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Deconstructing Context: Exposing DerridaAuthor(s): Clive BarnettReviewed work(s):Source: Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series, Vol. 24, No. 3 (1999),pp. 277-293

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Deconstructingo n t e x t : expos ing D e r r i d aClive BarnettDeconstruction has become a theme in various strands of geographical research. Ithas not, however, been the subject of much explicit commentary. This paperelaborates on some basic themes concerning the relationship between deconstructionand conceptualizations of context, with particular reference to issues of textualinterpretation. The double displacement of textuality characteristic of deconstructionis discussed, followed by a consideration of the themes of 'writing' and 'iterability'as distinctive figures for an alternative spatialization of concepts of context. It isargued that deconstruction informs a questioning of the normative assumptionsunderwriting the value and empirical identity of context.key words Derrida deconstruction context interpretation spacing textualityDepartment f Geography,Universityof Reading,Whiteknights,POBox227,ReadingRG62ABemail:c.bamett@reading.ac.ukrevisedmanuscript eceived 1 March1999

Thinking thrusting against the limits of language?Language is not a cage. (Waismann 1965, 15)If words and concepts receive meaning only insequences of differences, one can justify one'slanguage, and one's choice of terms, only within a topic[an orientation in space] and an historical strategy.The justification can therefore never be absolute anddefinitive. It corresponds to a condition of forces andtranslates an historical calculation. (Derrida 1976, 70)

Stitching up DerridaDeconstruction, and the work of Jacques Derrida inparticular, has taken up a place in geography'spanoply of theoretical reference points througha diverse set of debates and discussionsaround postmodernism, post-structuralism, post-colonialism, the cultural turn, feminism, identitypolitics, the crisis of representation and so on. Andyet it continues to be treated as a peculiarly esotericdiscourse, by detractors and defenders alike. Thispaper elaborates on some basic themes concerningthe relationship between deconstruction and con-ceptualizations of context, with particular referenceto issues of textual interpretation. The modest aimis to render a representation of deconstruction as

an accessible, open and useable supplement toexisting geographical methodologies. The paperstarts with a discussion of the deployment ofdeconstruction in geography, and proceeds to acritique of the conceptualization of context as aprinciple of explanation and interpretation. It thenprovides an account of the deconstructive displace-ment of usual understandings of textuality, and anaccount of the themes of writing, iterability andspacing in deconstruction. It concludes with areconsideration of the normative value accorded to'context'.

The appearance of deconstruction in geographytakes a variety of forms. For some, reference todeconstruction serves as a limit case that securesthe continued identity of critical social science,established political positions and respectableforms of moral judgement. Deconstruction is foundnot to conform to existing rules of how theoryshould address 'politics', 'reality' or 'history', andas a result is corrected, dismissed or simplypilloried. So, one can find deconstruction pre-sented as merely a mode of demystificationthat disallows any critical or ethical judgements(Livingstone 1998);as an example of a postmoderndiscursive idealism that has nihilistic tendencies atbest, and elitist-conservative ones at worst (Peet

Trans Inst Br GeogrNS 24 277-293 1999ISSN0020-2754 RoyalGeographical ociety(withTheInstituteof BritishGeographers) 999

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2781998); or as an inconsistent, even nonsensicalmoder-day sophism that proposes that we arelocked in the prison of language, and that reason isimpossible (Sack 1997).Alternatively, while decon-struction might be admitted to have some poten-tially interesting insights, it seems necessary toguard against an excess of negative energyimputed to it, for fear of undercutting the condi-tions of action, decision and judgement (Bondi andDomosh 1992; McDowell 1991).Deconstruction also inhabits other fields of geo-graphical researchin a more positive fashion. It is ashadowy presence in discussions of post-colonialism, radical democracy and critical geo-politics, for example. Geographers have addressedthe relevance of Homi Bhabha's notions of 'third-space', the 'in-between' and 'hybridity' (Bhabha1994; Pile 1994; Rose 1995a; Soja 1996), and ofissues of anti-essentialism, positionality and sub-alterity that draw upon the work of GayatriSpivak (Spivak 1990; see also Gregory 1994;Radcliffe 1994; Routledge 1996): both Bhabha andSpivak work over distinctively deconstructiveintellectual terrain. There has been convergencewith work that deploys deconstructive insights toquestion conceptual boundaries in political theoryand international relations theory, in order torethink conceptualizations of sovereignty andterritoriality (Agnew and Corbridge 1995, 78-100;Connolly 1995), as well as a reconfiguration ofgeopolitics as a distinctive form of writing (OTuathail 1994; 1996). Deconstruction has informedinnovative retheorizations of economic value andthe nature of capitalism (Castree 1996; Gibson-Graham 1996). And the geographical dimensionsof anti-essentialist understandings of radicaldemocracy bearing traces of deconstruction havealso been a subject of discussion (Massey 1995;Mouffe 1995; Natter 1995). In all of these fields,geographical research is being rethought in direc-tions that, at one remove, testify to a deconstruc-tive sensibility. Yet the explicit consideration ofdeconstruction continues to be left in abeyance;its application remains limited to those 'in theknow'.Deconstruction is also eagerly championedin the name of the delirious disruption ofall epistemological certainties (Barnes 1994;Strohmayer and Hannah 1992). This particularunderstanding depends upon staging a dramaticdeparture from methodological approaches thatwere previously consumed by the ruses of

CliveBarnettscientific rationality and naively mimetic concep-tions of language (Dixon and Jones 1998). Thesesorts of arguments tend to enclose deconstructionwithin the plane of meaning, conforming to thebroader hermeneutic recuperation of post-structuralism in geography. Post-structuralismhas come to be the name ascribed to almost anygeneral sense of reflexivity towards 'language','discourse' or 'representation'. This, in turn, sus-tains a casual reference to 'deconstruction' as ashorthand for a demystificatory form of ideology-critique which reveals the essential constructed-ness of categories, concepts and identities (Harley1992). A related presentation of deconstruction ingeography refers to it as an authoritative referencepoint for a set of substantive theoretical proposi-tions. Deconstruction is alluded to as having con-clusively demonstrated the necessary instability ofmeaning and the necessary fluidity of identities, aswell as the necessary incoherence of corres-pondence theories of truth. This staging bolstersarguments in favour of anti-essentialism, radicalepistemological anti-foundationalism and plural.istsocial theories of difference.

