and prove

that the dream

A PLACE CALLED HOME?
wa~ nm [rue,
that it was not a premonition
of anything
Doreen Massey
that
In the debarcs about !>uch concepts a, 'home', 'place', 'loc:uion-Ioc!llhy', identIty and
- he remembers it as if it were today ­
and 50 on. one of the prime contributions of geographers ~o far. and
in SantIago
moM parllcularly of cconomic gergraphers. ha" been to provide a kind of backcloth:
long ago,
more preci~ely an economic rationale. for some of the ,en~e~ of dislocation, fragmen­
tatIOn ant.! disorientation that are currently being expre~~ed by ,0 many,
3
The argument i~ that we are living rhrough a period (the precise dating is
THE FIRST THING YOU SEE FROM THE AIRPLANE IS THE MOUNTAINS quire vague) of immen~e ~paual upheaval. that this is an era of a new and powerful
globalization, of in~tantaneolh world~ide communication, of the break-up of what
I suppose it can happen tomorrow,
were once local cohen:ncies. of It new and violent phase of 'time-space compression',
I suppose that tomorrow
It is certainly true that the~e lhings are going on. The world economy, and the local,
something as simple as
regional and national economie~ (if one can still indeed lalk. of such things) which
opening your eyes
make it up, look very different from the way they looked, say, as the world emerged
will be enough
trom war in 1945,
to be back in Chile
walking on streets CHANGES IN THE WORLD ECONOMY
where (here are no more soldiers
The changes even in the last twenty years have been enormous, They are characteriLed
where there will be no more begg311>,
in a variety of ways: as a move from organized to disorganized capitalism, from mod­
ern to po~tmodern, from indu~trial to post-industrial, manufacturing to service. from
But he shall never be able to awaken
Fordist to post-FordisL The frequency of use of the prefix 'post' indicates the prevail­ K, Robins,
and find Salvador Allende alive again 'Tradition and
ing uncertainty about the po~itive of the new (and indicates also, therefore, the Translation: Nauon.l
fact that it is open to contestation), but one of the key processes universally agreed to Cullure in ilS Global
Conle'u', in l,
be at the heart of it all is globalization, In spite of all the rhelOric (and to some extent
Comer and S. Honey
the reality) of small firms and of individual entrepreneurship, of flexibility, niche-mar­ (ects). Enterprise and
Hairage, Routledge,
kNing and decentralization, of the potential importance of local economies and of
London t991.
economies of scope rather than scale, the reality i, that \l.'ithin the economic systcm
power is related to size,' The key movers within the world economy remain the multi­ 2, N, Thnft, 'The
Geography of
national, now increasingly rransnalional and global. corporations, and their power is Inlernlll'onaJ
increasing,2 The internationalizarion of capital is a process with old roots, but in recent EconomIC DIsorder',
in D, Massey and J,
decades it has increased in intensity and scope and changed in its nature, The tOla1 Allen (cds), U.e,'en
flow of international direct inveslment (thal is, investment directly into production Re.De"e/opment
C.ties and Regions in
facilities, from one country to another) increased by about 15 per cent per annum (in
Transi'ion, Hodder
current US dollar terms) through the 19705, more than trebled overall between 1970 and Stoughlon in
aswcialiOIl will, Ihe
and 1980, and has continued to increase. in spite of slowdowns and loommg crises in
Open University,
the world economy, since then.' The form which this investment takes has also shift­ London J988,
ed, The earliest imponant form of capital ex.port was aimed at Obtaining raw materials
3, Ibia,
for processing and produclion 'back home', Later the investment in processing and
production was itself done ove~eas, to capture foreign markets, to get round tariff bar-

2 NEW FORMATIOSS A PLACE CALLED HOME 3

 rier~ and trade restriclion~, and ,0 fDrlh. Thi~ i, Ihe form which i\ \till. in \'l))umc ;Inn from fir~l \\()fld counlnc:o, 10 <l handful of '(Ic\clopin!o!' I!l:onomic".
terms, most ~ignifit;anl today. Mort.: l'Ix-ctllly. hO\\e"el. l'Clpilal expo!,! ha\ al\o heen The final chang.c ha~ hecn lhe ma~~i\'cly incrcasin!! IIHernatiollllli7alion of
into production ovep;ea~, but not to ,crvc the lllarkel~ in .... hieh the production 1" locat­ finance, unJ ot ,ervices morc ' The creation of the Eurodollar market, the
ed, but for re·export, either 10 the home coumry or 10 third market,. Here. the ,,[Jmulu<; inicmallonalii:<ltion of the banh and of capital markets, the fact of 24-hour-trading (as
behInd the push 10 multinmionalii:.nion i~ the abilily to takc ad\'antagc of the "pccitki­ Tokyo clo~c~, London opens. and <;:ome hour~ later I\ew York picks up the baton). the
lies of conditions of production th.:,e he L'hcap labour. lack of unioni7adon. multinalional ,pre-lid or everything from accountancy firms, to lOuri~m, to propeny
or the availability of particular "kills and l:ultural lrauilion~). companies. tll cleanmg services - all the,e reflect the way in which globalization has
It is. important 10 remgniLe what lht:"c form\ of capilal e-xport repre"ent. They are been (kepencu in recent year'>. to penetrate into cver more sectors or nallonal and
more than Ihe increasing 'ipallal reach of a parllCular group of clImpamc\, though of rcg.ional economies. J
course they are thaL But tht:y arc abo and more under~tood as the Linle of thi~ would have been possible without ncw technologie~ uf communica­
out of differcnt kinus of ,o(,'jul relationships o'ver space. And that means lion. of image-processing and lran~mission and of information systems." And il is the
alsu Ihe :;tretching out over space of relations of power, and of relations imbued with internationalization of some of these systems themselves which brings home mOSl
meaning and symboli~m. It is nOl jU~I. in the ralher straightforward economic cases clearly the facI of the globalization of the inpuls to daily life. The burgeoning commu­
which we have JUSl been discussing. (hal capilali'il relatmns of production have been nication:o, empires of a handful of corporali{)n~ lParamounr, Disney) and individ­
exported, It is thar rhey have taken on a new !>patial form. Accumulation, through the L1al 'players (Murdoch, Berlusconi, Bertelsman), and the on-quoted example of CNN 6. D \1orley and
K, Robin,. 'Spac'c,
extraction of surplus, takes an internationalized form. And. in each of Ihe three cases are at the focus of It all. Their own national identitie~ become confused or irrelevant of Identity:
mentioned above, il does so in a different way, whether that be through the interna­ (Murdoch operates far from hi~ home shores; Sony takes over companies like CBS r.f)mmUnIGal1nn~

Technologies and the

tionalization of (he ~upply of rilw materials. through the multiplicalion of basically and Columbia Pictures, for long regarded as part of and certainly important influ­
Reconfiguralion of
similar branch plant~ of a partICular corporation in a range of countries to sell to their ences on - lJS idemity), Powerful forces for forging a sense of what is 'home' are pro­ Europe'. Sen'en. vol.
50, no. 4, AUlUmn,
local markets, or through the organization of different planls in different countries duced by capilal which come~ from somewhere else entirely, Their me~sages flow
1989. pp10-34,
each producing, according 10 their own 'comparaTive advantage'. components (0 be across old earth boundaries in ways in which no nalional government can easily pre­
assembled into a global product 10 be exponed elsewhere. Each of these cases repre­ vcnt, There i'i emerging, it is argued, II. new space of electronic information 7. lI:"d.

