodopi, ): passim.  Leif Dahlberg, “Unwelcome Welcome – Being ‘at Home’ in an AgeofGlobal Migration,” Law Text Culture  (): –.  Paul Gilroy, Postcolonial Melancholia. TheWellek LibraryLectures in Critical Theory  (New York: Columbia UP, ): – et passim. Further references in the text,abbreviatedwith “PM”.Gilroy has repeated and developed this argument in After Empire. Melancholia or convivial culture? (London: Routledge, ): –;and in “The Closed Circle of Britain’sPostcolonial Melancholia,” in TheLiteratureofMelancholia. Early Modern to Postmodern,ed. Martin Middeke, Christina Wald (New York: Macmillan, ): –. 328 Leif Dahlberg is more, in the meeting or confrontation of these two different kinds of melancholic subjects, there can occur amelancholic face-off, in which the other in a negative or even threatening waycomes to incarnate what has been lost. In the present essay, Ifirst read Caryl Phillips’ story “NorthernLights,” one of three stories making up the volume Foreigners. Three EnglishLives (2007). Isit- uate the story in relation to Phillips’ earlier work and analyseits narrative construction,identifying its adherenceand participation in elegiac conventions. In the second part of the essayIread Freud’sarticle, noting parallels not onlyto homesickness and diasporabut alsotothe postcolonial condition in Western Eu- rope, analysinginsome detail the psychological mechanisms of mourning and melancholia – in particular conscious and unconscious loss, narcissism and ambivalence. In the conclusion Ibring together the thematic connexions between diaspora, postcolonial melancholia and elegy as aform of workingthrough.

2. The StoryofDavid Oluwale

Phillips published his first literary works in the mid-1980s and has since written aseries of novels, plays and essays,typicallyportraying the life of an individual – more often male thanfemale, more oftenblack thanwhite – wherethe major themesare exile, marginalisation, oppression and exploitation.⁵ Although the individuals are marked by race and gender,the stories in various ways undo stable racialand gender categories. But rather than denotingemancipation and empowerment,the dismantling of cultural and social categories in Phillips’ stories implies alienation and loss, which is intimatelyconnected to the condition of diaspora. Thepresenceofadiasporacommunity signifiesanattempt to set up a secondary homeland away from the home country,but Phillips’ protagonists have difficulty to find asense of homeboth in the new country and when – as sometimes happens in his stories – they return to their alleged ‘home country.’ In fact,most of Phillips’ stories depict diasporaasthe condition of permanent homelessness, rather than asecond home, there being no possibility of return. Indeed, most of Phillips’ characters have great difficulties establishing

 Here is abibliography Phillips’ works. Novels: TheFinal Passage (); AState of Independ- ence (); Higher Ground (); Cambridge (); Crossing the River (); TheNatureof Blood (); ADistant Shore (); Dancing in the Dark (); In the Falling Snow (). Non-fiction: Foreigners: ThreeEnglishLives (). Essaycollections: TheEuropean Tribe (); TheAtlantic Sound (); ANew WorldOrder (); Colour Me English (). Forin- troductions to Phillips’ work, see BénédicteLedent, CarylPhillips (Manchester:Manchester UP, ); Helen Thomas, CarylPhillips (Horndon: Northcote House Publishers, ). Melancholic Face-Off: CarylPhillips’ Elegy over David Oluwale 329 strongand affectiveties to the new place of living – bothhost society and diaspora. But whereas some of them clearlysuffer from symptoms of melancholia – such as diminished self-regard and self-accusations – others are characterised by remarkable moral integrity and personal will power. In some respects Phillips’ representation and analysis of the diasporacondition has strongaffinities with the notion of culturalhybridity developedbywrit- ers and theorists such as Salman Rushdie, Homi Bhabha and Paul Gilroy.⁶ But the genealogyofcontemporary homelessness mayalsobeextended in other directions,e.g.toJames Joyce’sportrait of modern man in Ulysses (1922), where Leopold Bloom figures as the wandering Jew, overburdened by the past and unable to live in the present.⁷ However,Phillips’ stories not onlyinvolve dislocation and dispersed belonging; the main characters also typicallyencounter hostility, oppression and exploitation. The ways they cope with the situation vary,but none of them submit to it without resistance. ManyofPhillips’ stories end either with the mental collapse or physical death of the principal character – either by the hands of others or self-inflicted. Although the fates of the characters are tragic and indicate the psychological and social difficulties of the diasporasituation, the stories are not devoid of hope.Onthe contrary,inthevarious encounters between dislocated individuals – all victims of oppression, although in different ways – Phillips emphasises human capacity for empathyand care. Hencethe characters do not appear permanentlylocked up in mourning or melancholia, but are able both to connect to and develop affections for others, even in adverse circumstances. Whereas Phillips’ fictional stories typicallyare characterised by internal focalisation – we see the world through the eyes of the principal characters and also learn their thoughts – in the three “creative biographies” in Foreigners we onlysee the main characters from the outside, and we rarelyhear them speak.⁸ This maybethe reason for another difference:the various individuals

 Salman Rushdie, “Imaginary Homelands” [], in ImaginaryHomelands (London: Penguin Books, ): –;Homi Bhabha, TheLocation of Culture (London: Routledge, ); and Paul Gilroy, TheBlack Atlantic: Modernity and Double-Consciousness (Cambridge:HarvardUP, ).  Cf. Jean-FrançoisLyotard, “GoingBack to the Return,” in TheLanguagesofJoyce:Selected Pa- pers fromthe th International James Joyce Symposium held in Venice, June – ,ed. Rose Maria BollettieriBosinelli, Carlo MarengoVaglio, Christine van Boheemen-Saaf (Philadel- phia: John Benjamins, ): –.  See BénédicteLedent, “OnlyConnect: An Interview with CarylPhillips on Foreigners,” in Con- versations with CarylPhillips,ed. Renée Schatteman (Jackson: UofMissippi, ): : “CP [CarylPhillips]: Itry not to worry about labels. Iwould describe it [Foreigners]asnon-fiction, but in an attempt to resolvethis problem I’ve dispensed with the division between fiction 330 Leif Dahlberg portrayed in Phillips’ fictional stories are both marked by their histories and unable to forget, but in the stories in Foreigners we do not penetrate into their personal memories and onlylearn about their past indirectly, through the accounts of otherpeople. Phillips’ story “NorthernLights” has the formofabiographyand sketches the life of DavidOluwale, from Lagos, Nigeria, beginning in 1949 with his pas- sageasastowawayonaship bound for Hull in England. On arrival to the Eng- lish port,Oluwale is sentenced to 28 days in prison for not having paidhis way. After having served his sentence, Oluwale settles in Leeds,wherehefinds ajob in afoundry.Heisrepeatedlyharassed by the local police for no other reason than being black; in 1953heisarrested and givenashortprison sentence. How- ever,instead of beingreleased he is transferred to amental institution. HereOlu- wale is locked up for 8years. On his release he is unable to find ajob and an apartment.Evensocial institutions in Leeds do not seem to have aplace for a black man. Oluwale now livesonthe margins of society,asavagrant and “dos- ser.” Over the years the harassment by the Leeds police becomes increasingly systematic and the arrests more frequent.In1969Oluwale finallymeetsatragic and wrongful death at the handsoftwo police officers. As in manyotherworks by Phillips, both fictional and non-fictional, thereis in “Northern Lights” acertain intermixingoffact and fiction.⁹ In this case the story is based on real events, and the twoLeeds police officers responsible for the murder of Oluwale wereeventuallybrought to trial in 1971.Phillips has used various sources – historical works and documentary material, including trial reports and transcripts – and also made interviews with people who knew or had contact with Oluwale.¹⁰ The fictional or creative part consists mainly in the form of narration: “Northern Lights” bringstogetherdifferent voices, historical and fictional, as well as historical documents, producing what I would call apolyvocal and elegiac narrative – blendinglament and accusations, anger and love – with the explicit objective to make us remember Oluwale.¹¹

and non-fiction on the header pages of my books.Ofcourse, this won’tsolve anythingbecause people will still feel the urge to label, be they academics, bookstore owners,orpublishers. This beingthe case, ‘creative biography’ might be asuitable label for Foreigners.”  Kathie Birat, “‘Creative Biography’:Fictionand Non-fiction in CarylPhillips’s Foreigners: ThreeEnglishLives,” Commonwealth Essaysand Studies . (): –.  Phillips is not the first to writeonthe tragic fateofDavid Oluwale. See e.g.,JeremySandford, Smiling David: TheStoryofDavid Oluwale (London: Calder and Boyars, )and Kester As- pden, Nationality:Wog.The Hounding of David Oluwale (London: Jonathan Cape, ).  CarylPhillips, John McLeod, “‘Who AreYou CallingAForeigner?’ CarylPhillips in Conver- sation with John McLeod,” in New Perspectives on The Black Atlantic,ed. BénédicteLedent, Pilar Cuder-Domínguez (Bern: Peter Lang, ): . Melancholic Face-Off: CarylPhillips’ Elegy over David Oluwale 331