When confronted with such accounts of decon-struction, one might legitimately ask from whencethe imputed demonstrative force of deconstructionis meant to derive? The translation of deconstruc-tion into a set of epistemological and ontologicalpropositions raises the question of whether the'conceptual' significance of deconstructive practicehas been effectively communicated in these sorts ofgrand statements of deconstructive lore. In so far asdeconstruction implies any truth claims whatso-ever, a consideration of these must acknowledgethe extent to which they are dependent uponwhat one might call a distinctive epistemology ofexemplarity: 'There is no work of theory withoutexamples. The examples are essential to the theory.The theory cannot be fully understood without theexamples' (Miller 1995, 323). Deconstructive con-cepts are all drawn from particular texts, and theyfunction as examples of general rules of which theyare the only available characterizations. Derrida'swork, for example, consists of painfully detailed,somewhat idiosyncratic readings of other texts.Deconstruction is rigorously parasitic on the cor-pus of other texts, idioms and traditions. It doesnot involve an abstract analysis of conceptualoppositions, but only ever works over conceptualsystems in particular contexts. This has conse-quences for the sorts of generalizations one can

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Deconstructingontext:exposingDerridamake about deconstruction. In a sense, deconstruc-tive practice guards against an immediate applica-tion as a general theory of meaning, reference ortruth.

The exemplary, parasitic and performativecharacter of deconstructive practice suggests thatdeconstruction might fruitfully be approached notin terms of the binary oppositions that have beenso characteristic of geography's encounters thus far(representation and reality, difference and identity,essentialism and constructionism, foundationalismand relativism), but rather as elaborating a differ-ent order of 'quasi'-transcendental questioning (seeBennington and Derrida 1992, 267-84; Gasche1986; 1994). The favoured terms of deconstruction(such as writing, trace, supplement) are eachderived from the singular context of the particu-lar text where they are found. They are alsoreinscribed towards a metatheoretical level of sig-nificance to which they never quite attain. Thisreinscription lays bare the constitutive relationshipbetween the conditions that make possible a givenphenomena in the apparent fullness of its identityor meaning, and how these same conditions alsomark the impossibility of such phenomena everbeing realized in their ideal purity. Deconstructiontherefore involves an exposure of conditions ofpossibility and impossibility. This does not refer totwo separate sets of opposed conditions. Rather,possibility and impossibility are doubled up in thesame conditions. This doubling of (im)possibilityexcludes an emphasis solely on the pole of eitherenabling or disabling conditions. Or, to put itanother way, it suggests an analysis in termsother than the simple, all or nothing choicesbetween success or failure that so often character-ize debates in geography. The distinctive epi-stemological significance of deconstructive practicedoes not lie primarily in relation to issues ofcertainty or scepticism, constructedness or corre-spondence. Deconstruction implies a different,non-oppositional placement of necessity andcontingency, rule and chance, fact and fiction,repetition and change.If, then, deconstruction is a presence in variousfields in human geography, it continues to be thesubject of very little explicit exposition. Thereseems to be an unacknowledged investment in theidea that deconstruction is too difficult, or tooprecious, to be opened up and made accessible. AsSparke (1994, 1066) observes, there is a tendencyfor some commentators on deconstruction to adopt

279an attitude of 'vanguardist theoreticism', whichjustifies a haughty disdain for any and all attemptsto make deconstruction available. But it is not inthe spirit of deconstruction to insist that it is anunremittingly difficult idiom. This only enclosesdeconstruction, contains it again, imposes andcelebrates inaccessibility as a badge of radicalpotential never to be realized. The purpose here, ina spirit of wilful naivety, is to provide a commen-tary on some features of deconstruction that mightapply to certain methodological and conceptualissues in human geography. The specific focus isupon the issue of context, a theme of generalconcern in geographical empirical and theoreticalresearch. It will be argued that by helping to drawout the spatial imaginary of conceptualizations ofcontext, deconstruction works to resist the tempta-tion to turn immediately towards historical,linguistic or social context in all their empiricistobviousness.

The authority of contextThe importance of context in human geography isboth substantive and theoretical (Sunley 1996).Substantively, there is a strong sense that geogra-phy is actually all about contexts. 'Place' is onceagain a favoured reference point for research, atheme that can be traced back to debates in the1980s over localities, regions and structure andagency (Massey 1984; Thrift 1983). These debateslaid the groundwork for what is now a muchbroader appreciation of the place-specific constitu-tion of social processes, registered not least in theturn to 'culture' in various subdisciplines. 'Con-text' is shorthand for a sensitivity towards theways in which general processes are embedded,modified and reproduced in particular, localplaces. Theoretically, this concern is related to acritique of universalist epistemologies. Ideas, rep-resentations and theories are understood to beintrinsically connected to the particular contexts inwhich they are produced. Post-structuralism is justone reference point for this understanding of thecontextual nature of knowledge and conceptualiz-ation. Across a range of subdisciplines, context isconceptualized as the particular and the contin-gent, contrasted to and revalued over and abovegeneral processes and universal logics of necessity.Thus, contextualism is staged in opposition toessentialism (Barnes 1989), the cultural is staged in

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280opposition to the economic (Crang 1997) and placeis staged in opposition to space (Curry 1996);in allcases, the particular is staged in opposition to thegeneral, the contingent to the necessary. In short,an oppositional conceptualization of the differencebetween the general and the particular under-writes the theoretical ascendancy of context incontemporary human geography (see Strohmayer1993, 326).It is at this point that a series of theoreticaldifficulties present themselves, revolving aroundthe tendency to map distinctions such as necessaryand contingent, abstract and concrete, space andplace onto each other (see Cox and Mair 1989;Sayer 1989a; 1989b). The question that emergesfrom these discussions, one that bears upon con-temporary geographical contextualism in general,concerns the image of space that underwrites theclear demarcation of necessary relations from con-tingent conditions, general process from localrealizations, while also enabling the former to beaugmented by the latter. Discussions of context inhuman geography tend to conform to the 'strangelogic of the supplement' elaborated by Derrida,according to which what seems at first to be asecondary, unnecessary or superfluous addition toan apparently authentic and natural form (such aswriting to speech, translation to original) turns outto be necessary and essential to it: the addition ofthe supplement marks 'the originality of the lackthat makes necessary the addition of the supple-ment' (Derrida 1976, 214). The affirmation of thenecessity of contingency in human geography, evi-dent in the proliferation of context as a generaltheme, suggests that contingency is folded backinto the realm of necessity or generality in a patternthat threatens to undermine the very possibility ofclearly and decisively distinguishing two differentsets of relations or conditions in the first place. Andthis suggests that the localization of context on oneside of a divide between place and space is equallyproblematic. Rather than imagining some tidyresolution to these problems of dualistic thinking(Sayer 1991), it might be necessary to consider awholly other way of imagining the space ofconceptualization through which to rethinkcontext.The importance of context is, then, widely takenfor granted in human geography. But there is verylittle explicit consideration of just what constitutes'context'.1 In fact, context often serves as a sortof explanatory black box. It should therefore be