4. D, M.,,,,,>', sents a difFerent 'spatial structure of producTion': a different way in which capilulist flows'.' And complex and intersecting a~ it is, there are again - as in the case of manu· g. C. Hosl.m, and
Spallal D,yiSUllTS of social relations of production may be stretched over space. The mosr recent, quite facturing, \ervices and financc clear, broad geographies of power. Once again. the R, Miru" . Reasons
Labour: Social for the US
newly emerging, fonn of spatial STruCTUre is thaI of Ihe 'global corporation' a mas­ presence of the US i~ dominating, By the end of Ihe J980s. i[s entertainments industry Dominance of lhe
Struc!ures aM the
GM/(raphyof sively multinationalized entity. frequently incorporating not only the above forms of wag second only to aerospace as a foreign-trade eamer [or the US national economy." Inrernauona1 Trade
ill Telcvlsion
Froducrion,
international spatial structure but others as well, which spans a vas! variety of sectors More generally, il i~ argued tha[ culture is being globaliLed through (he emergence of
Macmillan. Programme.' ,
BasmgSloke 1984, of production (both manufacturing and services) ilnd which is organiLed not Sl) much products', the popularily of World Music anu the organization of endless Medw, Clillure aM
So,ielv. vol. 10, no
from a centre in one country from which the tentacles of relarions of power spread out World Cups! The link helween cul1ure and place, it is argued, is being ruptured.
4. 19&8, ciled in
to others, bUT on a more truly international basis, with a global profit~ strategy, a view Before we evaluate the reality of all this, and the implic(ltions that are drawn from il Morley and Robins,
for lhe meaning of home and locality, there are a few Important pomts which oughl to 0t> {"IL
of a world divided for Ihis purpose mto regIOns, each with lheir own operational head­
quarters, and with - lhis is as yet II tendency on the horizon rather lhan (I fully-fledged be registered. Thus, globalization can in no way bc equated with homogenization, The 9. Sec. for 'n".nec.
achievement no particular coumry called ·hom~'. >panning of the globe by economic relations has led to new forms amI patterns of [he 'pecial i,sue of
fheory, Clillure &
For most companies, however. Ihere is still an identifiabk nallOnal origin and in inequality nOl simply to increasing ,imilari(y. Even the 'global produt:ls', apart from Sociel\"no,7. 1'J'J(1,
That sense a clear geographical 'direction' 10 the f1ow~ of foreign direct investment. the obvious and perhaps too often qumed examples of Coca Cola and McDonalds,
BUI the geography of these flows has been changing and becoming more complex.' penetrate differenl national markets in different ways. Their globamy, IUld the conse­
5. Thrift,op,err,
While before 1970 it was US corporations which inconlrovertibly dominated, both in quem abiliry of companies to produce them on a mass ,cale, comes from their
size and in number. this is no longer so clearly the l:al>C, Before 1910, more than two­ numerous different niche-markets in lIll comers of the earth. The companies can therc­
thirds of foreign direCT investment was accounted for by US mul(inationals: loday the hy combine economies of scope (variety in the range of (heir production) with
figure is way below half. Japan. (We~t) Germany and Canada have grown in impor­ economies of scale, Moreover, along with the chaos and digorder which characterizcs
tance as sources of foreign inve~tmenl and the number of multinationals ha~ed in the the new relation~ there is also a new ordering of clear global-level hierarchies. The
'South' has increased. The bulk of lhe Oows remains between first world countries, few global cities which dominale the world economy, such as New York, London and
but with the big change that there i~ now significant foreign investment into the USA, Tokyo, do so because they are the foci. the poims of inter~ecti{ln, of vaSl numbers of

4 NEV. FORMATIO'lS A PLACE CALLED HO)'fE 5

 thc,e ·'()rlal-n:l~tiom-~lretdll!d-DVer-\pacc·. and bccau,e they ore al Ihe end of thu~e given rise to the powerful notion that the age we arc ljving in is one of a new burst of
relation, "'here [lowel' i~ lod!!eli. There i\ clearly emer1!in!! a !!lubal hierarch) a, socIal 'time-space compres,ion'.
and economic po\\cr secm tn(:x()rabl~ to be increasingly geDgraphically centrali.ted.
And Ihe~e fonm, of organization e)(tcnd down below the national. to the regional and II POSTULATED IMPLICATIONS - AND SOME RESERVATIONS
rhc local. Regional and local economics arc increasIngly locked m. [Jot ,0 much to
Moreover. it is argued that this new round of time-space compre~sion has produced 3
national cc(]n()mie~. hut directly 10 the world economy. Indced It bccolllc~ cvcr more
feeling of disorientation. a sense of the fragmentation of local cultures and a loss, in its
doubtful hm\,' valtd it IS to speak even of coherent national economics in somc cases.
deepest meaning. of a sense of place. The local high street is invaded by cultures and
bur cenainly of <;ubnational one~. Local. regional and national are increasingly drawn
capitals from the world over; few areas remain where the majority of industry' is local­
imo. and constituted by. II logIC whICh eX:Ist~ at international le~el. Thu, there is a
ly owned; plal:es seem to becomJ both more similar and yet lacking in internal coher­
series of tensions: a world charactcri7ed on the one hand hy complex:it)' and potential
ence; home-grown specificity is invaded - it seems that you can sense the simultane­
disorder. but on the other hand very clear and comlstent directions in the geography of
ous presence of everywhere in the place where you are standing. Conceptualized in
power: and the continuance of geographical diversity but one formed. not so much out
lenns of the geography of social relations, what is happening is that the social rela­
of a home-grown uniqueness. as oUI of the specificity of positioning withm the global­
tions which constitute a locality increasingly stretch beyond its borders; less and less
i7ed space of flows.
of these relations are contained within the place itself.
There are 3lso, within the wider context of globalizarion, some countenendcncies. It
It has indeed clearly unnerved a lot of people. There is much talk of postmodern
is argued th3t certain characteristlC~ of the post-mass-production flexible specializa­
geographies of fragmentation, depthlessness and instantaneity. Emberley writes of a
tion lend themselves to the development of relatively coherent and internally net­
new world where 'the notions of space as enclosure and time as duration are unsenled
worked local economies. The most frequently cited examples of these 'industrial dis­
and redesigned as a field of infinitely experimental conftgurations of space-rime'
tricts'. as they are called. are 'the third Italy' (Emilia-Romagna). Baden Wunenberg in
where 'the old order of prescriptive and exclusive places and meaning-endowed dura­ 12. p, Emberley.
Germany. and Jutland in Denmark. lr is this view of the pos~ibilities of local •PI aces and Stories:
tions is dissolving'." Baudrillard speaks of delirium and vertigo in the face of a world The Challenge of
economies which has lain al the basis of some of the recent flurry of local industrial
of images and flows. Harvey argues thal the disorientation of present times is giving Technology', Social
10. See. for insrance. strategies - such as that of the Grealer London Council in the early 191\0s.'o Less Research. vol. 5. no.
The Londoll rise to a new - and in his view almost necessarily reactionary - search for stability
potentially radical local councils and institutions, in contrast. funher contributed to the 3.1989. pp74 1-85_
Industrial Slrult")!.y. through a sense of place." Robins writes that 'the driving imperative is to salvage cen­
produced by Ihe fragmentation of their local economies by trying to attract investment from outside, 13. D. Harvey, The
tred, bounded and coherent identities - placed identities for placeless times.'''
GLC in 1985. but ironically by designing and presenting coherent images of themselves through Condition of
Jameson calls for cognitive mapping, expressing a longing to get his bearings, to ori­ Posrmoder~iry. Basil
which lo market their advantages to mobile capital. Blac~well. Oxford
ent himself in what are clearly for him and others disorienting times, to reassert some
1989,
But whatever the imponance of these new localisms - and it is disputed - Ihey are feeling of a control which seems to have been losl. And indeed there is today all too
occurring in a contexl of a Iruly major re-shaping of the spatial organization of social much evidence of the emergence of disquieting forms of place-bound loyalties. There 14_ Robins. op_cit.•
pAL
relation~ at every level. from local to global. Each geographical 'place' in the world is are the new nationalisms springing up in the east of Europe (which are in total contra­
heing realigned in relation to Ihe new global realitie~. their role~ within the wider diction TO the argument, being made at the same time. that the national level in these
whule are being re-assigned. their boundaries dissolve as they are increasingly crossed global-local times is becoming increasingly irrelevant - but no one seems to have
hy everything from investment flows, to cultural influences. to s3tellite TV networks. addressed this conflict). There are also burgeoning exclusive localisms, the cons[rttc­
Even the different geographical ,cales become less easy to separate - rather they con­ tions of tightly bounded place-identities. There is talk of 'the new enclosures', and
stitute each other: the global the lucal. and vice versa. Moreover, as distancc seems to yuppies build walls around their new inner urban enclaves to protect themselves,
be becoming meaningless. so relation~ in time, too. are altered. Before the 1970s com­ physically and by simple spatial definition, from the others who also live in inner
panies made major investment declsiun, every few year~ and reviewed prices once a urban areas. Nor is this appeal to an unproblematized identity of place confined to the
year; exchangc rates changed roughly every four yea~, interest rates perhaps twice a right wing of the political spectrum. ln the long battle over London's Docklands, some
II. Thrifl. op (II.. year. All thi, now seems incredibly ,low <lnd ponderou, - we get news of exchange­ of the norions of place-identity constructed by those defending themselves against the
plO_ rate changes four or more times a day: prices arc highly mobile; investmenl decisions new invaders were equally static, self-enclosing and defensive. A main argument of
(which may mean whole factories opening and closing) arc made al \east once a year." this anicle is that notions of a sense of place do not have to be so.
Communications round the world, by electronic mail, by fax, are virtually instanta­ The most commonly argued position, then, is that the vast current reorganizations
neous. It is this combination of changes in our experience of space and time which has of capital, the formation of a new global space, and in particular its use of new tech­