Phillips’ biographical account of Oluwale’slife and death confronts the silence and even denial of the city of Leeds – which appears keeneronpreserving an untarnished self-imagethan facing up to its criminal acts – yetatthe same time the strongmoral envoi of the story is tempered by the artfulness of the telling.Onamoregeneral level the story is alsodescribingthe diasporacondition of having lost one’scountry and being unable to adapt to and integrate in the host society.Inthis casethe inhospitality and racism of the ‘mother country’ make it even more difficult to overcome the feelingsofloss and displacement. The story about David Oluwale has very little to sayabout his life prior to coming to England; we onlylearn that he arrivedfull of expectations to create anew life for himself. At the same time, “NorthernLights” is remarkablysilentabout Olu- wale’smental and emotional life, although it is evident that he suffered agreat deal. In the following Iexplore the ways in which the story is told. Through the text of “NorthernLights” astory unfolds, told by named and unnamedcharacters, from avariety of perspectives, around the life of Oluwale. The first voice we encounter is of aWest Indian woman from Leeds,who retells her memories from whenshe was 14 years old and used to run into Oluwale around aplace called Button Hill. The second voice is an anonymous narrator who addresses Oluwale as “you” and who on afew occasions appears to enter the mind of Oluwale; on one occasion the narrator suddenlybecomes visible, when he is addressed by awoman in the street with “Heyyou, black man” (NL,217). Athird voice is that of ahistorian who narrates the history of England and Leeds from ancient times until today. Afourth voice is that of white woman, representing ChapeltownCommonwealth Citizens Committee. Afifth voice is that of apersonnelofficer at West Yorkshire Foundries, whereOluwale usedto work during his first years in Leeds.Asixth voice is of afellow stowaway from Nigeria, who laterturnsout to be achildhood friend of Oluwale’s. Asev- enth voice belongstoawhite person who had been an inmate in the same mental institution whereOluwale was locked up for eight years. Thisperson claims to never have met Oluwale or anyother black person while in the mental asylum, but he describes the horrific treatment of the patients. An eighth voice is that of a police officer critical of the blind loyalty within the police force. Aninth voice is of aWest Indian community leader.Atenthvoice is that of the trial report, which in turn givesvoice to alarge number of named individuals giving testimony.¹² Apart from these different voices,which togetherfurnish different parts of and

 RichardCorty,Eric Dent,Geoffrey Ellerker,Leonard Barker,John Cobb, Cyril Batty,Keith Se- ager,PhillipRadcliff, Hazel Dalby,Kenneth Higgins,Frank Atkinson, MarjorieWhitaker,Edward Snapp, Phillip Davies,W.H.Halla, Ian Haste, Francis Sedman, Leonard Bradley,Reginal Fricker, David John Gee, and JusticeHinchcliffe. 332 Leif Dahlberg perspectivesonthe tragic story of Oluwale, there are anumber of cited authors providingfacts and information about Leeds,prison conditions,and mental health institutions as well as official records supplying information on Olu- wale (such as hospital and prison records).¹³ The manydifferent voices – which are clearly differentiated in terms of languageand style – are interwoven without other transitions thananempty space separatingparagraphs.Thisdis- creteand unobtrusivespacing of the voices has the double effect of creating a loose fragmentary structure and of establishing proximity between disparate textual elements. The narrative text is also held together by verbal repetitions, in particulardifferent ways of naming and addressingOluwale. The voices appearinginthe first part of the storyprovide an account of Oluwale’sjourney to England and his earlyyears in Leeds,inter-foliated with historical accounts of ancient England,describing the wars between tribal clans and the invasionbythe Romans, who founded Leeds on the point where they built abridge across the riverAire. The historian describes the consecutive wavesofmigration comingafter the Romans, first the Anglo-Saxons and then the Normans, who established themselvesasmasters. Centuries later, other groups would come, Jews and the Irish, taking jobs in the developing manufac- turing industry in the growingcity. The last arriving migrants in “Northern Lights” are people from Africa and the Caribbean. The picture emergesofacoun- try and city made up of immigrants, from the timesofthe Celts until modern times. The historian repeatedlymakes the point that all these peoples have come to stay, that they made the city their home and that they refusedto leave.Evenifthey came from farawaycountries and cultures, they seem to have left nothing behind, intent on making Leeds theirhome. Yetthe city appears unconscious of being made up of peoples comingfrom other places.In tracing the demographic genealogyofLeeds,the story serves as areminder and corrective of this false identity.¹⁴

 Colin MacInnes ;J.Enoch Powell, Minister of Health, ;National Health Doctor, ;RichardOastler, ;Max Farrar, ;Denis Power,nodate; and Raymond Bradbury, no date.  Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche, la généalogie, l’historie,” in Hommage àJean Hyppolite (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, ): –: “La généalogie ne prétend pas remonter le temps pour rétablir une grande continuitépar-delà la dispersion de l’oubli; sa tâche n’est pas de montrer que le passé est encore là, bien vivant dans le présent,l’animant encore en secret, après avoir imposé àtoutesles traverses du parcours une forme dessinée dès le départ.Rien qui ressemblerait àl’évolution d’une espèce, au destin d’un peuple. Suivre la filièrecomplexedela provenance, c’est au contrairemaintenir ce qui s’est passé dans la dispersionqui luiest propre: c’est de repérer les accidents,les infimes déviations – ou au contraireles retournements com- plets – les erreurs,les fautes d’appréciations,les mauvais calculs qui ont donné naissanceà Melancholic Face-Off: CarylPhillips’ Elegy over David Oluwale 333

The different voices have both alimited perspective and fragmentary knowledge about Oluwale and his life in England. The 14 year-old Caribbean girl onlyknows him as this African person she used to meet around Button Hill, with whom she would exchangeafew words. She does not even know how she knew his name, or he hers. The whitewoman has met Oluwale in pubs and on social occasions – such as dances – and later on in the streets, when he was homeless. After Oluwale had been to prison she started “to look out for him,” i.e., ask the police and other authorities about him in order to find out about his whereabouts and circumstances.The voice Icall the narrator,we graduallyunderstand, is close to the author – perhaps even identical to the author himself. He livesinthe present and is investigating the past.Headdresses Oluwale with the poetic license of awriter of fiction, invoking his physical situation, his personal ambitions and his suffering. The narrator allows himself to imagine what it must have been to be Oluwale, yetevenhis license is limited, and onlyonafew occasions does he allow himself to enter his mind. Although the author grew up in Leeds,Phillips was only11years old whenOluwale was murdered. In this respect he is also close to the Caribbeangirl who has recollec- tions of Oluwale from her childhood. We understand that the narrator does not personally know Oluwale – in fact none of the voices seem to have been really close to him. The view we getofOluwale is diffracted through the different perspectives the voices provide. Through the narrator we learn that he came to England as stowawayonaboat from Lagos, Nigeria, and when arriving in Hull he was sentenced to 28 days in prison; and thatonhis release he found his waytoLeeds, wherehestarted workinginafoundry,his dream to become an engineer. Through the twofemale voices we learn thatalthough Oluwale often participated in social occasions,went to bars and dances (and that he was agreat dancer),he was somewhat of aloner.Helived by himself and apart from the West Indian community.What also appears from the different voices is the hostility towards foreignersinLeeds, both in the past and in the present.Although acity of immigrants, it is not acitythat welcomes strangers. Since Oluwale livedbyhimself, he became an easy targetfor people who did not think that he belonged. We learn from other voices that Oluwale is arrested and then transferred to a mental institution – West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum – wherehewas held for

ce qui existeetvautpour nous;c’est découvrir qu’àlaracine de ce que nous connaissons et de ce que nous sommes – il n’yapoint la vérité et l’être,mais l’extérioritédel’accident.[…]Lare- cherche de la provenancenefonde pas, tout au contraire: elle inquiètecequ’on percevait im- mobile, elle fragmentecequ’on pensait uni; elle montrel’hétérogénéitédecequ’on imaginait conforme àsoi-même.” 334 Leif Dahlberg

8years, from 1953to1961. We do not learn how he wastreated, but we hear from another inmate that the treatment at the time typicallyconsisted of confinement, sedativesand electro-shocks. Forpatientswho did not resist this “treatment” there was Occupational Treatment,i.e., different kinds of manuallabour.We also learn thatafter being released from the mental institution, Oluwale found it difficult to readjust to society.Hefound neither work nor an apartment,and instead he began to live on the street,wherehebecame an easy target for the police, in particular Sergeant Kenneth Mark Kitching and inspector Geoffrey El- lerker,who for unknown reasons found pleasure in harassing and insultingOlu- wale, not onlyverballybut also physically. From the trial report we learn that they habituallywould abuse him physicallyand on occasion even urinated on him. Perhaps because Oluwale did not accept the insults quietlybut always answered back, yetatthe same time suffered the violence and humiliations stoical- ly,this fed their desire to pursue their victim. It turned it into agame. It is important to stress that we hardlyeverhear either the voice of Oluwale or of the two Leeds police officers pursuing him. Onlyonone occasion do we hear from the latter,when duringthe trial one of them (inspector Ellerker)describes Oluwale as a “small, chunky man, filthyinhis personal habits.[…]His languagewas dirty,and […]when Oluwale became excited he would set up ahighpitched screamingnoise – although nothing washappening to him” (NL,235). Corroborating Ellerker’sdepiction and inadvertentlylegitimising the hunting game, amale staffnurse from the mental institution, testifyingfor the defence, described Oluwale as a “savage animal” (NL,234). Although Oluwale never speakshimself, his character bringstomind another victim of official violence portrayedbyPhillips in an earlier work, Rudy in the story “The Cargo Rap” (Higher Ground,1989). In one of his prison letters Rudy writes: “because Irefuse to genuflect before them, because Irefuse to wear the garb of humility and stretch out rug-likesothey might wipe their feet on me, it appears thatIam doomed to suffer their constant visitations.”¹⁵ Similarly, because Oluwale refused to be humiliated, refusedtomake himself invisible, the police officers not only continued but increased their harassments and violence to the point of killing their prey. Although the historian makes us understand that Leeds never has been a city to welcome newcomers,there is no attempt in “NorthernLights” to explain what lies behind this lack of hospitality,onoccasion even hostility,tostrangers. In contrast to Gilroy’sattempt to analyse British xenophobia and racism in terms of a “postcolonial melancholia”–to which we will return later – Phillips