CliveBarnettpossible to raise some questions regarding what isexcluded by the unquestioned imperative 'alwaysto contextualize'. Deconstruction only indirectlyaddresses the predominant thematic concerns thatgeographers have about context. In what follows,the issue of context will be addressed through thespecific prism offered by conceptualizations of con-text in relation to issues of textuality and interpre-tation, which have become significant themes inrecent human geography (see Barnes and Gregory1997). It is hoped that deconstruction's particularconcern with questions of textuality (which is notto be denied) will be shown to articulate withbroader questions of concern to geographers,insofar as this concern turns upon a problematiz-ation of the characteristic spatialization ofcategorical conceptualization.2

The starting point for this exercise in expositionis the observation that invocations of the authorityof context in human geography are characterizedby a reference to context as the explanatory orinterpretative principle with which to rein in theapparent threat of linguistic indeterminacy.Human geography's recent encounter withtheories of discourse, representation and textualityand associated interpretative methodologies hasgone hand in hand with a careful foregrounding ofcontext as a guiding principle of interpretation.There is a taken-for-granted consensus that ideas,discourses and representations need to be placed inhistorical, economic or social contexts if they are tobe properly interpreted, explained and criticized.Landscapes-as-texts need to be placed in the con-text of material landscapes (Mitchell 1996; Peet1996); textual spaces need to be understood inrelation to real spaces (Gregory 1995;Smith 1994);spatial metaphors need to be grounded in materialspatiality (Smith and Katz 1993); literary represen-tations need to be seen in broader social contexts(Cresswell 1996); generalized commodification isascribed differential significance in local contexts(Jackson 1999). There are two notable featuresabout the spatialization of concepts implied byappeals to context as the principle that fixes anddetermines meaning. Firstly,texts or utterances arecharacteristically put (back) in context, in an act ofreplacing. The appeal to context is an act thatlocalizes, returning artefacts to their original situa-tions or their proper locations. Secondly, the appealto context (whether understood as places, periodsor epochs, or linguistic communities), involves theinstallation of borders that provide a secure frame

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Deconstructing context:exposing Derridawithin which calculations of an otherwiseunbound textuality can be contained. Deconstruc-tion suspends both these operations, and in sodoing opens a space in which to address explicitlythe theoretical formulation of context.

One of the subdisciplines where there has beenextensive conceptual reflection on issues of contextis in the history of geographical ideas. The evolu-tion of modem academic geography has beenplaced within a broader, intertextual context ofinstitutional and scientific developments (seeLivingstone 1992; Stoddart 1981). There has alsobeen a consideration of contexts that lie beyond thenarrow confines of the academy: economic, politi-cal and social contexts (see Driver 1992;Godlewskaand Smith 1994). In his most recent work, DavidLivingstone has further refined understandings ofcontext by reflecting explicitly upon the spacesin which geographical knowledge is produced(Livingstone 1995). In this field as in others, discus-sions of the relations between texts and contextshave come to serve as the means through which todevelop general theories of communication thattend to privilege certain understandings of 'com-munity', 'meaning' and 'practice'. Robert Mayhewhas proposed an understanding of context as afield of shared communicative action that regulatesthe production and circulation of geographicalknowledge and its historical interpretation(Mayhew 1994). In searching for a secure epistemo-logical foundation for the possibility of historicalrecovery, Mayhew is forced to posit an idealizedlinguistic consensus as the basis of the possibility ofmeaning (Mayhew 1998). This conceptualization oflinguistic context starts from the acknowledgementthat meaning might be difficult to pin down, butonly as a prelude to an account in which this possi-bility is ascribed no place in explaining how mean-ingful communication works. In this account, a'performative' theory of language is understood asone that confirms the legitimacy of established rulesand norms of language use (Mayhew 1998, 23).3The exclusion of indeterminacy and chance fromthe essential understanding of communication inconventional theories of language is the index ofthe moment at which context, understood as thelinguistic context in which utterances are containedby the sanctions that reproduce accepted publicsenses, is conceptualized according to an enclosed,bounded image of space. The link between anidealized model of communication that accordsunquestioned legitimacy to the conventional

281authority of idealized homogenous communities,and a distinctively areal, enclosed conception ofcontext is made explicit in Michael Curry's pro-gramme for a 'geography of texts' (1996). Curry'sproject is dependent upon a certain conceptionof the proper place of texts in the world.Place-making is understood as a collaborative, con-sensual practice, the subject of which is an un-differentiated 'we' (1996, 96-8). It is, furthermore,an unselfconscious practice: it is a matter of habit,custom, routine, not of cognition or conceptualiz-ation, nor of applying rules. This understandingprovides the basis for Curry's account of thesociable geographies of written texts, which enablethe establishment of community and solidarity,the construction and maintenance of places, andextension of understanding across space and time.

The problem with written texts, for Curry, isthat, while they have a series of proper locations(real and virtual places such as libraries, seminarrooms or communities of readers), they also havethe unfortunate tendency to promote an imageof the text 'as something mobile, somethingthat could be anywhere' (Curry 1996, 204). Thismobility somehow belongs properly to texts, but isalso prone to an excessive drift that must becontrolled if understanding is to be maintained.While Curry admits the possibility that texts mightturn up in unusual places (such as the street, forexample), this is only conceptualized as a mis-placement, and is not accorded any conceptualsignificance. He posits an all-or-nothing model ofcommunication, in which the reproduction ortranslation of texts is always governed by a binary,hierarchical opposition between identity and dif-ference, success or failure. The admission that textscan drift out of place serves only as a preliminaryto an assertion that any tendency towards exces-sive spatial mobility needs to be contained. Anidealized model of undifferentiated, consensualplace-making underwrites an account in whichtexts and utterances are considered only to havemeaning by virtue of being backed up by rightfulauthority - which is equivalent to being in theirproper, rightful places.Both Mayhew and Curry provide conceptuallydetailed accounts of issues of texts and contexts,which acknowledge the latent possibility ofindeterminate and misplaced textuality, only toexclude this possibility from their conceptualiz-ations of the essential features of language, mean-ing and communication as an exceptional event, a