6 NEW FOR~lATlO~S A PLACE CALLED HOME 7

 nologic, of (;otnl11unicatioll, have undermined an older ~en~e of a 'place-called-home', But that i~ nm alL To reduce them 10 the cultural of late
Clnd kft u\ placelc" ami dl~om:nLC'd. (jamc:,on) or of flexible accumulation (Harvcv) is ,everelj !O reduce lheir <>10'0''''''''
But i~ it really so? ClciJrly sllmething i, going 011, bur before we gel carried away by and theIr \ariety. Although such groundings in a matenal base may come as a relict
the ,implicilY and appeal of thi~ argument, we would be wise to SlOp and think more afler years of analysh which ~eemed ready to blow away In a whirl of rherorical self­
clearly ahoul it.. form. Fir!>t. thcre arc resefVati{)n~ about how the argument is u~ually referencing, the~e economic illlerpret3lions come far 100 c1o~e to depriving the cultur­
posed, Second, lhere are debate, to be had aboul how, anyway. we think about space al (or the non-economic more generally) of any autonomy at illl. Nor il> our experience
and inlerpretallOn of all thesc change~ dependenl only upon our place within, or with­
and
The reservation, m(we from relatively trivial to really quile serious. Beginning, OUl, class relations. Ethnicity and gender, to mention only the two most obvi~

then. at the there i, the question of language. A special style of hype and ous other axes, are al~o deeply imrlicated in the ""ay, in which we inhabit and experi­
hyperbole has been developed to write of these matters. The same words and phrases ence space and place, and the ways in which we are located in the new relations of
recur; the author gets camed away in a reeling vision of hyperspace. For Ihat reason I time-space compression.
have deliberately tried to be downbeal in the opening section of this paper. For amid Which begins to bring us to more serious reservation~ about the normal formulation
the Ridley Scolt images of world cities, the wriling about skyscraper fortresses. the of the argument about the new. di srurbing placelessness. There IS reference to I he con­
Baudrillard visions of hyperspace .. , mos\ people actually still live in places like dition of poslmodemity. but in fact there are many such conditions. Different social
Harlesden or West Brom. \-luch of life for many people. even 10 the heart of the first groups. and different individuals belonging to numbers. of social group:., are located in
world, still consists of waiting in a bus-shelter with your ~hopping for a bus that never many different ways in the new organization of relations over time-space, From
comes. Hardly a graphic illusrration of time-~pace compres,;ion. There is also the setters, to pensioners holed-up in lonely bed-sits, to Pacific Islanders who:.e air and
question of how new it all is, The ofr-quoted Saalchi remark that there are now more sea links have been cut, to international migranls risking life and livelihood for the
cullural comrasts between the Bronx and midtown Manhattan than belween midtown chance of a better life ... all in some way or another are likely to be affected by the
Manhattan and the 7th Arrondis~emenr of Paris is convincing until one remembers, shifting relallons of time-space, but in each case the effcci is different; each is placed 17 Massey. 19''1,
I'IPW,
say. the social gulf that separated, even in Ihe nineteenth century, the west end from in a different way in relation to the shifting scene." Even as you wait, in a bus shelter
the e~t end of London, for example, and how the denizens of the former viewed the in Harlesden or West Brom, for a bus that never comes, your shopping bag is likely to
inhabitants of the latter as exotic and as porentially threatening as the indigenous pop­ contain at least some products of [he global raiding party which is constantly conduct­
ulations of the farthest-flung outpost~ of Empire. So, quite simply, a preliminary word ed to supply the consumer demands of the world's relatively comfonably-off. The
of caution. We must not gel too carried away in our own excitement. point, however, is that much, if nor all, of what has been written has seen this new
Agam, it hal> for long been the exception rather than the rule that place could be world from the point of view of a (relative) elite. Those who today worry about a
simply equated with community, and by that means provide a stable basis for identity. sense of disorientation and a loss of control must once have felt they knew exactly
In the United Kingdom, with the exception of a few ~mall mining towns and cotton where they were, and that they had control.
[Owns and pan!., for instance, of the DockJand~ of London. 'places' have for For who is it in these times who feels dislocated/placeless/invaded? To what extem.
cenrories been more I,;omplex.locations where numerous different. and frequently con­ for instance, is this a predominantly white/first-world take on things? There are a
15. I) M.ssey, 'A flicling, communitie~ mtersecled." Nor do 'communities' necessarily have to be spa­ number of way; in ""hich lhis question can be addressed, but one of them concerns the
Global Sense of
lially concentrated. The !>trong di!;\inction which Giddens and Jameson make between newness of the changes under discussion. The assumption which runs through much
Place', M"rris",
of the literature i~ that this openness. this penetrability of boundaries is a recent
Today. June 1991. presence and absencc, and the greater problems of effective understanding encoun­
PI'24·9. tered as. time-space distlmcialion i~ increased, raise more questions aboul their nomenon. It has already been argued that even in the first world some aspects of the
a~sumptions of the directness of face-Io-face communication than about the impact of newness have been exaggerated. Bm the point is even clearer when, as is more
16. See. for ins!.n.-.,
Massey. 1984, Op.COIt distance on interpretation. Of course geography makes a difference - it is a point a global perspective is taken. Thus. even Robins, one of the more perceptive writers
whIch geographers have been arguing for a decade16 but 'presence-availability' does on the subject, finds himself lured into the rhetoric. He writes, for instance, that
not somehow do away with issues of representation and interpretation. That place 'Globalization, as it dissolves the barriers of distance, makes the encounter of colonial
Ill. Robin., "p.d!.,
called home was never an unmediated experience. centre and colonized periphery immediale and intense.''' While there is clear recogni­
p25.
Further. there are potential problems of deep economism in some of these accounts, tion here that the . periphery , ha; been colonized. there is no such recognition that
and also of class reduclionism. It is not only capilal which moulds and produces from the point afview of that colonized periphery lhat encounter has for centuries been
in our understanding of and access to space and time, The recem changes in 'immediate and intense'. Or again,
space-time have clearly been propelled by shifts in capitalism and developments in

8 NEW FORMATIONS A PLACE CALLED HOME 9

 Wherea~ Europe once addre<;se-d African and Asian culrures across vas! distances,
now that "Other" has installed it~elf y,'ithin the \ery hean of the western metropo­
lis. Through a kind of reverse invasion, the periphery has infiltrated the colonial
core. The protective filters of time and space have di~appeared, and the encounter
with the "alien" and "exotic" is now instanlaneous and immediate. The western
city has become a crucible in which world eulIures are brought into direct contact
19 Ihid.. pp32. 33. ... Time and distance no longer mediate the encounter with "other" cultures."
Once again lhere is both recognilion and slippage within lhis formulalion. There is
recognition of a past c;olonialism, thal the present 'invasion' is a 'reverse' of a previ­
ous one, And yet, .. did Europe once address its colonies, formal and infonnal, only
across vast distances? To thosc living in those colonie~ it cannot have seemed so, To
say that Time and distance no lonF;er mediate the encounter with "other" cultures' is
to see only the present form of that encounter, and implicitly to read the history from a
first world/colonizing country perspective. For the security of the boundaries of the
place one called home must have dissolved long ago, and the coherence of one's local
culture must long ago have been under threat, in those parts of the world where the
majority of its population lives. In those parts of the world, it is centuries now since
time and distance provided much protective insulation from the outside.
That is one way of looking at these changes: that certainly there has been in recenl
years a quickening of globalization, a new stretching of social relations over space, bm
that what is also at issue is a change in the nature and direction of those relations. It is
often commented that the UK economy is e)(tremely open. But this has been so for
centuries. What has changed in the last two decades is the nature of that openness, its
directionality, and the power relations which are embedded in it, In the past the open­
ness was represenred by the UK being 'the workshop of the world' (I.e. a major
exponer of manufacmred goods - frequently undermining local production else­
where), a major participant in the plunder of the world's natural resources, and the
chief financier and insurer for much of the world's production and exchange. Today,
as Nissan, Toyma, Hitachi and mhers invest within these shores the openness is, and is
seen as, very different, As was pointed out in the opening section, one of the main
changes in the flow of foreign direct investmenr in recent years has been thar the US,
too, is no longer almost exclusively a source of such investment; it is also a recipient.
But there are also questions at what might be called a more 'local' level. bell hooks
argues that the very meaning of the term 'home', in terms of a sense of place, has been
very different for those who have been colonized, and thaI it can change with the
experiences of decolonization and of radicalization.'" Toni Morrison's writing, espe­
20. bell hooks.
Yearning: Race, cially in Beloved, undennines for ever any notion that everyone once had a place
Gender, and Cultural called home which they could look back on, a place not only where they belonged but
Politics, Turnaround,
London 1991. which belonged 10 them, and where they could afford to locate their identities. The
nature of the impacl of the current phase of globalization has so far perhaps - and
ironically - been analyzed from a very un-global perspective.
10 NEW FORMAllO:SS
Moreover. II' olle uccepl> Ihal the identification of il currenl fedlng or di,oriemalion
.•nd pI8ccle"lle" ha, to be rcqricted pnmarily to Ihe firq world (lnd even then differ·
cnilallj. and in dtiTerell1 way,. 10 differcnl stmla of the popul(lnon. there I, ,till anoth­
er l'uriou, anomaly LD be invesligatcd, \1uch or the currenr disorientation, a~ we have
,cen, is pul down to the arrivlll in one form or another of Ihe 'Other'. Y Ct ,orne
'Others' of the domlnanl definer~ in first·world sociely ha\oe always been there ­
"omen. It i, mtcresting to note ho\'.' frequcntly the characleriLation of place as home
comes from thme who have lefl. and it v,ould be fascinating to nplore hov, often Ihis
characleriz(ltlOn is framed aroun1those who - perforcc - stayed behind: and how
often the former was male. ,citing' oul lU discover and change the world. and the laller
iemale, most panicularly a mother, assigned the role of personifymg a place which did
not change. Moreover. it is not simple spalial proximity but the relations ot power in
which thai proximilY is embedded which are crucial. Thu~ Wilson argues that ill
,mall-scale settlements, where social control can bt! relalively tight. women have rep­
resented lillIe threat to men - although of course there have always been honourable
exception~. The scale and the complexity of life in the big eilY, however, makes such
regulation and control more difficult. . Almost from the beginning, the presence of
women ill cilies, and partIcularly in city streets, has been questioned, and the control­
ling and surveillance aspect, of cilY life have always been directed particularly at 21. E, Wtlson.lhr
lphtrI-' In the City·
women. Urban life potentially challenged patriarchal system~. '" The point LO draw
Urban LIfe, Ihe
from this is that ir is not proXImity in itself which is unsettling but also the nalure of COn/rot of Disorder,
and Womrn, Vmllg.o,
the social relalions, and most particularl)' in their aspect of power relations. of which
London 1991.
proximity is the geography. Just to talk of the collapse of time and distance. or to see
it in Ierms only of movement and flows, is msufficient; what is at issue is the changing
geography of (changing) social relations. And to analyze the impact of those changes
il is necessary to lake account of both sides of the fonnulation, BOTh the geography
(proximity. time-space distanciation, etc.) and the content of the social relations them­
selves (full of the implications of sexism, or of the power relalions of colonialism pre­
sem or past, or of the relations of capiral accumulation) must he taken into account.
Moreover each aspecl - spatial fonn and social content - will affecl the other. lr is
through [hi> Icll~. too. that ~tatemcnts about the 'newness' of the encounter wilh a
colonial past must be interpreted. It is nOl only rime and distance (after noting the eth­
nocentricity of even this formulation) which have changed,
III IDENTITY AND PLACE
There is, lhen. an issue uf whose idemity we are referring to when we talk of a place \
called home and of the ~uppon~ it may provide of stability, oneness and security. )
There are very different ways In which reference to place can be used in the constilu­
tion of the identity of an individual, but lhere is also another side to this 4ue~tion of
t~e relation between place and identity. Fur while the notion of personal identity ha~
been problematized and rendered increasingly complex by recent debates, the notion
of place has rcmained relatively une)(amined,
A PLACE CALLED HOME II