 CarylPhillips, Higher Ground. ANovel in ThreeParts (New York: Viking, ): . Melancholic Face-Off: CarylPhillips’ Elegy over David Oluwale 335 does not suggest other motivesdriving the police officers thanadesire to keep the city ‘clean.’ The reader does not know whether this is an example of the racist violence Gilroy describes as a “means to ‘purify’ and rehomogenize the nation” (PM,102)orsimply two police officers who are out of line, two “black sheep.” However,inanother context,inanessayonracial relations in Leeds and England, Phillips describes arbitrary violence against foreignershehimself has witnessed as achild and, on noting that three of the four 7July2005 suicide bombers in London came from Leeds, he suggests thatthis racialviolence was contagious and has spurred adesire for destructive revenge.¹⁶ It is as if it is a social disease, what Machiavelli would have called a “malignant humour” (omore maligno), affecting the bodypolitic.¹⁷ “Northern Lights” also provides the reader with several critical insider reports from the police, for instance from ayoung policeofficer who found it difficult to adjust to the esprit de corps and the demand thatone should onlymake friends with other police officers,not with civilians. Nevertheless, this young officer did not try to intervene or report what was goingon; his only “act of resistance” consisted in not actively participating in the physical abuse,innot doing what Kitchingand Ellerker were doing.But it was not onlythe police that were making life hard for Oluwale on the streets, also the other “dossers” excluded him from theircommunity.This was also the case for certain social aid organisations – such as St Georg’sCrypt – which did not have place for ablack man. In other hostels it was again the “guests” that did not see kindlyonthe presenceofablack person, and again Oluwale would be turned out on the street,wherehebecame an easy targetfor Kitchingand Ellerker. With few exceptions, the plurality of voices in “Northern Lights” are all by- standers, on-lookers, witnesses. Yetbynot intervening they wereinasense all guilty of letting this happen to amemberoftheircommunity.¹⁸ Although the narrator does not put forward explicitcharges, the accusation broughtforward by the narrator in the first “English life” in Foreigners, “Doctor Johnson’sWatch,” makes itself reverberate in “NorthernLights”:

 CarylPhillips, “Colour Me English,” in Colour Me English (London: Harvill Secker, ): –.  Niccolò Machiavelli, Discorsi sopralaprima deca di Tito Livio (Milano:Rizzoli, ): .  Cf. Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons [](Oxford: OxfordUP): : “It is not enough to ask, ‘Will my act harm other people?’ Even if the answerisNo, my act maystill be wrong, because of its effects.The effects that it will have when it is consideredonits own maynot be its onlyrelevanteffects.Ishould ask, ‘Will my act be one of aset of acts that will together harm other people?’ The answer maybeYes. And the harm to others maybegreat.Ifthis is so, Imay be acting very wrongly […].” 336 Leif Dahlberg

Who in Lichfield had trulytried to help the faithful friend and servant of the city’sforemost son?While Iwas surethat Francis Barber’sown failings had led him to death’sdoor in that inhospitable infirmary,Iwas also convincedthat others had conspired in his demise by simplystandingtothe side and lookingon. Dr Johnson’sfavourite, deprivedofthe protection of his master,and exposed to the hostile apathyoffirst London, and then Lichfield, had lost his way. (NL,61)

In “Northern Lights” it is instead the Leeds police officerwho was unhappy about the esprit de corps in the forcewho puts forward asimilar accusation: “The worst feelingofall is thatthe tragedywas predictable, and thatnoone, in- cludingmyself, prevented it.[…]Ihad afeelingofguiltthen and I’ve gotitnow. We shouldn’thavelet it happen” (NL,230). In contrast to the narrator of Barber’s story,here the accusation is as much directed to the speaker himself.¹⁹ The last part of “Northern Lights” consists mainlyinasummary account of the trial: Presentations of the main actors and of the formal accusation; the pleadingsofthe two defendants – SergeantKenneth Mark Kitching and former inspector Geoffrey Ellerker – and the witnesses testifying in their defence; then the very different version from the witnesses testifying for the prosecution, primarilydifferent officials and colleagues to Kitchingand Ellerker (several of which had by then left the police force), report from the coroner,etc. It is notice- able that the order is reversed from normal trial procedure; we would expectto first hear from the prosecution and then from the defence. The story concludes by the return of the narrator,who first seeks out the homeofone of the – now retired – policemen responsible for the death of Oluwale, but he does neither enter into conversation nor confront him; and then he visits some of the places whereOluwale was hounded and wherehewas thrown into the riverAire. In the final scene the narrator visits Oluwale’sgrave,atKillingbeck Cemetery, whereheisburied together with nine other strangers.

3. An Elegy of Black DiasporainEngland

Although “Northern Lights” givesusvery little direct insight into Oluwale’sdif- ferent mental states duringthe period covered by the story,itisapparent that he was not faring well in Leeds. In the earlyyears he appeared to be wellinte- gratedinthe diasporacommunity,but we also learn through several voices that

 Asimilar self-accusation is voiced by Phillips in relation to achildhood memory of having passively witnessed racial abuse against aclassmatefromAsia. See Phillips, “Colour Me Eng- lish,” . Melancholic Face-Off: CarylPhillips’ Elegy over David Oluwale 337 he kept his reserve; however,wenever learn his reasons for keepingadistance to people. Forothers, not onlythe police, Oluwale appeared violent – bothverbally and physically – and for which reason he was arrested and then ‘treated’ in a mental institution; but this aspect of his person never really comes into focus in the story.Acompatriot from Nigeria relates that Oluwale lacked the art of diversion, that he “wasn’table to think around asituation and do something else” (NL,191); and in particularnot knowing how not to respond to provocations, which would then inadvertentlybecome an excuse for bothverbal and physical abuse by his tormentors.²⁰ The problem for the reader is to know whether Olu- wale always had been headstrongand somewhat of aloner or if this was caused by his situation in Leeds;and if his unwillingness or inability to establish close relationships with people was duetomelancholia causedbydislocation and living in ahostile environment or if there wereother reasons. The story presents amultiplicityofperspectivesonboth Oluwale and the city of Leeds, yetitgives us onlyavagueoutline of him as aperson and of his situation. However,his “maladjustment” to society after having been released from the mental institution appears in equal measures to have been caused by the “treatment” he had suffered, the inhospitality of the social authorities and the hostility of the Leeds police. At this time in his life, if not before, it would seem that Oluwale in manywaysfits Freud’sdescription of melancholia: “aprofoundlypainful dejection, cessation of interest in the outside world, loss of capacity to love,inhibition of all activity,and loweringofthe self-regard feelingstoadegree that findsutterancesinself-reproaches and self-revilings, and culminates in adelusional expectation of punishment” (M&M,244). But instead of speculating on the mental state of Oluwale and its possibleorigins,I will explore the relation the author – or authorial instance – has in relation to the narrative subject. In an interview Phillips has labelled the threestories in Foreigners as “creative biographies”–“creative” both because of the use of literary devices and a certain poetic license.²¹ However,for the last story,about Oluwale, an equally

 The Nigerian compatriot elaborates: “David needed somebodytosit down and tell him what was happeningtohim. Some of us nearlywent mad in England because the environment was new.Wespokethe same languageand we thoughteverythingwould be okay,but we soon found out.David reallywas asmart cat whocould always think fast if he had to,but he was aloner whowanted to do everythingbyhimself” (NL, ). Commenting on this passage,Kathie Birat makes areferencetoEduardGlissant’snotion of “diversion” as away of deflectingadirect confrontation with racial prejudice. See Birat, “Creative Biography,” ,makingreference to Glis- sant’s Le Discours antillais (Paris:Gallimard, ).  Ledent, “OnlyConnect: An Interview with CarylPhillips on Foreigners,” . 338 Leif Dahlberg fitting literarylabel would be the elegy.²² The word elegy stems from the Greek word ἐλεγος́ ,meaning lament,yet in ancientGreek and Latinliterature this was the name of averse form rather thanaparticular subject matter.Thus, elegies could cover awide rangeofsubjects, amorous,erotic and mythological as well as witty,humorous and satiric topics.Itcould of course also be used for mournful or plaintive poems, especiallyfuneralsongsoralament for the dead. In this connexion one can also mentionOvid’s Tristia,anelegy centred on the experience of the poet’sexile in Tomis (now Constanţa, Romania). In Eng- lish literature, the modernand restricted meaning of elegy – alament for ade- parted beloved or atragic event – is onlycurrent since the sixteenth century, although the broader concept was still employed by John Donne for his elegies written in the earlyseventeenth century. Forlaterwriters the termhas come to mean aserious meditative poem,often exemplified by Thomas Gray’s Elegy Writ- ten in aCountryChurchyard (1750). In astudyoverthe English elegy from Spenser to Yeats, Peter M. Sacks singles out anumber of thematic and formal conventionsgoverning the genre, several of which are present in “Northern Lights.”²³ Among the thematic conventions of the elegy,the use of vegetation myths is perhaps the most obvious. This themeisnot immediatelypresent in Phillips’ story,but in its stead there is the recurrent wavesofmigrants arriving in England and Leeds and, although treated with hostility,they have grafted themselvesonto the city and eventually became aliving part of it.Among the formal conventions, with the exception of not being written in verse, basically all the elements that Sacks lists are found in “Northern Lights”:repetition and refrain; reiteratedquestions; vengeful anger and cursing; eclogic division between voices.²⁴ Forthis reason Iwould argue