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282mere accident. This repudiation of the possibility ofmeaning going astray binds together the inside ofcontext, whether this is understood as a linguisticcommunity, a social consensus or a bounded place.A certain image of space, made up of definedborders and edges enabling clear distinctions to bemade between essence and accident, is pivotal tothis sort of conceptualization of language. There isan unobserved prescriptivism involved in thesekinds of accounts of communication and linguisticcontext. An acknowledgement of the conven-tional qualities of communication practices slidesimperceptibly into a theoretical warrant for limit-ing proper language usage to a narrow range ofactivities sanctioned by given cultural communi-ties. Behind an inflated rhetoric of 'practice', aseemingly neutral and functional account of lan-guage in terms of rules, consensus, shared codesand proper usages transforms social norms intofacts and puts them beyond question (see Cameron1995).Deconstruction is often presented as involvingan unconditional affirmation of pure linguisticindeterminacy. This position can in turn be rhetori-cally rejected on the grounds that it putativelyleaves no firm foundation for social communica-tion or meaning. There is also an almost axiomaticassumption that deconstruction is a narrow, ideal-ist textualism that warrants a cavalier disregard forissues of context. In both cases, 'context' (or 'prac-tice'), tends to be invoked as the principle thatstabilizes the slipperiness of meaning that decon-struction is supposed to celebrate. Particularrepre-sentations of deconstruction help to secure thenormalization of consensual, agreeable communi-cation as an a priori principle of order. But decon-struction does not enter this field on one side of achoice between whether to contextualize or not,nor whether to decide that meaning is absolutelysecure and transparent or absolutely indetermi-nate. It is not the conventional, social nature ofcommunication practices that is at stake, but thequestion of how to judge the operation and force ofnorms and conventions. The rest of this paper willshow that deconstruction offers an account oftextuality and contextualization that differs fromconventional understandings by virtue of its char-acteristic treatment of exceptions. Exceptions aretaken as indices of an alternative understanding ofthe rules governing communication practices,rather than the occasion for confirming the obvi-ousness and legitimacy of existing rules and their

CliveBarnettoperation. And deconstruction's treatment ofexceptions disrupts the stable spatial order ofcategorical conceptualization.

Displacing textualityPrising open the enclosure of languageA starting point for this discussion is to askwhether deconstruction does indeed teach that weare confined to the prison-house of language.Surely this is the inevitable reading of Derrida's(1976, 158) infamous little phrase, 'there is nothingoutside the text'? One can find in geography apositive interpretation of this as necessarily mean-ing that there is no way to get outside language inorder to justify truth claims. There is 'only ashifting system of signifiers which is inescapable'(Barnes 1994, 1025). In fact, human geography'sencounter with deconstruction opened with thisfounding act of containment: 'Deconstructionshows how language imposes limits on ourthinking' (Dear 1988, 266). Such readings onlyconfirm an established convention of representinglanguage in terms of boundaries, confinement andlimits. Is it not possible to imagine the space oflanguage differently?The distinctive images of enclosure that charac-terize. so many discussions of language are ques-tioned by deconstruction (see Bennington 1989).Deconstruction interferes with understandings ofborders and boundaries by rewriting spatialcategories according to a rhetoric of movement,tracking the ways in which conceptual closure isonly ever constituted by regulating the play ofopening and exposure. Any discussion of decon-struction therefore needs to negotiate the staticspatial imaginary of categorical conceptualization,which is closely tied to a territorial vocabulary ofdelimitations (Bennington 1994, 259-73; Reichart1992). Deconstruction not only recasts the spatialimaginary of concepts like text and context, but theresult of this insistent questioning of the operationsof borders and boundaries is a set of rather blurred'concepts' with no clear edges, which keep slippingfrom view. Deconstructive concepts are always onthe move (Doel 1994).The deconstructive sense of textuality refers tothe movement by which all apparently enclosed,totalized and self-identical objects and concepts arefractured by their necessary relations with otherelements:

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Deconstructing context:exposing DerridaIf there s no-thingoutside the text,this implies,withthe transformationf theconceptof text n general, hatthe text is no longer the snug air-tight nside of aninteriority or an identity-to-itself ... but rather a differ-ent placementof theeffectsofopeningand closing. (Derrida1981a,35-6, emphasisadded)This has two implications that bear upon the issueof the image of space that underwrites conceptu-alizations of context. Firstly, by questioning thedivision between the pure interiority of texts andthe absolute exteriority of contexts, it suggests the

inadequacy of any representation of deconstruc-tion as remaining within the 'inside' of a text (or asystem of signifiers). By fraying the edges betweentexts and contexts, and rendering the distinctionfinally undecidable, deconstruction promises tofree a concern with texts from a characteristicreduction to the plane of meaning, and from sub-ordination to all the reassuring ethical values ofcommunity, identity and integrity that the uncriti-cal deployment of hermeneutic protocols implies(De Man 1989, 218-23).

Secondly, and perhaps paradoxically, the ques-tioning of the setting of boundaries and bordersbetween texts and their contexts renders problem-atic any claims that the 'world-is-like-a-text'. Themetaphorical generalization of text has been animportant factor in the extension of interpretativemethodologies in human geography (see Barnesand Duncan 1992; Duncan 1990). Paul Ricoeur'smetaphorical generalization of text as a model forsocial action has served as a theoretical referencepoint for this operation (Ricoeur 1974;1981). Texts,on this model, continue to be understood asintelligible unities, subject to hermeneutic interpre-tations that reconstitute the meaning-full-ness oftexts, of social action or of landscapes and places.Another important source of expanded notions oftextuality in human geography is Roland Barthes(Duncan and Duncan 1988; 1992). Barthes (1977)dissolves the hermeneutic search for originalmeaning into an endless plurality of acts of read-ing. Singular and original meaning is displacedfrom its position of authority, only to be replacedby the uninhibited sovereignty of multiple inter-preting subjects. These two notions of textualityconform rather exactly to the 'two interpreta-tions of interpretation', which are characteristic ofmoder philosophies that determine language ascoextensive with meaning. On the one hand, thesearch for origins (in intention, desire, context); onthe other, original meanings are dissolved into an

283interminable polysemic play of signifiers (Derrida1978c, 292-3). One should certainly hesitate beforeassimilating deconstruction to either position.Deconstruction gives rise to neither hermeneuticdeciphering nor the semiotic decoding of meaning(Derrida 1982a, 29).And nor is deconstruction particularly wellread as a programme that presents philosophy,conceptualization or language as primarily andinescapably metaphorical: 'Derrida is widely mis-taken for a friend of metaphor' (Patton 1996, 120).The Derridean reinscription of textuality effectivelydeconstructs the conceptualization of metaphorthat underwrites the 'world-is-like-a-text' theme,according to which a proper sense of text is simplytransported to its outside (Derrida 1978b; 1982a,207-71). Derrida recasts the spatiality underlyingunderstandings of language: conceptions of meta-phor depend upon a stable spatial order and on themaintenance of secure borders, which allow thetransportation of a given sense to new domains.Deconstruction's generalized textuality is notstrictly metaphorical at all, since it depends uponan abuse of meaning that refers to no proper norm(Derrida 1984, 123).Derrida's generalization of textmight be better understood as a metonymic effect,articulating contiguous elements. Unlike the logicof identity that characterizes metaphor (see DeMan 1996), the epistemological effects ofmetonymy depend upon maintaining the play ofirreducible difference between senses.A strategy of interventionIf the deconstructive generalization of the conceptof text 'almost without limit' (Derrida 1986a, 167) isnot merely a metaphorical carrying over of onemeaning to other realms, then what does itinvolve? This generalization is predicated upon atransformation in the very sense of text, one thatdepends on refiguring the spatial image of therelations between borders, frames, insides and out-sides. This is well illustrated in the followingcitation, which indicates the doubledisplacementatplay in the deconstructive sense of textuality:

If we are to approach a text, it must have an edge. Thequestion of the text, as it has been elaborated andtransformed in the last dozen or so years, has notmerely 'touched' shore, le bord .. all those boundariesthat form the running border of what used to be calleda text, of what we once thought this word couldidentify, ie, the supposed end and beginning of awork, the unity of a corpus, the title, the margins, the

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284signatures,hereferentialealmoutsidetheframe,andso forth.What has happened, f it has happened, s asort of overrun (debordement)hat spoils all theseboundariesand divisions and forces us to extendtheaccredited oncept, he dominantnotionof a 'text',ofwhat I still calla 'text' orstrategic easons, n part- a'text'that is henceforthno longera finishedcorpusofwriting, ome content nclosed n a bookor itsmargins,but a differential etwork,a fabricof tracesreferringendlessly o somethingother han tself,to otherdiffer-ential traces. Thus the text overrunsall the limitsassigned o it so far(notsubmerging rdrowning hemin an undifferentiatedomogeneity, ut rathermakingthemmorecomplex,dividingandmultiplying trokesandlines)- all thelimits,everythinghatwas setup inopposition o writing (speech, ife, the world,the real,history, ndwhatnot,everyfield of reference tobodyormind,consciousorunconscious, olitics,economics,and so forth). Derrida 979,84-5)

As noted above, there is a double displacement oftext at work in this citation. Firstly, this passagedemonstrates that text no longer functions, in animmediate way, as the name of an intelligibletextual object, counterposed to an extratextualoutside. Rather, in deconstruction, 'text' is re-positioned as the very medium across which thedivision is established and traversed. Text is justone figure for an understanding of mediation cutloose from an origin or a teleological end, in whichthe middle is not merely a passage between twopre-existing entities, but is given priority as aconstitutive play of chance and necessity.4Secondly, the displacement of text, as a figure ofmediation, depends in turn upon the transforma-tion of the normal concept of text. Derrida's writ-ings reinscribe the usual sense of text in relation toa vocabulary of fabrics and cloths, woven tissuesand threads, weaving, lacing, binding, rending,knotting. This underwrites an infrastructuralredefinition of text (Derrida 1982a, 160). Writing isa woven texture, an 'interlacing that weavestogether the system of differences' (Derrida 1981a,165), bringing elements into relation in a networkof interruptions, interlacing them while respectingtheir alterity.Understood in this way, textuality hasno beginning or end, it is inextricable, or 'limitless'.Derrida's text is, then, an 'anagram' (1981a, 98),constantly and productively crossing between set-tled and innovative senses. The mobilization of thiscitational drift between senses underwrites the'strategic' purpose animating the reinscription ofterms such as text, writing, trace or supplement:deconstruction makes use of words that 'slide' in

CliveBarnettorder to make the discourses from which they aretaken slide (Derrida 1978c, 262-70). Deconstructiondoes not supplant one set of concepts with acompletely new set. It supplementsexisting con-cepts. Deconstruction 'liberates' characteristics of aconcept that are normally held in reserve, andextends them beyond their normally restrictedscope. In so doing, it blurs the clear boundariesthat underwrites their restriction. This is describedas a practice of 'paleonomy', retaining an old nameto establish a new concept (Derrida 1981b, 71). Theretention of the old name for the new, generalizedconcept is the condition for retaining the power ofintervention that deconstruction aims to make incertain institutional domains. In borrowing theresources from the discourse it traverses, decon-struction 'finds its very foothold there' (Derrida1976, 314). The aim is to demonstrate the system-atic relations between concepts that are oftensubjected to a rigorous separation, revealing thepossibilities that are available to manipulate theseseparations in all their ambiguous potential.Deconstruction opens a line of questioningregarding the installation of frames, limits andboundaries with respect to practices of reading andwriting, from the scale of the microgeographies ofwritten texts through to the macrogeographies ofcultural formations and social institutions. It makesvisible the ways in which texts are embedded inregulatory technologies of reading, writing andperformance, which imply a distribution ofpolitical effects all of their own.A focus on institutional questions is not there-fore missing from deconstruction (which is not tosay that deconstruction's attention to the institu-tion cannot usefully be supplemented). The doubledisplacement of text is related to deconstruction'sparticular mode of traversing the institutional anddiscursive spaces in which it takes up residence.Deconstruction should not be too rapidly conflatedwith the radicalization of the structuralist concep-tion of the sign (Derrida 1981a, 261). It does notsimply offer a theory of language as an infinitesemiosis of meaning. This notion remains tied to abinary metaphysics of the intelligible and sensible,and necessity and contingency. It, in turn, informsa particular reading of the relationship betweenlanguage and power. Effects of social power areunderstood to take the form of wholly arbitrarystabilizations of the necessary indeterminacy ofmeaning; this then supports the notion that simplyperforming or uncovering the essential instability

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Deconstructingontext: xposingDerridaof clear, sharp conceptual divisions is a political actwith unambiguously oppositional value.The deconstructive analysis of the undecid-ability of meaning implies that the articulation ofsocial power and language does not necessarilytake the form of stabilizing the instabilities ofmeaning or naturalizing social constructs. Quitethe contrary, it might be the case that the articula-tion of certain real-world power relations worksthrough the recognition and explicit manipulationof irresolvable instabilities of meaning.5 One lessonof deconstruction is that the political value of eitherfixing meaning (of closure or of identity) or ofmaintaining instability (of ambivalence or of differ-ence) is not open to prior, conceptual determina-tion. Deconstruction certainly points towards thecontradictory and finally irreconcilable conditionsof events, institutions and acts of identity. Butit also affirms that these are necessarily givenfoundations in performative acts that pass througha structure of repetition (see Butler 1997; Weber1989). This renders their foundations or groundsunstable but not, simply for that reason, whollydispensable (Derrida 1986b; 1989; 1990). It followsfrom this understanding of the necessary institu-tionalization of foundations that the criticalenergies released by deconstruction are neitherwholly transformative of that upon which they act,nor wholly conservative. Rather, deconstructionraises the question of what boundaries it is neces-sary to assume and protect for certain practices toget underway.If, then, deconstruction is to be understood asan analytics of 'effects of opening and closing',how does it promise to alter understandings ofcontextualization as a norm of interpretation?To address this question, it is necessary to con-sider a little more closely the thematics of writing,iterability, spacing and differance.