I debate u""ociatc Ir with 'rasi .. and
22, Sec H.rvc y.
1989,op err and tho
critique In D,
Ma,,,,y, 'The
Polili".1 Place of
Localny Smdie,,',
Erwrronmen( umJ
Piwrni/!!!. II. 00, 23.
1991, pp267-8L
j,
The m()~t common formulutinns of the concept of geographical place in current
no~talgia. and \~ lill
an endD\eJ ;,c<.:Urily, Han c}. tor
sees all place-based politic;. (I.\,hich he ,ignificantly connate' l,I,'ith IJlace­
hound polirics) as suffused wirh aestheticiLalion (v.hich he .,ec, a, almo~1 nccc;;~arily
'bad') and a longing for stabilit) and coherenl'e, Eljualmg Time wah Becoming and
with (and dicholomiLing amI opposing them in a way Ihat Hcidegger
never did) he rejecls the latter In favour of the formcr." In politicdl and ,ocidl life,
also. recent years have "cen the emergence of many argumelll3, policie~ and move­
ments which indeed, in their attempt, to establish a relatioll~hip betwct:n a place and
an identity, a place and a sense of belonging, do depend pret.:i;,ely un sut:h notiuns - of
recourse to a past, of a seamless coherence of character. of an apparently t:omforting
bounded enclosure. Such views of place have been evident in jl whole range or sct­
tings in the emergence of cerlain kinds uf mnionali1>m~, in the marketmg of places.
whether for inveslmem or for tourism. in the new urban cndosures, and even - on the
other side of the social divide - on ot:caslon by tho:.c defending their communities
recourse to concepts ~uch as 'the real Isle of Dogs', All of
these have been attempts to fix the meanmg of placcs, to enclose and defend them:
construct singular, fixed and static idcntities for places. and they interpret places
as bounded enclosed spaces defined through eounterposltion agamsi the Other who is
outside.
Yet thi!. is not the only way in which the notion of 'place' can be conceived, If
space is conceptualized in terms of a four-dimensional 'space-time' and, as hinted at
above, as taking the form not of some abstract dimension hut of Ihe ~imultaneous co­
existence of social interrelations al all geographical scales, from the intimacy of the
household to the wide space of transglobal connections, then place can be reconceptu­
alized too. This was the point of the mess laid earlier on seeing phenomena ~uch as
globalization and time-space compression as changing forms of the spatial organiza­
lion of social relations. Social relations always have a ~patial form and spatial content.
They exist, necessarily, both in space (i.e. in a locational relation to other social phe­
nomena) and across space. And it is the vast complellity of the interlocking and articu­
nels of ,>ocial relations which i~ ~(}Clal space. Given that conception of space, a
'place' is formed out of the particular set of SOCial relatIOns which mteraet at a particu­
lar location, And the singUlarity of any individual place is formed in pan OUl of the
specificity of the interactions which occur at that location (nowhere else does this pre­
cise mixture occur) and in part out of the fact that the meeting of those social relations
at that location (their partly happenstance juxtaposition) will in turn produce new
social effects.
On this reading, the 'identity of a place' is much more open and provisional than
most discussions allow. First, what is specific about a place, it~ identity, is always
formed by the juxtaposition and co-presence there of particular sets of social interrela­
tions, and by the effects which that juxtaposition and co-presence produce, Moreover,
and this is the really importanl poinl. a proportion of the social interrelations will be
wider than and go beyond the area being referred to in any parlicular context as a
12 NEW FORMATIONS
Second, [he ldemiti~~ of are unfix:~d. Thev arc unfixed in part
are constructed are themselves
by their wry nature dynamiC and changing. The) are also unfiKed because of the con­
tinual prOdUl:lioll of further ,ocial effects through the very juxtaposition of those
social relatwns, Morcover, that jiJt:k of fixity has alway" been so. The past was no
more static than i, the prescnt. Pluce~ cannOI 'really' be characterized by Ihe recour~e
to ,ome e\Scntlul. internalized moment. Virtually all the examples cited above - hom
forms ot nationll.lism, to heritage centres. to ascriptions of 'the real Isle of Dogs' ­
,eek the Identity of a place by lUling claim ro some particular moment/1oeation in
tllne-space when the definition of the area and the social relations dominant within it
were to the advantage uf that pil.l1icular claimant-group, When black-robed patriarchs
organize ceremomes to celebrate a true national identity they are laying claim ro the
of that identity at a particular moment and in a particular form a moment
and a form where they had a power whICh they l:an tht:reby jU1>tify them~elves in re­
All of which mcans, of course. that the identity of any place, including that
called home, is in one sense for ever open to contestation. What i:. going on in
London's 'Docklands' now includes precisely a contest over the identity of that area­
whether it is Docklands or the Isle of Dogs,
But, finally and most importantly, on (his reading of space and place the identity of
place is in part constructed out of positive interrelations with elsewhere, This is in
contrast to many readings of place as home. where (here is imagined to be the security
of a (false, as we have seen) stability and an apparently reassuring boundedness. Such
understandings of the identity of places require them to be enclosures, to have bound­
aries and therefore and most importantly - to establish their identity through nega­
tive coumerposition with the Other beyond the boundaries, An understanding of the
socio-economic geography of any place, certainly in those parts of the world where
the debate is now rife, reveals that such a view is untenable, The identity of a place .'
.i
does not derive from some internalized history. lr derives. in large part. precisely from
the specificity of its interactions with 'the outside',
it is here [hat the debate about Dlace. and Darticularlv about place and belonging,
and home. linh up to discus.>ion about
ac(:eo'ted that identities are relational. (he possibilities are often closed down
by the assumption that such relations must be those of bounded. negative counrerposi­
lion, of inclusion and el\c1usion. Yet, as has been seen. i( has in principle always been
difficulr. and has over the centuries become more so, to distinguish the inside of a
place from the outside; indeed, it is precisely in part the presence of the outside within
which helps to construct (he specificity of the local place,
The question of the extent to which this is a gender-related issue must at least be
asked, It is often argued, for ins[ance within object relations theory, that in societies
where early child-rearing is almost entirely in [he hands of women, the project of iden­
rity eonsrruction is different for Iirrle girls and little boys, In pil.l1icular it is different in
relation to the issue of boundaries, Thus, Hartsock writes 'women and men, then,
grow up with affected by different boundary experiences, differently
A PLACE CALLED HOME 13
!3 1'.(',\!. con'trul'led and exrerienc~d inner and OUler 'horllh. and prcoccupation~ v. nh differem lar vic" of both Idcntlty and the of place. and one which i., con­
ItHt....od.. ·lhL'
relational l~';ue~, Thi<; early experience rorm~ an imponant gmund tor the female l.:,tabk, Wibon \>rile!> of the W,I), In which the a 'place' which i> by ils very
t-:""'!1l I11: . . 1 St.Hidptllm
I:li:\cloping tno ,ense or . ,elt oJ- connected to Ihe world and the male sem,e of MM a, separate, distinct rwturc open and in flux ha., produccd 111 many a kdlllg of fear; fear of rhe disordcr.
Gmund for It
and even di~connected,'\ It i~ the boy'~ need. growing up in a !,ot:icty in which genders the unwntrollablc complexity. the I.'haos. But nOL all have felt thh fear. Women,
Spcl:l(iltilly !-enunt\'
HlSlonea' are constmcted as differentiated, and as unequal. to differentiate himself from argue,; Wi bon, have otten appeared Ie,s dauntcd by clly lir~ than have men. While
.\talcnahsm·. III 5
hi~ mother. which encourages in him all emphasis. in the construction of a sense of
Hardmg and :>'1. B.
ItJnlikk. (cd,), identity. on coumerpo<;llion and on boundary-drawing. Only by this means, iL seems, most of the male modem!,! literary figures of the carl} tw~ntieLh century drew ... a
Dis, 0\ er/n~ Realll). can his identity be securely established. And, the dominant place of masculine threatening piclure of the modem metropoli~ (an exception being James Joyce) .. .
D, Reidel Publlshing
views in this ~ociety. it is this - defensive and potentially so vulnerable way of modernist women writers su h a, Virginia Woolf and Dorothy Richardsun
Company. Dordl'edll 1
and Lum!u!! 1 ~~ 3. establishing a sense of self which becomes generalized in social relations, re~ponded with joy and affinnation, In Mrs Dal/ol1'oy, Virginia Woolf exulted in
pp2R3-31O, The guo­
the vitaliLY of a summer's morning in London. in the 'swing. tramp and trcad; in
lauon IS from p2Q5,
H~nsod:: s ,~ 011< of Thus, the boy's construcLion of self in opposition to unity with the mother. his con­ the bellow and uproar ... in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing
a nllrn~r of artides
,truction of idemily as differentiation from the olher. >.et~ a hostile and combative of ~omc aeroplane overhead'. Acknowledging the un~table and uncertain nature of
10 .hi~
cnlk'l.':t.ion
which develop ,hi, dualism at Ihe hean of bOLh the community men con"truct and the masculinist personal identity, she doe~ not find thiS alanning. as did Kafka and Musil.~" 27, Wilson, op cir ..
theme, a!lhou gh nul pIS?
world view by means of which they understand Lheir lives The construction of
in rc]aunn 10 {he spe­
dfic issue of place, the self in opposition to another who !hreaten~ one's very being reverberates bell hooks writes of how at times of estrangemem and alienation
See also some of the throughoul the construction of both class wciety and the masculinist world
conlnburions to L
I\ichul,un (ed,). view ... " home is no longer just one place, It is locations. Home is that place which enables
FemlnlSm/f'O~'t­ and promotes varied and everchanging perl>pectives. a place where one discovers
modernism.
]t aJs.o reverberates, [ would argue. Lhrough our currently dominant notions of place new ways of seeing reality, fromiers of difference. One confronts and accepts dis· "c
Routledge, london
1990, and of home, and very specifically through notions of place as a source of belonging. persal and fragmentation as pan of the constructions of a new world order that':
28, In 'Choosing Ihe
identity and security. Moreover, it reverberates and most importantly in the fear reveals more fully where we are, who we can become." .' l
Margin'. p149; in
24. lold.. p296,
which is apparently felt by some, including many writers on the subject, when the bell hooks, op CiT