 Amongthe manyreviewers of Foreigners,Ihave found onlytwo that identifies it as “elegiac” (Vincent Carretta, “Unhappy Endings Made in England,” [ February, ], TheWashington Post [acc.  September, ]) or,morespecifically “Northern Lights,” as an “elegy” (Margaret Busby, “Three Hundred Years of Solitude,” [ September, ], The Independent [acc.  September, ]).). Other reviewers called it a “novel,” a “fictionalised biography” or a “hybrid” of fact and fiction.  Peter M. Sacks, The EnglishElegy:Studies in the Genrefrom Spenser to Yeats (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, ): –.  It is perhaps no surprise that modern elegies no longer primarilyare written in verse but in prose. In astudyof“figuringgrief” in twentieth-century fiction, KarenE.Smythe has identified anumber of prose writers who cultivatewhatshe calls “fiction-elegy.” Amongmodernist writers she singles out James Joyceand Virginia Woolf; and amonglatemodernists Mavis Gallant and Melancholic Face-Off: CarylPhillips’ Elegy overDavid Oluwale 339 that Phillips’ polyvocal account of the life and tragic death of Oluwale largely participatesinthe conventionsofthe genre. In his studyoverthe English elegy,Sacks suggeststhat one should understand the genre not onlyasapoetic representation of loss and the expression of grief, but as averbal figuration of the work of mourning.²⁵ Thismeans that the elegy should not be viewed as separate from the labour of mourning,not merelyarepresentation of grief but constitutive of mourning.AppliedtoPhillips’ biographic account of Oluwale, it may be argued that he is not mourned in this sense, that none of the voices wereclose to him or knew him well. But the tragic event depicted in “Northern Lights” is not so much something that affected individual persons as the community as such; what was lost was asense of security and trust.The trial against the twopolice officers responsible for his death probablycontributed to the workingthrough of this collective trauma, yetPhillips makesusunderstand that the city wants to denyits responsibility in adeeper sense, thatitwould prefer to forgetthat Olu- wale ever existed, justasthe police officers appear to have wanted to make him disappear from the city.Inthis sense, then, Phillips’ story serves as averbal figuration of the work of mourning by insisting not onlyonnot forgetting Oluwale but also on claiming aplace and meaning for him in the present. Not surprisingly,Sacks suggests thatone should decode the English elegy in the light of Freud’stheory of mourning and melancholia; and more specifically that the elegy is part of successful mourning,avoiding the dangers of melancholia.²⁶ This motivates – even forces us – to turn to Freud’sanalysis of mourning and melancholia. Indeed, approaching the story through the lenses of the psychoanalytic theory of mourning and melancholia helps us to understand diasporaasapsychological predicament and not onlyasaculturalphe- nomenon.

4. Mourning and Melancholia

In the article “Mourning and Melancholia” Freud describes mourning and melancholia as in several ways similar psychological phenomena, but whereas the former is apassing state and is considered normal, the other is viewed as pathological and is generallyamore lasting condition. Mourning is “the reaction to the loss of aloved person or to the loss of some abstraction which has taken

AliceMunro. See KarenE.Smythe. Figuring Grief.Gallant, Munro, and the Poetics of Elegy (Mon- treal: McGill-Queen’sUP, ).  Sacks, TheEnglishElegy,xii.  Sacks, TheEnglishElegy, . 340 Leif Dahlberg the place of one, such as one’scountry,liberty,anideal, and so on” (M&M,243). In the present context it is noteworthythat Freud statesthatmourning can be caused by the loss of one’shomecountry – what is oftencalled homesickness or mal du pays. This is not to saythatthe loss of abeloved person – taken away by death or lost through betrayal – has the sameeffect as leaving one’s country or longingfor a “home country” one has perhaps never seen, but in both cases the loss of aloved object has to be accepted and accommodated in the imaginary representation of reality.Freud goes on to write that for some people “the sameinfluences produce melancholia instead of mourning” (M&M, 243). The distinguishing mental features of melancholia are according to Freud “aprofoundlypainful dejection, cessation of interest in the outside world, loss of capacity to love, inhibition of all activity,and loweringofthe self-regard feelingstoadegree thatfinds utterances in self-reproaches and self-revilings,and culminates in adelusional expectation of punishment” (M&M,244). Freud notes that with one exception the same traits are met with in mourning –“the same painful frame of mind […], the same loss of capacity to adopt anynew object of love […]and the same turning away from anyactivity that is not connected to thoughts of him” (M&M,244) – the exception being “the disturbance of self- regard” (M&M,244). Freud writes thatthe melancholic displays an extraordinary diminution in his self-regard, an impoverishment of his egoonagrand scale: “In mourning it is the world that has become poor and empty;inmelancholia it is the egoitself” (M&M,246). Freud notes thatit“is remarkable that this painful unpleasure [in mourning] is taken as amatter of course by us” (M&M,245)and that it is onlybecause “we know so well how to explain it thatthis attitude does not seem to us as pathological” (M&M,244). Similarlythe distressed behaviour of aperson afflicted by homesickness is familiar to us: He or she is distracted, shows signs of restless- ness and is unable to focus on his or her tasks; typicallythis person is alsoin- different to people in the new environment,eventothe point of apathy. As away to compensate for the loss of the home country, emigrés often develop an interest in objects or aspects related to the homeland, even seeking out the companyof fellow patriots to share memories.²⁷ In fact,itisnot uncommon that one starts to cherish or even fetishize thingsreminiscent of the homecountry which one did not care for before. However,once the person gets used to the new environment and findshis/her bearings – and even better when starting to make friends – this feeling of homesicknessusually begins to wane. This is again similar to

 A. Cesar Garza-Guerrero, “Culture Shock: ItsMourning and the Vicissitudes of Identity,” Jour- nal of the American Psychoanalytic Association  (): –. Melancholic Face-Off: CarylPhillips’ Elegy over David Oluwale 341 mourning,asFreud writes: “when the work of mourning is completed the ego becomes free and uninhibited again” (M&M,245). In psychologyand in intercultural studies one usuallyrefers to this phenomenon as cultureshock; and international studentsand professionals workingabroad are often primed either before departure or on arrivaltothe new country.²⁸ But whereas homesicknessand cultureshock typicallyare passingphenomena – just likemourning – diaspora denotes alasting condition in severalwayssimilar to melancholia. In the article Freud then proceeds to distinguish between mourning and melancholia in greater detail. He suggests that whereas in mourning the object-loss is always conscious,inmelancholia loss is “withdrawnfrom consciousness” (M&M,245). Freud notes that this mayalsobethe casewhen apatientis aware whom he has lost but not what he has lost in him. Awell-known example from literature is Antonio’sunexplainable “want-wit sadness” in the beginning of TheMerchantofVenice (1596).²⁹ Antonio’sfriends Salerio and Solanio both offer suggestions of how he has “caught it,found it,orcame by it” (MV,1.1.3), but these are all refusedbyAntonio. Although his sadness appears to be arecent affliction rather than a ‘humour’ in the sense of acharacter trait or medicaldi- agnosis,Antonio professes to Bassanio thatitisamore permanent condition; he famouslysaysthat the world is but a “stage, whereevery man must playapart,/ And mine asad one” (MV,1.1.78 – 79). This kind of unexplainable sadness is also often common among immigrantsand can also be transferred to their children whose experience of loss in asense willbesecond-hand,but nevertheless maybeexperiencedasimmediate and real; the absenceofacountry that one can call one’sown. The essential differencebetween mourning and melancholia is according to Freud that the person in mourning has “suffered aloss in regardtoanobject” whereas the melancholichas suffered “aloss in regard to his ego” (M&M,247). This loss is connected to the self-accusations that one finds in the melancholic, but not in the person in mourning.AccordingtoFreud, this occurs through the transferenceofreproaches first made against aloved object,which then have been “shifted away from it on to the patient’sown ego” (M&M,248). Aprecondi- tion for melancholia is thus an ambivalency in relation to the loved object.To illustrate this mechanism, Freud writesthat a “woman who loudlypities her husband for being tied to such an incapable wife as herself is reallyaccusingher husband of being incapable, in whatever sense she maymean this” (M&M,

 Paul B. Pedersen, FiveStages of CultureShock:CriticalIncidents Around the World (Westport: Greenwood P, ).  William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, ...Further references in text,abbreviated with “MV”. 342 Leif Dahlberg

248). AccordingtoFreud, thereis“no difficulty” in reconstructing the process: “An object-choice, an attachment of the libido to aparticular person, had at one time existed; then,owing to areal slight or disappointment comingfrom this loved person, the object-relationship was shattered” (M&M,248–249). The resultofthis process is not the normal one of withdrawal of the libido from this object and displacement of it on to anew one, but something different,determined by various conditions.The emotional attachment to the object is not strongenough and is brought to an end, but the free libidoisnot shifted on to another object; it is withdrawninto the ego. Freud now comes to the core of the process, and Iquote in full:

There,however,itwas not employed in anyunspecified way, but served to establish an identification of the egowith the abandoned object.Thus the shadow of the object fell upon the ego, and the latter could henceforth be judgedbyaspecial agency, as though it wereanobject,the forsaken object.Inthis wayanobject-loss was transformed into an ego-loss and the conflict between the egoand the loved person into acleavage between the critical activity of the egoand the egoasaltered by identification. (M&M,249)

There are anumber of thingsthatitisnecessary to unpack in this passagein order to understand the complex genesis and dynamic of melancholia.Accord- ing to Freud, who here refers to his colleagueOtto Rank, the combination of a “strong fixation to the lovedobject” and “little power of resistance” indicates that “the object choice has been effected on anarcissistic basis” (M&M,249), i.e., that there exists anarcissistic identification between egoand object.The resultisthat despite the loss of the loved object,the loverelation does not need to be givenup. AccordingtoFreud this reaction implies “a regression from one type of object-choice to original narcissism” (M&M,249). Referring to an earlier studyofhis on the introduction of narcissism in psychoanalysis, Freud suggeststhatthe tendencytoidentification represents apreliminary – and ambivalent – stageofobject choice, in which the ego “wants to incorporate this object into itself” (M&M,249).³⁰ Freud writesthat he would have liked to draw the conclusion thatthe disposition to fall ill of melancholialies in apre- dominance of the narcissistic type of object-choice,but that this conclusion has “unfortunatelynot yetbeen confirmed by observation” (M&M,250). Unable to empiricallydetermine apredisposition or pathological genesis, he limits himself to write that melancholia “borrows some of its features from mourning,and