Writing, iterability, spacingCommunication and communityThe relevance of the deconstructive generalizationof text to understandings of the spatial orderunderwriting conceptualizations of context is mostclearly indicated by Derrida's engagement withAnglo-American ordinary language philosophyand speech-act theory, and particularly the work ofJ L Austin (Derrida 1982a, 307-30; 1988; Austin1962).6 This tradition presents a philosophy of

285language where meaning is understood in relationto the communicative contexts in which words areused. In so far as meaning is secured by context, itis presumed that context can be totalized andtheoretically reconstituted, at least in principle. InAustin's account of performative utterances, the'felicitous' outcome of a communicative actdepends firstly upon a context of shared under-standing between interlocutors, and secondly uponthe self-presence of intentions to speakers andlisteners in spoken words. The possibility of an'infelicitous' outcome, of meaning going astray, isadmitted but conceptually separated from its alter-native. Exceptions are characteristically deployedto establish the priority of a particular model ofproper usage secured by the force of consensus.Austin's is a highly normative account that turnsupon the maintenance of a clear division betweenlegitimate and illegitimate uses.In recognizing the social and communicativeaspects of language use and meaning, speech-acttheory nonetheless determines the social field ofintersubjective communication as homogenous,harmonious and unified. It presents an account oflanguage use as an essentially cooperative form ofactivity in which subjects are regulated by sharedaims of agreement and consensus (Pratt 1986a).Animage of spatially bounded communities of aparticular scale is posited by this account of properusage. Austin's philosophy of language remainsconceptually dependent on a representation ofa community of self-conscious, self-identicalspeakers communicating within the immediateproximity allowed by the range of the voice: 'acommunity immediately present to itself, withoutdifference, a community of speech where all themembers are within earshot' (Derrida 1976, 136).Deconstruction entails a rigorous questioning ofthe ethical and political presuppositions of theoriesof language and interpretation that presume'linguistic utopias' in which communication issecured by a single plane of meaning shared by allmembers of a community (see also Pratt 1986b;1987). Conventional theories of communicationand meaning such as speech-act theory, but alsoincluding contemporary theories of dialogism andideal speech situations, privilege an ideal of acommunity of speakers and listeners inhabiting thesame horizon of consensus, teleologically directedtowards mutual understanding. Identity of inter-est, of purpose or of culture is presupposed as thecondition of successful communication.

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286Rather than presume shared language and thepre-given boundaries of a homogenous com-munity as a prior condition for communication,deconstruction exposes difference, chance, disjunc-ture and uncertainty as necessary conditions of

communication (see Chang 1996). Difference is notunderstood as the negation of identity nor asopposition. Difference is rewritten according toan alternative spatialization, not of containmentand enclosure, but of folds, openings, passages.Communication negotiates across an aporeticspace-between that gathers up and separatesspeakers and listeners, writers and readers in anon-reciprocal ethical relationship of responsibilitythat exceeds calculation (see Critchley 1992;Derrida 1992a; 1992b; Levinas 1969). Communica-tion is thus rethought along the lines suggested bya certain understanding of translation (Derrida1985a), one that affirms a necessary element ofuntranslatability as its very condition. This is notregarded as a barrier to communication, but as themark of an articulated play of opening towardsalterity that is not assimilated in the event ofcommunication that it makes possible. It followsthat in deconstruction, commonality is figured notin terms of identity or homogeneity, but in light ofan acknowledgement of 'the impossibility of anabsolutely pure and rigorously uncrossable limit'(Derrida 1993, 75). Deconstruction thus informs awider effort to rethink the possibilities of commu-nity, ethics and universality beyond the horizon ofshared identity and transparent communication(Nancy 1991; Young 1990; 1997).7

Articulating differanceThe affirmation of difference in deconstruction,freed from conceptual subordination to identitywhere difference is understood as derivation,negation or opposition (Doel 1992) leads ontothe related themes of 'spacing', 'writing' and'iterability'. These terms are central to the disrup-tion of the normative value accorded to context intheories of interpretation. Writing serves as thefigure of an alternative understanding of space, interms of spacing and opening. Derrida consistentlyuncovers a normalizing impulse at work in classi-cal and modern theories of meaning. This is regis-tered in the reduction of the contingencies of spaceand time to an order of essence, identity, necessity,presence. Conceptions of the 'normal' operation ofspeech, meaning, communication or signification

Clive Barnettare routinely secured by the thematization ofempirical exceptions that need to be excluded fromconceptual consideration. Yet,just as routinely, thesubordinated term reappears metaphorically todescribe the normal operation: it is in two placesat once, both inside and outside an enclosedconceptual space of essence or necessity.For Derrida, it is writing that is most oftensimultaneously thematized and elided in this way,as a necessary supplement and as a figure ofabsence, deferral, difference and spatial extensionthat must be neutralized or recuperated in thename of identity, meaning, understanding andunity. Writing is usually understood as themedium in which meaning is transported, but alsoas a medium that is risky, dangerous and liable tousurpation. It is this ambiguity that is exploited inthe deconstruction of context. Written texts must beable to operate in the complete absence of theirauthor's intentions or wider conditions of originalproduction (Derrida 1978a, 123-43); writing mustbe able to be read out of context, it is 'born bysuspending its relation to origin' (Derrida 1976,243). Derrida deploys the notion of writing toindicate that the power of dispersal usuallyreserved for writing is inherent to all language use:'That language must traverse space, be obliged tobe spaced, is not an accidental trait but the markof its origin' (Derrida 1976, 232). The extensionof language in space is not a secondary, deriva-tive or accidental feature that is added to theproper ideality of meaning. The characteristic of'iterability', the capacity for differential repetitionout of context, is therefore the condition of writingas writing: writing must be repeatable and remainlegible even in the event of the disappearance of itsauthor or any specifiable addressee (Derrida 1982a,315).Three issues immediately follow from Derrida'sre-evaluation of writing as a figure for a non-reducible movement of spacing as the condition ofcommunication. First, the theme of originary writ-ing redraws the notion of origin. The generaliz-ation of writing, as condensed in various figuresof movement, spacing and temporalization, isindicative of an effort to think of conditions ofpossibility without reference to an origin ofpunctual presence or pure form. Secondly, writingnames the spacing or drift at the origin of allidentity and presence, and this suggests areworked sense of representation. In affirming theirreducibility of representation, this term is now

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Deconstructingontext: xposingDerridaunderstood in relation to textual figures of pres-ence and absence, thereby displacing a purelyvisual notion of representation (see Castree 1996;Derrida 1982b; Spivak 1988). Repetition of the'same' element in a new context involves a move-ment of re-presentation that passes through astructure of iterability. And thirdly, the theme ofwriting indicates a re-evaluation of chance. Theunreliable and error-prone characteristics usuallyascribed to writing as a mere supplement aregeneralized as constitutive conditions of all com-munication. This should not be confused with asimple evaluation of chance in opposition to neces-sity or rules. It is, rather,connected to a sense of thenecessity of the play of chance or indeterminacy inany successful communicative practice (Lawlor1992, 111-22).