((boundaries dissolve (or are felt to do so), when the geography of social relations
\. forces us [0 recognize our interconnectedness. On (he one hand, then, that kind of
boundedness ha~ not for centuries really been characteristic of local places. A large
component of (he identity of that place called home derived precisely from the fact
that it had always in one way or another been open: constructed out of movement.
communication, social relations which always stretched beyond it. [n one sense or
another most places have been 'meeting places'; even their 'original inhabitants' usu­
ally callie from ,;omewhcre else. This does not mean that the past is irrelevant to the
identity of place, It simply means thai there is no internally produced, essential past.
The identity of place, ju'>t as Hall argues in relation to cultural identiLY," is always and
25, S, Hall. 'Cull"..,1
Identity and cominously being produced. Instead of looking back with nostalgia to some identity of
Diaspora" in J, place which it is assumed already exiSIS. the pasl has to be constructed, bell hooks, in
Rutherford (crn. '--- - -, ,­
idenrrry: C ommunily. Yearning, returns again and again to the phrase 'our struggle is also a struggle of
Cui/un. Difference, memory against forgelling', but she is talking of 'n politiciLation of memory that dis­
Lawrence & Wi~h.n.
london 1990, tinguishes nostalgia. that longing for something to be as once it was, a kind of useless
act, from that remembering that serves to illuminate and transfonn the present.''''
26. hooks. np, ell.,
Yet. on the other hand, is also true that the balance between the internally focused
1"141
and ex.rernally connected social relations which construct a place ha~
cally, in recent years and in cenain pans of the world, towards (he lauer, Yet the argu­
ment thai this necessarily produces fear and disorientation depends on a very particu­
[n other words, for the new complexities of the geognlphy of social relations 10 pro­
duce fear and anxiety, both personal identity and 'a place called home' have had to be
conceptualized in a particular way - as singular and bOWlded. Of course places can be
home, but they do not have to be thought in that way, nor do they have to be places of
nostalgia, You may, indeed, havc many of th~m. Michele Ie Doeuff has written
I wa~ born just about everywherc, under the now shauered sky of the Greeks, in a
Bnttany farmer'~ clogs, in an Elizabethan theatre, in my grandmother'S famine.>
and destitution, and in the secular, compulsory and free schooling thai the Slate was
so good to make availabJe to me, but also in the rebellion:; that were mille alone. in
the 1'.laps that followed or preceded them, in Simone de Beauvoir's lucid distress
and in Descartes' stove. And (here is more to come,'"
29. M. Ie Doeuff.
H'pparc!uQ',!
And what is more, each of these home-places is itself an equally compJex product of Chula: An Essay
Concernil"lK Wom{'n.
the ever-shifting geography of social relations present and past. Philosophy, err
Blackwell. Oxford
1991. pIn.
shifted dramati­

14 NEW FORMATIONS A PLACE CALLED HOME 15

J. OngtnJ!i) pub­
l"hcd'l1 Fr<':t.h ",
BILINGCALISM, DIALOGISM A:'-JD SCHIZOPHRENIA I inV':Clivc, agaln't mix.:d race,. or Barre... · a~<lill ... t Ihc upronlct! I 1.\ ill qUlltC, raLher '-"
IIdfl1iJunmt'. (/I(Jl!!~
a curiosity. thi, mnre recent ,emence of \1alrau), \~ hich re'I'. n 11lllq be "md. on the
I-!.lsftte tN .H lu::oph/"(

of anolher: 'Colonel Lawrence u~ed 10 ~a). from c'<perie!K'c. that any man
me'. in AMeil-coi,
Khatib! (ed, I, flu T:::\'efan Todorol' ",Ito truly belonged 10 two culture~ .. , lost hi, !>oul: If I do not dwell on ,uch propo~i­
ht{ln~Ulsm('. J)..:no.:-L
li(lIIS. It is not because they are no IOl1ger advanced. nor hecilu,e the po;.itions thai pro­
Par" 19~5, ppll-,\;I,
'Bilinguali . . m· de,ignale, the u~c of two languages by a ,arne ~ubject: duce them are nor powerful. hur hec:au~e I ~hare 110 common ground wilh them, ~o Ihat
refcr~ I() the cn-pre~ence v,'ilhin that same <;ubject of two di;;wurses, From the per­ there can be no dialogue: if I had 10 deal wirh them, I wnuld find my~elf exposing
~peC'live of ~truC'tural lingul~ri(;s, spcech is no more than a particular manifestation of them. pointing my finger at them, draping my~clf in the mantle of mdlgnation or
and dialogn,m no more than a weakened varialion, a degraded echo of bilin­ ,atire, But my refu~al has anolherteason, more pertinent here: dc~pitc their pre~ence.
guali~m, If, however, we consider rhis. as I now propose lO do, from the perspective of or even their frequency, these altitudes now appear [0 me to belong. historically, to the
an enunciation theory (a pragmatics). everything i~ inverled: dialogism. or rather. pagt, to the great patriotic moment of the bourgeoi, Slates, an age cerTainly far from
even. polylogi<;m, becomes the general case: all subjecls praclh.e, wht:ther they know but whose end we can nonethele;.~ foresee. even if only on the ideological
it or not, a plurality of dif>course~; bilingualism. or plurilingualism - the wincidencc level. Who, in our time, would not prefer to claim their allegiance to dialogue. to the
between a type of discourse and a language thai is each lime different - becomes no plurality of cultures, to tolerance for the voice of others? Governmental declarations,
more than a particular case of dialogism, a case admilledly more dramatic, more 111 this respect, go hand in hand with the exigencies of the artistic avant-garde.
impressive than any other. Placing bilmgualism within the framework of dialogism If I cvoke the laller, it is because we find a sort of euphoric idcntity doubling in Ihe
also allows us, rather than rurning it into a purely linguistic question, to consider i[ in ~!roups that designate themselves as belonging to the avant-garde. at least in France:

direct relalion with two phenomena: the problem of the co-existence of cultural mod­
els within a !>ame society, and the internal multiplicity of personality,
But 10 examine bilingualism from the pe~pective of dialogism should not mean that
the fonner loses all specificity in relatiun to thc lattcr or, which come~ down to the
same thing. thai every fonn of dialogism is of a kind. There exists no subject whose
discourse is not plural, just as there ex i~ts no discourse that only gives one voice to be
heard, Mikhail Bakhtin, to whom goes the credit, in our times. not only for introduc­
the past few years have seen 11 multiplication of those works that speak of the beauty
of the mestizo, that praise cosmopolitanism or that reaffirm the passion of the poly Iin­
guisl. 'Writing' is willingly defined a~ a cro~sing of fronliers, a migration or exile; and
in the work of one of the epigones of this movement of idea~, I read an invitation,
addressed to writers, to 'throw thcmselves into the mad polyphony for which every
language is a foreign one, for which the language does not exi~t'.' It is from this new l, O. Scarpella,
£101;(' du co>·
doxy of a generalized polyphony, a universal brewing of language~, an unconditional
m(1p~Jllll'{me. Gra.\~(.

