Through the Lens of the Chronotope: Suggestions for a Spatio-Temporal Perspective on Diaspora
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Abstract
Through the Lens of the Chronotope: Suggestions for a Spatio-Temporal Perspective on Diaspora
Within diaspora studies, the temporal dimension of diaspora for the most part remains subordinated to the element of spatial dispersal. This paper aims to theorize the inextricable linkage of space and time in the production and reproduction of diaspora consciousness through Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope. The chronotope prompts a view of diaspora identities as predicated on a removal not only from a particular location in space and moment in time, but also from the particular social practice of time-space through which a community conceptualizes its surroundings and its own place in them. Diaspora then emerges as a particular form of doubled chronotopical interpellation, as a dwelling-in-dischronotopicality.