 Freudisreferring to his article “ZurEinführungdes Narzißmus” [], Gesammelte WerkeX (London: ImagoPublishing, ): –. Melancholic Face-Off: CarylPhillips’ Elegy overDavid Oluwale 343 others from the process of regression from narcissistic object choice to narcissism” (M&M,250). Hereitmay also be added that Freud, in the article on narcissism, writes that the object of narcissistic identification is not necessarilyanindividual, but may also be with agroup such as “afamily, aclass or anation.”³¹ This is important in this context because the libidinal relation one has to one’scountry typicallyhas the form of identification rather than adesire for an object that satisfiesaneed or givespleasure. At the sametime, the identification with acollective is often effected through aproxy,e.g., familymember,celebrity or head of state. An emigrant typicallynot onlymaintains an attachment to the homecountry,but develops an even strongeridentification with his/her country than before – at least duringthe first stageofthe acculturation process. In other words, since diaspora is defined in relation to the loss of and longing for the homecountry,with which there is anarcissistic identification, this suggests – but it is wise to retain Freud’s caution – apredisposition towardsmelancholia rather than mourning. Another importantfeature of melancholiaisaccordingtoFreud the effect of feelingsofambivalencytoward the loved object,feelingsthat mayonly “come into the open” when the object is lost.Freud writesthat wherethereisa“disposition to obsessional neurosis” the conflict duetoambivalencegives a “pathological cast to mourning” and forces it to express itself in the form of self-reproaches to the effect that the mourner blames himself for the loss of the loved object. Freud speculates that this conflict duetoambivalenceispossiblya“precondition of melancholia.” He continues: “If the lovefor the object – alovewhich cannot be givenupthough the object itself is givenup–takes refuge in narcissistic identification, then the hate comes into operation on this substituteobject,abusing it,debasing it,making it suffer and deriving sadistic satisfaction from its suffering” (M&M,251).³² In otherwords, in bothobsessional neurosis and melancho-

 Freud, “ZurEinführungdes Narzißmus,”  [“einer Familie, eines Standes,einer Nation”].  Later in the article “Mourning and Melancholia” Freud elaborates further: “The ambivalence is either constitutional, i.e., is an element of every love-relation formed by this particular ego, or else it proceedspreciselyfromthose experiences that involved the threat of losingthe object.For this reasonthe excitingcauses of melancholia have amuch wider rangethan those of mourning, which is for the most part occasioned onlybyarealloss of the object,byits death. In melancholia, accordingly,countless separate struggles arecarried on over the object, in which hate and lovecontend with each other;the one seeks to detach the libido from the object,the other to maintain this position of the libido against the assault. […]Constitutional ambivalence belongs by its nature to the repressed; traumatic experiences in connexion with the object may have activated other repressed material. Thus everythingtodowith these struggles duetothe ambivalence remains withdrawn from consciousness,until the outcome characteristicofmelan- cholia has set in” (M&M, ). 344 Leif Dahlberg lia, “by the circuitous path of self-punishment” (M&M,251), the person is able to take revengeonthe original object.Among persons who have been forced to leave theirhome country due to economic or political reasons such feelingsof ambivalencyare not uncommon. An important implication of the psychoanalytic theory of melancholia is that “the conflict between the egoand the loved person [is transformed] into acleav- agebetween the critical activity of the egoand the egoasaltered by identification.” In later texts Freud will elaborate on this cleavage or split of the egointo a critical activity and – what he will call – an ego-ideal.³³ The importance for melancholia is that this split enables the egoto“treat itself as an object” and,indi- rectingthe hostility against itself that relates to an object,this explains why “the egocan kill itself” despite the vast amount of ego’sself-lovewhich cannot con- sent to its own destruction (M&M,252). AccordingtoFreud this mechanism explains the self-destructive behaviouroften found in individuals suffering from melancholia. One of the striking – and unexplained – character traits of Oluwale in Phillips’ account of his life is acertain lack of self-preservation. That is, it is not that Oluwale activelytried to hurt himself, but he seemed at times to have soughtout his tormenters in the Leeds police forcerather than to have avoided them. The studyofmelancholiaofcourse neither begins nor ends with Freud. Ar- istotle alreadydiscusses the phenomenon of melancholiainhis Problemata and ever since it has been described and discussed in medicine, philosophy, psychology, religion and of course in art and literature.³⁴ Freud himself returns several times during his career to the question, and from different perspectives.³⁵ Also todaythereisanon-going discussion within and between different schools of psychologyregarding both the mechanisms involved and the relative costs and benefitsofpsychotherapy and psychopharmaca. The development that Iwant to highlight here is the extension and application of the psychoanalytic theory to social psychology, in particular astudy conducted by the two psychoanalysts Margarete Mitscherlich and Alexander Mitscherlich in post-world-war-two West

 Sigmund Freud, “Das Ichund das Es,” Gesammelte Werke [](London: ImagoPublish- ing, ): : –.  Foranhistorical account of melancholia, see Stanley Jackson, Melancholia and Depression. FromHippocratic Times to Modern Times (New Haven: Yale UP, ). See also Jennifer Radden, ed., TheNature of Melancholy:From Aristotle to Kristeva (Oxford: OxfordUP, ).  George Pollock, “Mourning and Adaptation,” TheInternational Journal of Psycho-Analysis  (): –;TammyClewell, “MourningBeyond Melancholia: Freud’sPsychoanalysisof Loss,” Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association  (): –. Melancholic Face-Off: CarylPhillips’ Elegy overDavid Oluwale 345

Germany.³⁶ Based bothonindividual case studies and on studies of social and political phenomena, they attempted to understand the German people’sreac- tion to the death of their beloved leader and the abandonment of illusions of om- nipotenceencouraged by the Nazi ideology. According to the Mitscherlichs, the German people warded off acollective process of mourning for what they had loved and lost by means denial and repression thatinhibited anycapacity for responsible and reconstructive activity. The collective feeling of guiltwas narrow- ly projected on the political leaders and their close accomplices;and the German people – seemingly effortlessly – transferred their identification to their victors. The two researchers also found adenial of the destructiveness of the German military campaign, which together with the denial of guilt blocked and deferred the country’scomprehension of its ownhistory.The effect on the individual psychewas such thatitleft ablankspace in their memories, creating patterns of intergenerational complicity thatcontributed to aculture of alienation not onlyinrelation to the past but to anything that entailedresponsibility. Not surprisingly,central in the analysis of the Mitscherlichs is the role of narcissistic fantasies, in particular of racialkind – regardingthe Aryan master race. The fact that the relationship to Hitler was largely of anarcissistic kind – and not without ambivalency – would suggest the development of mass melancholyafter his death.However,accordingtoMitscherlichs this did not happen, basically for the same reasons thatprevented mourning to take place, i.e., denial and repression. Instead of engaginginself-accusations and diminished self-regard, the Ger- mans blocked out and suppressed anyaffective relations to the Nazi party and its leaders.³⁷ Because of the persistenceofthis autistic attitude, the Mitscherlichs arguethat amajority of citizensinGermanyhavebeenunable to identify themselveswith anything beyond its economic system. Inspired by the Mitscherlichs’ theory of the German people’sinability to mourn, Gilroy has tried to understand the culturaldynamics and social psychol-

 MargareteMitscherlich, Alexander Mitscherlich, Die Unfähigkeit zu trauern: Grundlagen kol- lektiven Verhaltens [](München: Piper, ): in particular –.  Mitscherlich, Die Unfähigkeit zu trauern, –: “Die Bundesrepublikist nicht nicht in Mel- ancholie vervallen, das Kollektivall derer,die eines gemeinsam geteilten Ich-Ideals,konnte der eigenen Entwertungdadurch entgehen, dass es alle affektivenBrücken zur unmittelbar hinter ihnen liegenden Vergangenheit abbrach. […]Mit dieser Abwendung der innerenAnteilnahme für das eigene VerhaltenimDrittenReich wurde ein in ungezählten Fällen kaum zu bewältigen- der Verlust des Selbstwertesund damit der Ausbruch einer Melancholie vermieden. Die Auswir- kung dieser aussergewöhnlichen psychischen Anstrengung des Selbstschutzes, die keineswegs aufgehört hat,ist der heuteherrschendepsychischen Immobilismusangesichts brennender Probleme unserer Gesellschaft.” 346 Leif Dahlberg ogyofpost-imperial Great Britaininterms of melancholy.³⁸ In contrasttothe Mit- scherlichs, who arguethat the Germans wereunable both to mourn and sink into melancholia, Gilroy argues thatthe British people’sinability to mourn the loss of its colonial empire implies amelancholy reaction, as it weredialectically. He argues, in short,thatbefore the Britishpeople can accommodate the crimes and horrors of their own modern history and start to build anew national identity “from the debris of their broken narcissism,” they will have to learn about – and accept the responsibility for – the brutalities of colonial rule enacted in their name and to their benefit.Seen in this light,the fictional works of Phillips, which predominantlydeal with colonial and postcolonial conditions,serveto educatethe public about the manycrimes committed by British colonial rule as well as institutionalised racism in contemporary society. The social trauma of losing acolonial empire is – just as losing the Second World Warfor the Germans – compounded by anumber of additional shocks. Among them is the obligation to work through the criminalreality of imperial and colonial history and to “transform the paralyzingguiltinto amore productive shamethat would be conducive to the building of amulticultural nationality that is no longer phobic about the prospect of exposure to either strangers or otherness” (PM,99). AccordingtoGilroy one finds very similar phenomena and psychological mechanisms in other former colonial powers – such as Bel- gium, France, the Netherlands and Spain. In contrast to Nazi Germany, which was narcissisticallycentred on the figure of the Führer,the historicalexperienceofBritish world dominance and habitu- ation to imperial pre-eminence have,Gilroy notes, “no single iconic human ci- pher” (PM,100). There wasnoimaginary embodiment of its imperial greatness, and the figure of imperial power is therefore left unmourned.Gilroy wants to suggest thatincontemporaryBritain, it is “the infrahumanpolitical bodyof the immigrant rather thanthe bodyofthe sovereign that comestorepresent all the discomfortingambiguities of the empire’spainful and shameful but ap- parentlyexhilaratinghistory” (PM,100). AccordingtoGilroy,itisthe immigrant that serves as areminder that Europe was “once out there”;and that this unde- niable recognition “provides stimulus for hostility rooted in the associated realization that today’sunwantedsettlers carry all the ambivalenceofempire with them” (PM,100). He suggests that the immigrant – both in person and figuratively –“maybeunwantedand feared preciselybecause they are the unwitting bear- ers of the imperial and colonial past” (PM,100 –101). Gilroy continues:

 Gilroy, Postcolonial Melancholia, –. Melancholic Face-Off: CarylPhillips’ Elegy over David Oluwale 347

In this precarious national state, individual and groupidentifications convergenot on the bodyofthe leader or other iconic national objects […]but in opposition to the intrusive presenceofthe incomingstrangers who, trapped inside our perverse logic of race,nation, and ethnic absolutism not only represent the vanished empirebut also refer consciousness to the unacknowledgedpain of its loss and the unsettlingshame of its bloodymanagement. (PM,101)

The British people’sinability to mourn its loss of Empire has revealed an extensively fragmented national collective that – justasinpost-world-war-two West Germany – so far has “not been able to meet the elemental challengerepresent- ed by the social, cultural, and political transition with which the presenceof postcolonial and other sanctuary seeking people has been unwittingly bound up” (PM,102). Instead, racist violence has provided an “easy means to ‘purify’ and rehomogenize the nation” (PM,102). Ifind both the Mitscherlichs’ and Gilroy’sextensions and different adaptions of Freud’spsychoanalytic theory of mourning and melancholiainstructiveas ways of readingthe collective psyche and of decoding contemporary social imaginary significations.They help us understand the subjectposition of people like police officers Kitchingand Ellerker. The analogies between melancholia and diasporathat Ihavesuggested follow the same general lines of argument; yetatthe same time it should be em- phasised thatIdo not want to reduce diaspora to aquestion of melancholia – diasporaisamuch more complex social and culturalphenomenon. Nevertheless it is notable that in Western European countries today – on avery concrete, street level – the melancholicsubjects of diasporaare facing the subjects of postcolonial melancholia. This encounter between subjects of melancholia is by necessity atroubled one, since it takes place without mutual recognition. Phillips’ story about Oluwale’sunwelcome welcome to Leeds plays out the autistic and destructive face-off between different orders of melancholia. In otherwords – and to conclude – to the extent that the story of Oluwale is determinedbythe encounter of subjects belonging to different orders of melancholia – diasporaand postcolonial – Phillips’ elegiac treatment could help to understand – if not heal – the social ailment,onboth sides of this troubled encounter.Increatinganarrative spacefor mourning this forsaken life, it is possible to movefrom denial and repression to recognition and acknowledgement of guilt. It is, after all, not onlythe two police officers who are found guilty;itis also the community thatfailed to protect its weakestmember. In this way, then, Phillips’ polyvocal elegy makes possible the transition from melancholy to the work of mourning.

Contributors

Riccardo Baldissone is Visiting Scholar at the University of Westminster, London, for the academic year 2015–2016.After reconsidering human rights discourse within the moderntheoretical framework, Baldissone is taking further his genealogical commitment by producing narrations that link the Greek construction of the logic of identity with the medieval emergence of conceptual discourse and the transformations of modern naturalism.

Chiara Battisti is researcher of English Literature at the Department of Foreign Literatures of the University of Verona. Her research interests include literature and the visual arts, with aparticularfocus on literature and cinema, literature and science,law and literature,food and literature, genderstudies and fashion studies. She is amember of the European Society for the StudyofEnglish (ESSE), of AIA (Associazione Italiana di Anglistica) and of AIDEL (Associazione Italiana Diritto eLetteratura). Among her most recent publications are “Mental Illness and Human Rights in Patrick McGrath’s Asylum,” in Literature and Human Rights,ed. Ian Ward (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter,2015): 133–154; “Silence, Power and Suicide in Michael Cunningham’s TheHours,” Pólemos,9.1 (2015): 157–174; “Western and Post-Western Mythologies of Law,” Pólemos,8.2 (2014): 359–378; “True Blood: Multicultural VampiresinContemporary Society,” Póle- mos 8.1(2014): 115–136; “IconologyofLaw and Dis-order in the Television Series Law and Order Special Victims Unit,” in Visualizing Law and Authority:Essays on Legal Aesthetic,ed. Leif Dahlberg (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter,2012): 126–138.

NilufereE.Bharucha is the Director and Scientist-in-Charge of CoHaB IDC – Di- asporicConstructions of Home and BelongingIndian DiasporaCentre, the Coor- dinator of the Indo-CanadianStudies Centreand Adjunct Faculty,Departmentof English at the University of Mumbai. She has served on literaryjuries for the Commonwealth Literature Prize, Eurasian section and the Sahitya Akedemi Eng- lish Literature award, India. She has nationallyand internationallyauthored and edited books and published articles in the areas of Diasporic Indian Literature & Cinema and the Writing of the Parsis. She is on the advisory board of several national and international academic journals. She has also published short-stories and has done translations from the Urdu and Gujarati into English.

Avtar Brah is Professor Emerita in SociologyatBirkbeck College, Universityof London. She is amember of the Academy of Social Sciences,UK. She has published widelyonquestions of culture, identity,racism, ethnicity and gender.She 350 Contributors is one of the pioneers in the field of DiasporaStudies. Herbooks include Cartog- raphiesofDiaspora/Contesting Identities; Hybridity and its Discontents (co-edited with Annie ECoombes); Thinking Identities,and Global Futures (both co-edited with Mary Hickman and Mairtin Mac an Ghail).

Paola Carbone is associate professor of English LiteratureatIULM University, Milan. Her fields of researchinclude: contemporary British cultureand novel, electronic literature,and Anglo-Indian fiction. She has published several works on postmodern literature and digital art.Among her publications: La lan- terna magica di Tristram Shandy:Visualità einformazione, ordine ed entropia, paradossi etrompe-l’oeil nel romanzodiLaurence Sterne (Verona: Ombre Corte, 2008).

Daniela Carpi is full professor of English Literature at the Department of Foreign Literatures and Languages, University of Verona. Her fieldsofresearch are:Ren- aissance theatre, critical theory,postmodernism, lawand literature, literature and science, literature and visual arts. She collaborateswith Ombre Corte in Ver- ona, whereshe edits asection “Culture” devoted to comparative criticism and a section “Agon” on lawand culture; with DeGruyter in Berlin, whereshe edits (together with professor Klaus Stierstorfer)the series “Lawand Literature.” She has foundedthe journal Pólemos: AJournal of Law,Literature andCulture, which she edits, publishedbyDeGruyter,and the Associazione Italiana di DirittoeLetter- atura(AIDEL), which she presides. Carpi is in the scientific board of the journals Symbolism: aJournal of Crit- ical Aesthetics(New York), Anglistik (Heidelberg), La torrediBabele (Parma), Law andHumanities (Warwick),CardozoLaw Bulletin (Trento), Cosmos, ajournal of comparativeliterature (Torino). She is amember of AcademiaEuropaea. She is in the scientific board of the series “Law and Humanities” for Edinburgh Uni- versity Press, and of the centre for Cultural Studies of the University of Graz. Among her most recent publications: The Concept of Equity: an Interdisciplinary Assessment (Heidelberg: Winter,2007); Practising Equity,Addressing Law (Hei- delberg: Winter,2008); Bioethics and Biolaw through Literature(Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter,2011);D.Carpi and Jeanne Gaakeer,eds, Liminal Discourses: Sublim- inal Tensions in Law and Literature (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter,2013); FairyTales in the Postmodern World. No Tales for Children (Heidelberg: Winter,2016).

Leif Dahlberg is professor in Communication at TheRoyal Institute of Tech- nology(KTH), Stockholm, and associate professor in Comparative Literature at Stockholm University.His researchinterests include art,communication and media studies, comparative literature and critical legal theory,with special Contributors 351 focus on the intersections of law, mobilityand technology. His most recent publications include: “All aboardthe Louis Vuitton train!,” Pólemos 10.1(2016); Spacing Law andPolitics:The Constitution and Representation of the Juridical (London: Routledge, 2016); “Det akademiskasamtalet,” in Universitetet som medium,ed. Matts Lindström, Adam WickbergMånsson (Lund: Mediehistoria, 2015); “Unwelcome Welcome – Being ‘at Home’ in an AgeofGlobal Migration,” Law Text Culture,17(2013).