ing the tenn •dialogism', bUI also for making us become aware of what it puts at stake, valorization of mixing that I would like to start: not 10 prefcr its opposite and praise Pari. 1981, pI R3,

has clearly shown IlS that the individual utterance is doubly invaded by voices other Gobineau or Barre~, but to quegtion the implications and prccision of these statement~.
than those of its present ~ubject; words, jllst like their combinations, bear the traces of while abstaining, it is true, from speaking of literature.
their past use~, while at the same time the reaction of the imaginary addressee of an The first case J would like [0 bring up in this contexi is a fonn of passive dissi­
utterance b alway~ already mseribed within the utterance itself. The same holds true dence. typical of the majority of people living in tmalilarian countries. This was oncc
in what is here my perspcctivc: subjects, rhrough their discourse, always give a num­ my own situation, but Ihal was over eighteen years ago. Which explains the fonn of
ber of voices to bc heard: thcy dispose of a number of simultaneous verbal discourse) am adopting. a rather impersonal one: It is no longer possible tor me [0

Dialogism, or polylogism. is omnipresent; nonetheless, there is a great difference
between thIS general case and the specific effect of bilingualism. To narrow it down I
would say that] lim only imere!;ted here in what I would call a radical dialogism: the
case in which one disposes of IWO discourses, each of which is able - in principle and
in principlc only, I insist on this pOinl to saturate the totality of the sayable: two dis­
courses that are nm reserved for precise and clearly demarcated funclions, but thai
both aspire 10 totality, that are able 10 formulate any thought. experience or reaction.
Bilingualism is Ihen but the clearest and most obvious Case of this radical dialogism.
Thus, in any ca~e, might things appear to us before we e~amine them more closely.
In a none-too-di~tant past, everylhing thai mighl have come close to what we now
call dialogism was perceived as a defect. There is no need here to recall Gobineau's
assume this position today: my memory has generali7.ed my own case hy mingling it
with that of those close to me or even with iml!ge~ drawn from readmg. The situation
is this: one disposes of tWO alternative discourses. one used in public, the other in pri­
vate. The public discourse is the one spread by releviston, radio, newspaper" Ihe one
heard in all poli1ical meetings, the one that must be practised in any official cireum­
stance. The private discourse is the one used at home. among friends. or in any realm
that ideology does not touch from within, such as spons or
The two discourses, bOlh characterized by a totalizing vocation similar to that of the
two languages of a bilingual person, are opposed 10 each olher by their vocabulary. a
lillIe bit by their syntax, but especially by the principle according to which they func­
tion. The private discourse is governed by the exigency of what one could call a truth
of 'adequacy': the uuerances must describe the world or designatc the positions of the