Combining these three themes of a non-originalorigin, re-presentation as differential repetition,and chance, allows one to approach the importanceof the theme of differancen deconstruction. Differ-ance is an understanding of difference that is notsubsumed within an order of the same; it testifiesto the continuing importance ascribed to certain'transcendental' questions. Diffgrance implies adouble reference: to spatiality, in the sense ofdifference as apartness and separation, and disper-sal; and to temporality, in the sense of deferring,delay and postponement (Derrida 1973, 82). It isabove all important to underscore the processualsense of the movement of differance.Differance sanother figure for a movement of mediation thatopens presence, identity and time and their con-ceptual derivatives of absence, difference andspace (Derrida 1982a, 1-27). It is one name for the'practice of spacing' that opens the space for rep-etition and representation, but this is understoodas an aleatory space that ensures that pure repeti-tion or re-presentation of the same is finally impos-sible.8 Differances therefore a 'concept' that worksto free understandings of temporalization andspacing from subordination to any teleologicalhorizon: 'Tosay that diffrance is originary is simul-taneously to erase the myth of a present origin'(1978c, 203).9

Dissemination without returnIn deconstruction, the possibility of repetition inthe absence of original context, which is usuallyreserved for the conventional concept of writing asan addition that transmits the content of a speech

287act, is generalized as a condition for all languageuse. The possibility of written marks being takenout of context, their 'iterability', is the expressionof an originary dislocation that inheres in all com-municative acts. All communication inhabits astructure of iterability: all signs can be cited, canbreak with context and can be engaged innew contexts. Any original event is thereforeirredeemably lost as soon as it is enunciated,unrecoverable in its apparent singular and origi-nal plenitude, inscribed as it is in a pattern ofdisplacement and repetition. Language isalways already delivered over to an unforeseeabledestination.A condition of the intelligibility of a text in anycontext is that it is already on the move. Thepractice of deconstruction reveals this movement;so does translation. That texts are subject to trans-lation is an empirical fact that has theoreticalconsequences for the spatial and temporal orderunderwriting conceptualizations of context as anorm of interpretation. Translation is here under-stood not in terms of an abstract division betweenoriginal and copy, but as a process that passesthrough a whole continuum of transformations(see Benjamin 1978, 325). As such, translation isanother figure of fragmentation, movement andinstability at the 'origin':

This movement of the original is a wandering,anerrance, kindof permanent xileif you wish,butit isnot reallyan exile, for thereis no homeland,nothingfromwhichone has beenexiled.(DeMan1986,92)Iterability, the movement of textuality thataccounts for the potential of elements to be graftedinto new contexts, is therefore characterized by a'dissemination without return', a pattern of disper-sal without an expected, anticipated trajectory(Derrida 1992a, 48). This is not to be confused witha hermeneutic conception of polysemy, whereinmultiplicity and variety is contained within a planeof meaning, so that plurality is predetermined asessentially semantic. Dissemination does notproject a horizon of (indeterminate) multiplemeanings. It is not a matter of lexical or semanticrichness at all; dissemination is a 'concept' derivedfrom the observation of syntactic variance (Derrida1981a, 220-21). Deconstruction directs attention tothe 'horizontal' placement of elements in relationto each other. It therefore implies an analytics ofarticulation,not of correspondence, interpretationor necessity.

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288Displacing contextDeconstruction's characteristic reordering of thevalue ascribed to citations, deviations, the marginaland the secondary implies a different approach toquestions of context. Rather than subordinatingexceptions to transcendent norms, deconstructiontakes them as the starting point for developing adifferent understanding of the ways in which rulesoperate, disrupting the ground of self-evidenttruths against which the exception appears as such(compare Pecheux 1982, 199). Again, the specificproperties normally ascribed to writing areinvoked here. It is useful to cite Derrida, to makeclear what this resistance to the normalizingrestriction of chance, error and indeterminacyas non-essential accidents or exceptions reservedfor writing implies for conceptualizations ofcontext:

This is the possibilityon which I want to insist:thepossibilityof extractionand citationalgraftingwhichbelongs to the structureof every mark, spoken orwritten,and which constituteseverymarkas writteneven beforeandoutsideeveryhorizonof semiolinguis-ticcommunication;swriting, hat s, asapossibilityoffunctioning utoff,at a certainpoint,from ts 'original'meaningand from its belongingto a saturableandconstrainingcontext. Every sign, linguistic or non-linguistic, pokenor written(inthe usualsense of thisopposition),as a smallor largeunity,can be cited,putbetween quotationmarks; hereby t can break withevery given context,andengendernew contexts n anabsolutelynonsaturableashion.Thisdoes notsupposethat the markis valid outside its context,but on thecontraryhat hereareonlycontextswithoutanycentreof absoluteanchoring.Thiscitationality, uplication, rduplicity,his iterability f the mark s not an accidentor an anomaly, ut is that(normal/abnormal) ithoutwhich a markcould no longereven have a so-called'normal'functioning.Derrida1982a,320-21)

The important point is that, because of the iterablecharacter of all signification, context is alwaysopen: 'the limit of the frame or the border of thecontext always entails a clause of nonclosure'(Derrida 1988, 152-3). It should be noted that thisunderstanding does not lead on to a disregard forissues of context, nor of intention. But it does implythat if there is no meaning without context, thennor can any context ever finally be closed orpresent to itself. Contexts must always be open toserve as contexts, but therefore they cannot finallycontain the force of iterability: 'This is my startingpoint: no meaning can be determined out of

Clive Barnettcontext, but no context permits saturation'(Derrida 1979, 81).The meaning of texts and utterances is depend-ent on already being on the move, spaced outtowards multiple, unanticipated recontextualiz-ations. It is the value ascribed to certain unprob-lematized notions of context as an authoritativemethodological protocol, dependent upon a wholeset of unstated philosophical and ethical assump-tions, that is put in question by deconstruction.Traditionalquestions of context are not abandoned.They are relocated into a practice in which they nolonger serve as the governing norms. The decon-structive affirmation of spacing, in the figures ofwriting, iterability and differance,uggests that anyanalysis of texts is thrown forward:

One of the definitionsof whatis calleddeconstructionwould be the effortto take this limitlesscontext ntoaccount,to pay the sharpestand broadestattentionpossibleto context,and thus to an incessantmovementof recontextualization.(Derrida 1988, 136, emphasisadded)