Sidia Fiorato is Researcher of English Literature at the University of Verona. Her fieldsofresearch include detective fictionand the legal thriller,law,literature and culture, literature and the PerformingArts, ShakespeareStudies, the Fairy Tale. Among her publications are Il Gioco con l’ombra.Ambiguità emeta- narrazioni nella narrativadiPeter Ackroyd (Verona: Fiorini, 2003), TheRelation- ship Between Literature and Science in John Banville’s Scientific Tetralogy(Berlin: Peter Lang,2007), Performing the Renaissance Body:Essays on Drama, Law and Representation (editedvolume with John Drakakis,Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter 2016), essays on the contemporary novel, Shakespearian adaptations,Victorian Literature.

Jeanne Gaakeer holds degrees in English literature, Dutch lawand philosophy. The focus of her research is on interdisciplinary movementsinlegal theory (specifically Law and Literature and Law and the Humanities)and their relevanceto legal practice. She is endowed professor of legal theory at Erasmus School of Law, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. With Greta Olson (Giessen University,Germa- ny), she co-founded the European Network for Lawand Literature(www.eurnl- l.org). She is the 2013 recipient of the J.B. White Award (bestowed by the Asso- ciationfor the StudyofLaw,Cultureand Humanities). She alsoservesasa justiceinthe criminallaw section of the Appellate Court of The Hague.

Florian Kläger is professor of English at the University of Bayreuth.Heisthe author of Forgone Nations: Constructions of EnglishNationalIdentityinElizabe- than Historiographyand Literature (Trier: WVT,2006) and has edited anumber of volumes on diasporic literatureand diaspora studies, as wellasonnegotia- tions of the idea of Europe in earlymodern and contemporary literature. His current research focuses on the autopoetics of the contemporary British and Irish novel.

Pier GiuseppeMonateri is professor of Law, UniversityofTorino,and visiting professor at SciencesPO,Paris. He is member of the International Academy of Comparative Law(http://www.iuscomparatum.org/) (New York), member of Ac- 352 Contributors cademia delle Scienze (Bologna); and Profesor Honorario, at the Universidad de San Marcos (Lima). He is alsoVice-President of the Italian Association of Law and Literature (http://www.aidel.it/); and Past-President of the Italian Associa- tion of Comparative Law(http://www.aidc.it/).

Emma Patchett is an independent postdoctoral scholar, currentlyworkingona collected volume of essays entitled ‘Spatial Justice and Diaspora,’ soon to be publishedwith Counter Press.She recentlyreceivedher PhD from the University of Münster following doctoral research as aMarie Curie Research fellow in the CoHaB (Diasporic Constructions of Home and Belonging) ITN.

FranziskaQuabeck is alecturerfor English literary and cultural studies at the UniversityofMünster,Germany. She holds aPhD in English and Philosophy and her main research interests are earlymodern drama, theories of recognition, contemporaryBritishfiction and war in literature. She is the author of Just and Unjust Wars in Shakespeare (Berlin,Boston: De Gruyter,2013) and the editor of Just WarTheoryinLiterature: Facts and Fictions (PalgraveMacmillan, 2017). Her other publications include articles on Shakespeare, Kazuo Ishiguro, Gregory Burke and Irvine Welsh.

Peter Schneck is Professor and Chair of AmericanStudies at Osnabrück Univer- sity,director of the Osnabrück Summer Institute on the Cultural Studyofthe Law(OSI) and co-director of the research cluster “Cognition and Poetics.” He has been afellow at the National MuseumofAmericanArt,Smithsonian Insti- tution (Washington D.C.) and avisitingscholar at the University of California at Irvine, Nottingham University and the University of Torino, Italy. Most recent publications include Rhetoric and Evidence:Legal Conflict and LiteraryRepresen- tation in American Culture (Berlin: De Gruyter 2011); Terrorism, Media, and the Ethics of Fiction: Transatlantic Perspectives on Don DeLillo (New York: Continu- um, 2010;co-ed) as well as articles on cognitive poetics, literatureand visual art,media history,culturalstudies, and lawand literature. Since 2006 he has been amember of the board of the German Association for AmericanStudies (DGfA), and served as the association’spresident from 2008–2011.

Klaus Stierstorfer,FEA,isChairofBritish Studies at the University of Münster. He holds aDPhil from the University of Oxford and has published widelyonlit- erary and culturaltheory.Hehas worked in and managed anumber of research projects on diasporastudies and constructions of home. He is the co-ordinator of the Marie Curie Initial Training Network “Diasporic Constructions of Home and Contributors 353

Belonging” (CoHaB, see itn-cohab.eu) and director of the graduatetraining group “Literary Form” fundedbythe German Research Council.

Melanie Williams is Emeritus Professor,formerlyProfessor of Literary Jurispru- dence at the University of Exeter School of Law. She has also taught at Swansea University, AberystwythUniversity,and Birkbeck College, University of London. Amongst others her publicationsincludeamonograph on lawand literature, Empty Justice: OneHundred YearsofLaw,Literature, and Philosophy (London: Cavendish, 2002)and acollection of essays on lawand literature edited by her, Secrets and Laws: Collected Essays in Law,Lives and Literature (London: Cav- endish, 2005).

Janet Wilson is Professor of English and Postcolonial Studies at the University of Northampton, UK. She has publishedwidelyonpostcolonial/diasporawriting and cinema of the white settler societies of Australia and New Zealand and is currentlycoeditingaspecial issue of the JournalofPostcolonial Writing (JPW) on Asian Australian writing.Katherine Mansfield is amajor research interest and she has coedited threevolumes of essays on her work. Others include literature and fundamentalism, right wing rhetoric, subaltern cosmopolitanism, liminality and diaspora. She is Vice-Chair of the Katherine Mansfield Society,and co- editor of JPW.

Fabian Wittreck teaches publiclaw,philosophyoflaw,law and society,and constitutional history at the lawfaculty of the University of Münster.Heismemberof the cluster of excellency “Religion and Politics” with aresearch focus on legal pluralism and adjudication in religious minority groups.Further fields of interest comprise state constitutional law, direct democracy,the judiciary,natural law theories, canon lawofthe oriental churches and law&literature.

Index of names

Agamben, Giorgio 178, 185f.,280 Brah, Avtar 1, 5, 126–128, 205f.,211, 273, Agnes, Flavia 85 294, 296 Albertazzi, Silvia 75 Braziel,JanaEvans1f.,61f., 64, 126, 224f., Alonso, Andoni 61 308f. Anaximander 36 Brecht, Bertolt 45 Andrews, C. F. 255 Brinkerhoff,Jennifer 61 Antiochus IV,Epiphanes 17 Browne, Bette172 Appadurai, Arjun309f. Brubaker,Roger 100–103, 107,225f.,309, Arendt, hannah 55, 280 312 Aristotle 29f.,36, 39, 56, 344 Bruner,Jerome 43 Arnold, Matthew 26, 65, 227 Brydon, Diana 94 Assmann, Jan 126, 128f. Bunyan, John 26 Augustine 24 Burma Rani 249 Burton, Antoinette235 Badami, Anita 234, 265f. Butler,Kim 114, 126, 291, 309 Bakhtin, Mikhail27 Baldus (de Ubaldis) 25 Campt, Tina316 Baldwin,ShaunaSingh 265 Cardozo, Benjamin N. 49, 63 Balkin, Jack M. 63 Carpi, Daniela 5, 56, 187,192, 297 Bammer,Angelika 319 Carr,Nicholas65 Banerjee, Bidisha,206, 318, 322f.,326 Carter,Paul Douglas212, 319 Barnard, Frederick M. 52, 55 Cassirer,Ernst 115 Barthes, Roland 317 Cavalla,Francesco70, 72f.,77, 84 Bauman, Zigmunt 187,283 Chander,Anupam 93, 136, 138, 213f. Benhabib, Seyla 2 Chaudhri, Amit 262 Benjamin, Walter 11, 21, 49, 55, 63, 92, Christou, Anastasia 97f. 104, 329 Clifford, James 94f.,97, 99, 187,224 Bennett, Louise80, 301 Coetzee, John M. 46 Bergson, Henri 35 Cohen, Robin 1, 7, 44, 187f.,200,205f. Berlin, Isaiah27, 51 f.,54f., 58, 117,121, Coing, Helmut 46 124, 127,157,160, 192, 302f.,305, 317 Cotterell, Roger 62, 189 Bhabha, Homi K. 42, 53, 62f.,80, 187,191, Cottrell, Peter 175 224f.,329 Cover, Robert21, 53, 127 Bichsel, Peter 120 Binning, Sadhu 264 Danto, ArthurC.118 Bischoff,Ferdinand 155–160, 164 Darian-Smith, Eve144, 149, 305 Bloemendal, Jan 53 Davis, NiraYuval 98, 234, 243, 289 Blumenberg, Hans 120 De Emmony,Andy 73 Blumenthal, Michael 41 Defoe, Daniel 26 Bodin, Jean 25 Delaney,David 141 Bohmer,Carol 179f.,182f. Delanty,Gerard282 Borges, JorgeLuis35f. Deleuze, Gilles36, 39, 77 Bose, Subhash Chandra269f. Derrida, Jacques 35, 116f. Bourdieu, Pierre189 Desai, Kiran270 356 Index of names

Descartes, René 26, 31, 45 Golder,Ben 290 Donne, John 44, 116, 338 Gopinath, Gayatri 294, 298, 303 Dostoyevsky,Fjodor 27,33 Gordon, Mary174 f.,255 Douzinas, Costas58 Gray, Thomas 338 Dregni, Micheal 145f. Greenblatt, Stephen 50, 189f. du Gay,Paul 190f.,291 Grennan,Eamonn182 During, Simon 53, 62, 81, 135, 234, 258, Griffith, John 139, 157 269, 273, 279f. Guattari, Félix36, 39, 77 Dutt-Ballerstadt, Reshmi 320 Gupta, Sunetra 262 Dyn, Ayud Khan 73 Gurinder,Chadha 262