16 NEW FORMATIOl'iS BILINGt:ALlS)'I. DJALOGISM AND SCHIZOPHRENIA 17

 speaking subjeci in the m()~t lln:uralc way possible. The public di~I;Ouf'.c. in tum. i,
governed hy a quest for a Iruth of the llll cnUlce i., not
confronted with experience. bUl Yo ilh other di~cour~e,. glvcn in advance and
known 10 all. an opinion thut is righl ill all
To define it more concretely, ] would like to comparc this sirua(ion 10 a few related
ones. r will refer to the fir~1 one by a lerm borrowed from George Orwell: douhle,hink.
In his novel 1984, Orwell imagines that thc party has introduced a tel;hnique, defined
!.his lerm, to manipulale con~ClOusncss. For tactical rea~on~ mhercnt to its kind of
lhe party often uttCt1> contradictory "talemenls; hut, at the same time, it
declares lhal it is completely and eonsis(emly coherenl. How can these two language
aels be re(;on(;iled? Prccisely thanks to the technique of doublethink. Here is how
Orwell describcs it: To know and nOllO know, to be conscious of complete truthful·
ne~s while telling carefully conslructed lie~, to hold simultaneously Iwo
which cancel out, knowing them lO be contradictory and believing in both of them. to
3. 19114.1.3. usc logic against togic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it .. ." This is
HIIJ/Signel, New strangely reminiscenl of another description. provided by Bertolt Brechl. praise-singer
York 1949.p32.
rather than opponent of a totalitarian regime: 'He who fights for communism/must
know how to and not fight/say the truth and not say iI/render services and refuse
his services/keep his promises and not them/expose himself to danger and avoid
danger/let himself be recognized and remain invisible.' In a word, this 'technique'
allow8 one to do away with (he law of non-contradiction, to pretend (ha( Ihere i~ a
coherence where there in fact is only incoherence. Confronted by these lWO irreconcil­
able givens: the contradictory utterances on the one hand, the exigency of non-contra­
diction on the other, the parly choose~ to act on the latter. not by accepting the contra­
dictions, but by habituating people not to perceive them where the poli<:y of the party
is concerned.
Another parallellhal easily comes to mind is the parallel Wilh dissidence this time
with active, nol dissidence. Placed before tWO irreconcilable givens, the inco­
herence of the world and the coherence of lhought, the party chooses to act on the lat­
ter. The dissidents, however, have made the opposite choi(;e: they maintain the integri­
ty of thought and denounce !.he contradiclion~ of the world they live in. We are nOI far
here from a case evoked by Balchlin himself (or by his collaborator and friend V.N.
Volosinov). In a study entitled 'The Com.truction of Utlcrances', published in 1':130
(Bakhlin and Volosinov still claimed then lO be orthodox Marxists) they examine 'the
dialogical nature of the imerni!.l discout1>e'; after having recognized this nature, they
consider a somewhat pathological variant, in which the imerior voices. instead of cor­
responding to precise and stable ideological positions. are mOlivaled only by relations
of contingency lO the given circumstances (a trmh of adequacy,?). 'In particularly
unfavourable social conditions, such a separalion between the person and the ideologi­
cal environment that feed~ him can lead in the end to a total decomposition of con­
4, cr. Mlkb ml sciousness, 10 madness or dementia':
Bakhlin. Lc pri'lcipe
d,u1oglqu<:. Scuil. A 'mad polyphony' would thus lead lO schizophrenia, if we keep [his lerm's com­
Pam ! 9~L p 109. mon meaning of personality or mental incoherence, and understand it as a form
1& NEW FORMATIONS
di'lfe."" [)ouhlethink i~ al,,) a kmd (II' madne~', ~im:e one dccide" to accept inco­
hcr~nce. even contradiction: H 1~ like a vaccine with which the parr) would like 10
inoculate everyone ~o that the incoherence of thought mighl be in harmony wilh Ihe
incoherence of thc world: we would thus be immunized. But madness is nol defined in
the Slime way in both cases: while Orwell and Ihe dissidem, identify madness which
Ih<:} see at work in the policy of Ihe pany - on lhe ba,is of mternal and qualitative cri­
term (in ~hort. the acceplance of contradiction), the party, in tum_ identifies the mad­
ne~" of the di~sidents (whom it imprisons in psychiatric hospitals) Oil Ihe ba~i~ of
exlernal and purely tjuanlltalive c,leria: thcy do not lhink the way everyone i~ ~up­
posed 10 think. thus they can only be mad. To be againsr the regime is to be again~l lhe
norm. to be abnormal.
The double!.hink imposed by the party demands that there be but one kind of dis­
cour~e all through the subject's life: one thal accepls conlradiction in the way it func­
lion~.The active dissident. in tum, alsu empl()y~ a single discourse at all times, one
lhat denounces !.he contradictions and incoherences of lhe world, but itself obeys the
law of non-contradiction. Passive dissidence, finally, disposcs of two discourses; they
are generally in contradiction with each o!.her, but each one is perfectly coherent with
the context in which it is uscd. The sole truth of the first discourse is conformity; that
of the second, adequacy. Only the third. the discourse of passive dissidence, alterna­
tive!y reaches for both.
What I am describing here is an ideal situation. )n facI, things are much more com­
plex. even if the overall strUCTUre is maintained. I have posited the pany on the one
hand, and the dissident (ac[ive or pa$sive) on the other, as clearly-definable entities. In
reality sllch oppositions are simple to esrablish discursively, but much more problem­
atic as soon as people are involvoo: the party member obviously also has both a public
and a private discourse; the same goes for the party officials (the members of what
Om'ell calls (he 'interior parly'); it is jusl that in these two cases, say, the thresholds of
separation between the discourses are not congruent. The limn between private and
puhlic is equally mobile: there is a grcat difference between the words spoken on lhe
podium of a congress and those exchanged by colleagues in the workplace. even
lhough both situations are public. Alone moment, public discourse is establi~hed for
Ihe interpretation of films, books. historical facts. At another, il is applied to personal
relalions: therc is an acceptable way (0 love, 10 be friend~, and only one! The lruth of
adequacy, which one thinks of as essential to private discourse, is often nothing but
the truth of another conformity, anterior or exterior \0 that of the situation at hand.
Totali[arianism, as we can observe illoday, is never really total: we note its presence
lfi principle, bUl we observe at the same time ils own thousand and one incoherences.
Its 'imperfection~',
so 10 speak.
In an encounter between two people, then. it will be exceptional for a homogeneous
discourse 10 be produced on both sides. or. on the contrary. for two entirely different
discourses to confront one another. There is always in reality a hierarchy of discourses
which articulates itself in relalion lO anolher hierarchy, :,imilar but not identical. What
is remarkable is how the pa.~sage from one discourse to another. the choice of verbal
BILNGUALlSM, DJALOG1SM AKD SCHIZOPHRE~IA 19
regi<;ter~ i~ pt'rfccrly l11a~rcrcd by each and everyone. \\'ithout it ever having been ,ame matcrial conLexl a, eighteen years before. Thi, is why, even though 1 am nOl par­
learned. or eyen named as such. Which a110\\ " one lD ,uppo~e thiil bt:yonu Ihal which. ticularly interestcd in my own person, I now feel almo!;t obligated to record my
in each discourse (public and privme), utter,. lie, >;()methmg ehe: Ihal which regulate" impressions.
and decides on Ihe do~e of publiC' or private to allow inlo OJ particular uttcrancc. The exile returning to hi" naLive country is nOI at all simJiar to the visiting stranger
However, this appOrtionment. which - typical of passIve dissidence - is a ,ane noL even to the stranger he himself onee waS, when he began his exile. When I
response to a SChl70phrenic silUation, CUll turn break down. What threalens il
itself In arrived in France in 1963, I knew, as il were, nothing about it. I was a stranger within
is obviously the blurnng of carefully established limil', rhe collap>e of Ihe hierarchy French society: it only gradually came to grow familiar to me. There never was a sin­
bel ween discourses. If Ihal which regulates faib 10 idenlify correctly the public and gle moment on whIch this process hinged, bur rather an imperceptible passage from
Lhe privale. everYlhing is lost: Ihe subjcci tumble!. inlO m;'lIlne~s, no longer 11 t:ultural
but a personal one an thilt i, much les~ importanL from a hi::.lorical
the po~ition of an outsider to that 0' an iflSlder (the out and the in,'
of course, rela[ive values); and then one day I realized that I was no longer II stranger.
5. The precedmg
italicized word, arc
of view, but much more to endure. Unable 10 ~tanu iiny longer the ten~ion in any case certainly not in rhe same sense as before. My second had taken in Englis'" in rhe
by the CllnsL,mL anI a lhlTerent circuits, the mdividual ends up by Qriginal (Trans.).
lhe place of the first without a clash, without violence, over the course of the years.
lclling go, and the diSCllur!.e then iovade> the private consciousness, which at However. precisely the opposite happens when the exile returns, He suddenly discov­
collapse. of an irremediable stain. ln a world bascd on ers, from one day to the next, ma[ he has an inside view of two different cultures, two
an ideal of is perilous; while abandoning it, because it has different societies. I have but to find myself back: in Sofia for everything to be imme­
been rather than accepted beforehand, will prevent the anaining of even a diately familiar to me. I am spared the initial adaptation process. Bulgarian is no less
minimal coherence. This is what distinguishes subjecL~ of Lotalitarian coun­ familiar to me than French. and I feel I belong to each of the tWO cultures.
tries from their counterparts in other countries: it is not thaL the laLLeJ" are unaware of Now here, one could say. are the ideal conditions under which to witness me blos­
the division introduced into their discourse by rhe cleavage beLween the truth of ade­ soming of the interior dialogue. to profit from bilingualism, since one posilions one­
quacy and the truth of conformity, bUI Lhat the penally for mfraclions of the rule, for self from the outset beyond misunderstanding, and from there can enjoy the incon­
an untimely jamming. is le~s heavy. testable expansion of one's verbal universe. Just as Bakhtin wished (in texts other than
I will move without transition to the ~econd example of dialogical practice, which Ihe one CIted above), just as the proponents of mad polyphony advocate, neither of the
also involves bilingualism. namely my own experience as a bilingual subject. My thus IWO discourses, neither of the two languages really swallows the other by subordina!­
transforming myself into an example perhaps requires justification; here it is. Born in lng IL: I should have been living in a euphoria of disharmony. We are quick to say,
Bulgaria, ] have lived in France since 1963. In March 1981, exactly eighreen years Lhough hyperbolically: I feel French with the French, American with the Americans,
after my departure. I returned to my nalive country for rhe first lime, on the occasion Moroccan with the Moroccans; aod we feel a cerrain pride in thus being able to mani­
of a Conference on Bulgarian Studies, and stayed len days. I will add, to fill ou[ the fest the different facets of a same personality, the ability to understand others and to
picture. that] lived wirh my parenrs during rhis time, in [he same house in which 1 had identify with them. And in my case the hyperbole could have proved true: I could
formerly lived. have been French with the French and Bulgarian with the Bulgarians; each of my two
The experience 1 will describe is rhus that of an exile returning 10 his country after a personalities could have realized itself in one of my two languages. However, though I
long absence (I must add Lhal ] am a 'Clrcumstantial" exile, neither political nor eco­ might not know exactly how to analyze my experience during this return to my native
nomic). BUI. lhanks 10 a series of fortui!ou~ events, this el>perience was heightened to country, one thing appears certain and unquestionable: Ihe experience was for me one
an almo~1 paroxysmal pilCh, anu this lS what impels me to analyze it. Some people of unease (malaise] and psychic oppression. It is this unease. this difficulty of being.
descend to the bottoms of caves 10 observe. under those exceptional circumstances. Ihal 1 would here like, not so much to explain. but to describe. I will immediately add.
how the organism reacts: this later allows them 10 underSland belLer its normal func­ to aVOId a simple misunderstanding. that me origin of this unease does not seem to me
tioning. Without doing it on purpose. I was, during lhese lell days in May, Ihe scene of in the common sense of the word - related, say. to the difference of regimes
an equally uncommon nor a descent 5400 feet below Ihe earLh, bUL a belween Prance and Bulgaria; the problem I am speaking of is not one of censorship.
return 10 [he lef! years before. The exceptional circumsLanct:s in thi~ I had a premonition of Ihis unease even before leaving for Sofia, while I was
case are thus: Ihe dural ion of rhe absence; the LOlal naLure of the rupture during those preparing my lecture for the conference to which I had been invited. The subject of the
eighteen years (there is no Bulgarian community in Paris, or else] did not know It, for colloquium being 'Bulgaria', I was confronted with the question of the value of
lack of interest: news Iravelled verv badlv between Paris and Sofia. thanks to the 'iron nationalism. My position was (I am obviously simplifying) that natives are always
between Paris and Sofia than, say, blinded 10 their own identity, that the history of a people is never anything but the sum
of the eXlerior influences it has been submitted to, that in any case it is better to live in