Eagleton, Terry44, 119 Habermas,Jürgen 43, 193 Eco, Umberto 192 Hall,Stuart62, 101, 126–128, 187,190f., Ehrlich, Eugen 157 212f.,221, 225, 227,291, 297,301, 308 Eigenbrod,Renate96 Halloran, VivianNun 235, 241 Eng, David 297,301f.,305 Hamburger, Käte118f. Ergang, Robert55, 58 Hamid, Mohsin 5, 274, 276 Espinet, Ramabai 265 Hanna, Adam 176 Evans, Braziel Jana64, 224f.,309 Hegel, GeorgFriedrich Wilhelm 26 Heidegger,Martin 41, 43, 64 Faist, Thomas 98, 286 Held, David 282 Farahbakhsh, Alizera 319 Herder,Johann Gottfried4,41, 44, 46, 48– Farrier,David 231 52, 54–58, 60,62–65 Ferguson, RobertA.53, 183 Herzog, Werner 82–84 Fitzpatrick, Peter 144, 149, 305 Hesiod 29 Flaubert, Gustave66 Hesson, Ted172 Forster,E.M. 73, 85 Hobbes, Thomas 25f.,47, 51 Foucault, Michel 28, 36f.,39, 130,183, Hofstadter,DouglasR.115, 121f. 201, 290,332 Hollingshurst, Alan 298 Freud, Sigmund 6, 27,327f.,337,339– Homer 28, 50 344, 347 Hopkinson, Henry76 Friedman, Lawrence M. 193 Hoxie, Frederick 104, 106f. Hume, David 26 Gaakeer,Jeanne 4, 41, 53, 62 Hunt, Alan 290 Gadamer,Hans-Georg63, 121 Huyssen, Andreas, 294 Galilei, Galileo 31 GanatraNisha 271 Ishiguro, Kazuo5,205f.,214–221 Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand 76, 249f., Isin, Engin F. 282, 289 257–260,262, 264 Garvey,Mary176f. Jakobson, Roman117–119 Ghosh, Amitav219, 249, 253f.,258, 269 James, William 27,40, 50, 92, 212, 310,313 Giddens, Anthony 282 Jayasuriya, Maryse236, 240,244 Gilroy,Paul106, 187,227,308, 327,329, Jeeva, Dominic 257 334f.,345–347 Jhering, Rudolph von48 Girmitya255 Jones, Lloyd293, 295, 297,301f. Gisler,Priska 62 Joyce, James 119, 329, 338 Gokhale, Gopal Krishna 259 Index of names 357

Kaplan, Caren308 McCarthy, James 172 Katyal, Sonia 147f. McKendrick, Jamie 174 Kaufhold, Hubert 155, 160, 162f. McKeon, Michael 113, 120 Kazmi, Ali 264f. Mehta, Deepa 264–266, 294 Kearns, Thomas R. 61f. Miller, Arthur26, 180 Kennedy-Andrews, Elmer 176 Minow,Martha 21, 66 Kenny,Kevin 1f., 7 Mishra, Sudesh 42, 64, 67,221, 223, King, Russel 97,311 228f.,246, 249, 256, 265 King, Russel 23, 25, 97–99, 157f.,162, Mishra, Vijay2,64, 67,128, 207,221, 223, 195, 263, 312, 317 228f, 246, 249, 255f, 265, 300,322, King, Tom(Thomas)96 327 Kipling, Rudyard 296 Mistry, Rohinton 265 Kivisto, Peter 286 Mitscherlich, Alexander 344–347 Konaté,Moussa316 Modood, Tariq 288 Korsten, Frans-Willem 53 Monforton, Celeste173 Kraus, Hans-Kristof 59 Montaigne, Michel de 122 Kureishi, Hanif 79–81, 145,147,149, 293, Moran, Sean Farrell 171f. 295–297 Moretti, Franco59 Kymlicka, Will 283 Morgan, Sally 78 Mudrooroo 72 Lacan, Jacques 212 Mukherjee, Bharati 270 Lahiri, Jhumpa 6, 268, 271, 313–319, 325, Munos, Delphine 317,325, 327 327 Lal, Brij V. 2, 249, 252, 254f.,323 Naipaul, V. S. 2, 78, 255 Lange, Dorothea120,313f. Nair,Mira267,271, 312 Latour,Bruno 37f. Nehru, Jawaharlal 148, 259f.,262, 264, 270 Lavie, Smadar 223, 310 Newns, Lucinda 301–303 Lazarus, Emma173–175 Newton, John 31 Lee, Gregory172, 246 Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm26f., 34–36, Lehmann, Sonja225, 227–230, 232, 234, 332 242f. Niezen, Ronald 92 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 26, 44–46 Norton, Robert E. 49, 51,64f., 183, 212 Lentin, Ronit 173, 178 Nussbaum, Martha C. 44, 54, 58, 245 Levinas, Emmanuel 197 Lister,Ruth285, 321 Offe, Claus 282 Lombard, Peter 24 O’Hanlon, Ray 177 Lowe, Arthur 37f. Oiarzabal, Pedro J. 61 Luhmann, Niklas 114, 122f. Oluwale, David 327f.,330–337,339, 344, Lyotard, Jean-François32, 42f.,329 347 Ondaatje, Michael 5, 99, 108–110, 223, Machiavelli, Niccolò 269, 335 225, 227f.,232–234, 238, 240,243f., Mahon, Derek 5, 171, 173–176, 180–184, 246 186 Ong, Ahiwa 202 Mannur, Anita1f.,61f., 64, 126, 224f., Ovid 174, 338 308f. Marx, Karl 26f.,42 Paine, Thomas 44 McCall, Sophie 94, 96, 107f. Papastergiadis, Nikos185f. 358 Index of names

Patton, Cindy 293, 300 Sloterdijk, Peter 43f.,59 Péguy, Charles 35 Smith, Benjamin 104f., 301 Pereira,Godfrey Joseph 270 Smits, EverardJ.F.49 Phillips,Ann 6, 82, 289, 327–331, 333– Socrates 19, 29 339, 344, 346f. Solomos, John 277 Phillips,Caryl 6, 82, 327–331, 333–339, Sontag, Susan 315 344, 346f. Soyinga,Wole 79 Pipik, Moishe 194, 196f.,199, 201, 203 Spenser,Edmund338 Plato24, 27,29f., 34, 115 Sprecher,Thomas 3 Posner,Richard 66, 116f. Srivastava, Atima 261 Powell, Enoch 76f.,261, 332 Stanzel, FrankK.119 Pesso-Miquel, Catherine276 Steinert, Borella Sara62 Stiegler,Bernard37, 39 Rattansi, Ali 192f.,287 Stierstorfer, Klaus 1, 130f.,276, 304 Rawls, John 201f. Stirner,Max 26 Reis, Michele 309 Stolleis, Michael 123 Risjwijk, Honni van151f. Suphan,BernhardL.51 Rode, Ajmer 265 Suretsky, Harold 66 Rose, Nicolas 189, 329 SwendenburgTed 224 Rosenblum, Naomi 313 Rossi, Giuseppe 70, 81 Taghavi, ZadMostafa 319 Rowland, Michael 315 Teerling, Janine 326 Rushdie, Salman 2, 72, 75, 78f.,227f., Teubner,Gunther 122, 124, 132 240,262, 329 Thatcher,Margret277,279, 297 Thelivathai, Joseph 257 Sacks, Peter M. 338f. Thomas,Brook 46, 53, 117,122, 328 Safran, William 1, 96f.,311, 323 Thomson,Robert W. 156, 161f.,165, 215 Said, Edward 72, 74,224 Thumboo, Edwin75 Salgado, Sebastião 312 Tölölyan, Khachig 1, 23, 114, 125f.,128f., Sandhya, Totaram250 223, 226f. Santos, Boaventura de Sousa 141–146, Toulmin, Stephen 32, 45 149–152 Tuitt, Patricia 280 Sarang, Vilas 260 Twining, William 142f. Sarat, Austin 21, 43, 58, 61–63 Scarry, Elaine 44 Vassanji, M. G. 258, 265f. Schmücker,Reinold 116, 124f. Virilio, Paul 310 SelvaduraiShyam 293 Visconsi,Elliott 53 Senghor,Leopold 79 Shah, Prakash2f.,136, 138–141, 208f. Wang, Yong 182f. Shakespeare, William 49, 341 Weisberg, Richard 3, 49 Shamsie, Kamila 300 West, Robin 7, 10f.,15f., 18–20, 28, 31, 33, Shuman, Amy 179f.,182f. 60, 73f.,76, 79, 118, 144, 171f.,198, Shuval, Judith 323 230–232, 242, 244, 246, 255, 258, Sikka, Sonia 51f.,55, 64 261f.,289, 295, 297,317,331, 333, 344, Singh, Gurdit 77,263f. 347 Slater,Don 321 White, Edmund50, 63, 77,81, 86, 261, 265, Slaughter,Joseph R. 60f. 268f.,278, 298 Index of names 359

White, James Boyd 3, 42f.,50, 63, 71, 77, Wittreck, Fabin 5, 155, 160, 162, 164 81, 86, 261, 265, 268f.,278 Wood, Nancy 282, 311f.,317 Wickham, Gary290 Wood, Patricia K. 282, 317 Wiedmer,Caroline 62 Wright, Alexis 144, 150–152 Wilson, Janet 1, 5, 90, 275, 293 Winter,Steven L. 43, 56, 224 Yeats, William Butler 174, 338 Wittgenstein, Ludwig35, 46, 50 Young, Iris Marion 26, 282, 285