20 NEW FORMATIOl'S BILINGUALISM, DIALOGISM AND SCHIZOPHRENIA 21

the pre~enl than to try to n~~urre«.:t the pa~t: in short. there is not much point in confin­
ing oneself to traditIOnal national values. I wrote rhis without hesitating. The problem
arose whcn I began to translate my speech, originally wrillen in my 'borrowed' lan­
guage, French, into my native language, Bulgarian. It wa~n't so much a question of
vocabulary or syntax, but that, by changing the language, I found myself changing my
imaginary addressee. And it heeame clear to me at that moment that the Bulgarian
intelleclUals 10 whom my speeeh would he addressed could not hear in ir the meaning
I intended. Condemning national values has a different meaning depending on
whether one lives in a little country (one's own) in the orbit of another. larger one. or
whether olle lives abroad, in a third country, where one is - where one believes one­
self 10 he free from any threat from a more powerful neighbour. Paris is undoubtedly
a propitious place for a euphoric renunciation of nationalistic values; Sofia much less
so.
To a lesser this problem is familiar to any orator. any writer: one modifies
one's discourse in rehllion to one's assumed audience or reader. But the modification
that my imaginary audience asked of me was more than that: I had to go so far as to
replace an affirmation by its opposite. I understand the posilion of Bulgarian intellec­
luals and if I had been in their place. I would probably have thought the same as they.
But I am no! in their place. I live in Paris and not Sofia and I think the opposite. Only
how to lell them? Behave as if only my French persona counted and speak my mind
without considering what I knew of their reaction? But that would be refusing to rec­
ognize that I have an inside access to Bulgarian culture. Speak as if J had never left
Sofia? Bul that would be the same as spiuing on the last eighteen years of my life. Try
to combine the Iwo positions, lO find the neutral path? But one does not combine A
and non-A with impunity. All I can do is pass over all this in silence ...
This unease reappeared in another form during conversations with friends in Sofia.
For instance, someone complains about the circumstances of their life. When this hap­
pens £0 me in Paris, J can offer my interlocutor all sorts of suggestions. They may be
more or less convincing but they obviously assume that we share a common e)(istence;
thus they are willing to listen to me. The same does not hold true in Sofia. If I try to
'put myself in the shoes' of my interlocutors, thus also in those of my Bulgarian per­
sona, 1 propose specifically 'Bulgarian' solutions to their problems. But I feel they are
listening to me skeptically; if i:hings were that easy, lheir skeptical silences seem to
say (or their voices sometimes sayl. why don't you stay here, to try your own remedy?
But I can't very well say, in this situarion: 'Well, you know, I can see your problem ...
but, whatever, I'm taking [he plane on Monday for Paris.' This is nonetheless true and
I sometimes feel like saying it, either because I can't find a solution 10 the problem, or
because I want to flee a skeprical smile. No, I cannot say that, not only because il is
impolite, but also because to do so would he to take exclusively the point of view of
my French persona, the 'me' who is only passing through Sofia. Perhaps I could com­
bine the two positions? But even if I can be bolh French and BUlgarian. I can only be
either in Paris or in Sofia; to he in both of these places at the same time is not yet pos­
sible. Yet what I must say depends too much on where 1 say it for the fact of my being
22 NEW FORMATIONS
here or Ihcre to be indifferent to mt:. My double belonging only produces one result: in
ffi) own eye~. it IaInt~ eaeh of my two discourses wlth mauthenticit)'. ~ince each can
correspond but IO half of who I am; yet] am ind~ed double. I thus once again confine
myself to an oppressive silence.
In the course of Other conversations, I realize that when answering questions about
life in France I only willingly ~peak about that which resembles life in Bulgaria, or
~bout whar isn't going well (often the two do coincide - bureaucracy, the mandarin
mentality. nepotism ... ). Everything I could boast of, however, gets stuck in my
Ihroat. This IS becau~e in the fir~ case, I occupy a position a~ accessible lO .he
Frenchman in me as to lhe Bulgarian, while in the latter, only the Frenchman
and being also Bulgarian_ I place myself in the position of my interlocutors and suffer
from the limitations imposed on me. A double speech once again proves impo~sible.
and I tind mys.elf cut in two. each half as unreal as the other.
Probably thinking to please me, bm perhaps also sincere, the old friends I meet say
10 me: 'But you haven't changed a bit! You are exactly the same: But to hear this
does not please me. It is a way of denying [he existence of the laST eighreen years, of
aCling as if they hadn't taken place. as if 1 had not acquired a second personality. My
mother has kept one of my pairs of shoes in a drawer. and she gives them to me (0
work in the garden. I put them on: there is no doubt, they are indeed mine, deformed
in the same places as all the shoes I wear; they fit me perfectly. I am recognized,
accepted; conversations are picked up where they were left off eighteen years ago.
Everything is conspiring to make me think that these years have simply not e)(isted,
that they are a dream, a fantasy, from which I have just awoken. A little more, and I
will be offered work, I will settle in, I will be able to marry .. I would prefer, on the
contrary. if people didn't recognize me, if they were surprised at all the changes I have
undergone, Telephoning the French Cultural Attache I feel a real relief: I can speak
French, it wasn't all a dream! On top of it all, this man has heard of me, he knew I was
going to come: my French existence is thus not a fantasy! And while the topic of the
conversation is rather dull (how to send more French books to Bulgarian libraries
without increasing the budget), I feel revived by the complicity implied by our
exchange: I have been confirmed in my existence. If I lose the site from which I
speak, I can no longer speak. If I do not speak, then I do nor exist.
Space (the elsewhere) was threatening to disappear. Time, however, had never
seemed to me so long: those ten days lasted nearly eighteen years every night I felt 1
had a couple of years. Instead of the years lived in Paris. each conversation, each
encounter made me imagine those I could have lived in Sofia. No! Made me remem­
ber all those I had lived there, unawares. For I was not learning the history in the man­
ner of a stranger or a distant relative to whom everything must be told because he
comes from outside; no, I received it from the inside, through hints, allusions, via the
imagination. This ability to immerse myself immediately, totally. in the Bulgaria 1 had
left rendered the experience of my immediate past, of my French identity I implaUSible
in my own eyes. It was impossible, out of these two halves, to make a whole; it was
either one or the other.
BILINGUALISM, DIALOGISM AND SCHIZOPHRENIA 23
 other) voice into the French context. not the reverse; the place of my present identity
The dominant impression was thus one of incompatibililY. From 11 certaIn poinl of
view, my two languages, my IwO discourses were 100 much alike: each could encom­ 1~ Pari,. not Sofia.
J am reaching the end of my remarks. which is not, however, a conclusion. In the
pass rhe totalily of my experience and neither wa~ clearly subordinated to the olher.
first case I evoked. that of passive dissidence, the two discourses could only function
One reigned here, the other there; bur each one reigned unconditionally. Too much
harmoniously when each maintained its place within a strict hierarchy, In the second.
alike, they could only substitute for, but not combine with each other. Hence the per­
that of the return to one's native country, the two discourses, which were aJso two lan­
sistence of this impression: one of these lives must be a dream. In Sofia. it is life in
guages. pushed me towards madness as long as I could not assign them clearly distinct
France that appears to me as a dream, and ] come to feel the ~ame inability to go back
functions. You will thus understand why, while I reject the idea that to belong to two
that one feels upon awakening. I also frequently catch myself saying, in the course of
cultures means to lose one's soul. , also doubt that to dispose of twO voices. of two
each new encounler in Sofia: here's another ghos.t! Or, what amounts to the same
languages, in itself constitutes a privilege guaranteeing access to modernity.] wonder
thing: I am a ghost. This makes me think of a story by Henry James, The Joll,v Corner,
if a bilingualism that assumes the neurrality and complete reversibility of the two lan­
where the main character, returning to his country after an absence of thirty-three
guages is not an illusion. or at least an exceprion; if its emancipatory use would not
years. actually sees real ghosts ... Back in Paris, it is precisely when I emerge from
require both a common ground shared by whoever utters in either language, and, at the
sleep that I am the most disrurbed: I no longer know which world to enter. And then
same time, an aniculation, a significant gap between the two. a strict division of duties
my mother writes to me: now, I wonder whether you really were here or if this was all
in a word, a hierarchy. Silence and madness appeared to me at the horizon of mad
just a dream. Dreaming or madness. for perhaps I am only pretending to have lived
polyphony and I found them oppressive; this is undoubtedly why I prefer the mea­
here and there. Dreaming and madness which are but a way of reacling to the schizo­
phrenic situalion itself - just as in passive dissidence, the incoherence of the mind is sured space of dialogue.
perfecrly coherent with the incoherence of the world, ..
Each of my two languages is a whole. and this is precisely what makes them impos­
sible to combine, what prevents them from fonning a new totality. My knowledge of
Bulgarian did not. before this visit, render my life in France impossible al all; the use
of my mother tongue, Ihere, is kept strictly within functionaJ limi[s. A few words, at
the end of a conversation, with the rare Bulgarians I know in Paris; the correspon­
dence with my parents; a tinle, we]! spaced reading; the multiplicarion table; a few
curses: these are just about an the circumstances in which, in France, I use Bulgarian.
I can also very well imagine the opposite situation: living in Bulgaria, ] become a
French translator, or I speak to foreign visitors, or I become a speciruist in French his­
tory. But this is obviously not what I experienced during my ten-day visit. I did not
renounce any part of my French personalilY. even as I acquired, indeed integrated an
equally whole Bulgarian personality. It was too much for a single being! One of the
rwo lives bad to supplant the other complerely. To avoid this feeling, in Sofia, I sought
refuge whenever possible in physical work, removed from all social contact: I cut
grass in the garden. clipped trees, moved earth - rather in the manner in which, when
one feels awkward in a new situation, one gladly volunteers to peel potatOes or eagerly
agrees to playa game of ping-pong, happy to regain at least the integrity of one's
body.
The equruity of the voices causes me to feel a touch of madness, Their asymmetry,
their hierarchy, on the other hand. are reassuring. And I feel very clearly that, just as
my bilinguruism. or my diruogism. is conslitutive of my present personality. so is a
cenain hierarchy (not just any). A publishing company in Sofia asks me to preface a
collecrion of Freneh literary criticism. I hesitate to accept, I procrastinate, even though
in France I am used to playing dlis role of preface writer. It is because the hierarchy
with which I am familiar would be reversed: I know how to integrate the Bulgarian (or

BILINGliALISM. DIALOGISM AND SCHIZOPHRENIA 25

24 NEW FORMATIONS