Deconstruction affirms a heightened awareness ofcontextualization, understood as the limitlesspotential for texts to be rearticulated in an infinitenumber of times and places.After deconstruction, context might be bestthought of as a distinctively spatial figure notof containment but, insofar as it refers to whatprecedes, follows and surrounds texts, of therelations of contiguity and proximity betweenelements. While deconstruction certainlyacknowledges that texts cannot not appear inplaces, it also provokes a rethinking of place interms of difference, mobility, dislocation andopenings, rather than in relation to the areal logicof consensus and enclosure. The trace of differanceis inherent to all self-contained and self-presententities, such as community, place, context or thesubject (Derrida 1976, 44-73).10 The play of repeti-tion at the origin of the experience of identity anddifference, presence and absence, time and spacesuggests an approach to place understood as aperformative 'scene of writing' (Derrida 1978c,196-231; see also Casey 1997; Wigley 1993). Thepassage through a differential movement of spac-ing indicates that meaning takes place in anoscillation between articulations and disarticula-tions, attachments and detachments, which arealready underway. Postcards are, perhaps, a pri-mary figure for the deconstructive understanding

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Deconstructingontext: xposingDerridaof the relations between texts, contexts andspacing implied by this incessant movement ofrecontextualization (Derrida 1987): addressed to aspecific interlocutor, a postcard is nonethelesspotentially open to be read by anyone. Successfulcommunication is not therefore dependent on theprecise containment of messages within enclosedchannels of exchange. Postcards exemplify thedisseminating force of textuality that exceeds allattempts at finally enclosing meaning in properplaces, since they cannot be secured from beingread by unexpected readers in unanticipatedplaces. Yet postcards are also a figure for theaffirmation that meaning is irreducibly tied tolocal sites. That is, meaning is dependent on, butnot finally reducible to, local practices. If meaningis related to context, then this does not requirethat meaning be made conceptually dependent onutterances always being articulated in proper con-texts by the proper person backed by the properauthority.The different orientation to relations betweencontext, place and norms of propriety suggestedby deconstruction is revealed by the observationthat the repertoire of terms that characterizedeconstruction's reinscription of philosophical con-ceptualization (such as the supplement, the trace,writing) are all figures of the parasite. Parasites arecertainly defined by their relation to places; but nottheir own places. They have no properplace: noplace that is properly their own, nor a place that istheirs to own, and they also all tend to eludeattempts to contain them on one side of clearconceptual boundaries. The parasite is a figure ofmediation, localized between insides and outsides,defined by its apparently paradoxical spatial loca-tion: proximate and distant, similar and different,inside a domestic economy but not of it, this sideand the other side of a threshold (Miller 1991, 145).The figure of the parasite therefore disrupts modelsof communication premised on ideals of exchange,identity and community (see Serres 1982). In itsinsistent affirmation of figures of the parasite,deconstruction accords considerable attention toquestions of space, time and place. In so doing, itundoes the stable spatial order that secures athinking of difference according to a specific nor-mative economy of identity and opposition. Theproliferation of figures of the parasite in decon-struction indicates an alternative spatial order notof oppositions, but of articulation, folding, openingand spacing.

289Departure pointsIn closing, it should be acknowledged that decon-struction does not necessarily lead onto a uniquetheoretical or empirical programme that can sche-matically be summarized. It is not the intentionhere to point towards a new empirical agenda assuch. Rather, this paper has pursued three broadthemes. Firstly, it has tried to indicate the need torethink the characteristicspatialization of conceptsthat underwrites the construction of context as apossible empirical object of analysis or norm ofinterpretation and explanation. It has done so bycalling into question understandings of bordersand limits, images of enclosure and representationsof stable spatial patterns that are routinely takenfor granted in discussions of context. The paper hastherefore suggested that the tendency to take 'con-text' for granted, both as an empirical object and asa theoretical theme, is related to a particular imageof space that underwrites the possibility of makingclear categorical distinctions between insides andoutsides.

Secondly, it has been suggested that deconstruc-tion moves through other programmes, methodsand theories in distinctive ways. This paper hastried to give some sense of the direction of thisemphasis, rather than to set out a number of rulesthat could be applied. In particular, it has beensuggested that what is distinctive about decon-struction is the way in which it directs attentiontowards a thinking of context without nostalgia fora lost presence, however formulated. It helps to callinto question the authority of usual appeals tocontext, whether this is framed as the intention of aconsciousness, the communicative horizon of inter-subjectivity or as a determinant historical or socialground. Deconstruction's concern for context isnot, therefore, governed by an ethics of properusage, rightful authority or necessary relations,which is closely tied to a particular spatial regimeof conceptualization.

Thirdly, deconstruction does not reduce every-thing to the status of a text. On the contrary, itmultiplies and recasts context, and liberates anempirical and theoretical concern for contextualiz-ation from the normalizing rules that usually gov-ern explanation and interpretation. Deconstructionis a creative practice of the articulation of newrelations that are not established in advanced.1The movement of undecidable address at the'origin' suggests an analysis of openings and

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290closings, movements and dispersals, arrivals anddepartures, deliveries and returns. This analysismight be pursued in two directions. Firstly,through an investigation of how relevant contextsfor texts are stabilized discursively, institutionallyand socially (see Bennett 1987; Genette 1997). Thiswould be an analysis of the installation and dis-semination of the rules, protocols and norms ofconduct that secure consensus and agreement incommunities of interpretation.12 Secondly, throughan analysis of the production of novelty throughpractices of resignification (see Butler 1997). Anysuch practice necessarily negotiates a field ofauthority relations, calling in turn for an analysis ofthe conditions that enable relations of authority inlanguage use to be productively redirected.13 Whatboth of these possible directions of analysis share isan appreciation of the constitutive movement ofmediation and recontextualization through whichany communicative practice passes. This suggeststhat a geography of texts must be premised uponmovement, spacing and difference, rather thanupon place, identity and containment. And aboveall, this implies an analysis freed from assumptionsof propriety that often continue to govern interpre-tation. Amongst other things, this form of analysisaffirms chance and creativity, and in so doingmakes visible questions of responsibility:

Our interpretations will not be readings of a herme-neutic or exegetic sort, but ratherpolitical interventionsin the political rewriting of the text and its destination.(Derrida 1985b, 32)

AcknowledgementsI thank Murray Low, Julie McLaren and threeanonymous referees for their critical comments onearlier drafts of this paper.

Notes1 The discussions in Thrift (1994; 1996) provide impor-tant exceptions to this general absence of conceptualconsiderations of context.2 The concern for the spatialization of concepts directsattention to the distinctive images of space that

arrange orders of knowledge and understanding. SeeFoucault (1973) and, in geography, Rose (1995b).3 It is open to question whether the performative forceof utterances or texts follows from correctly followingaccepted laid-down norms of linguistic communities,or whether it is better thought of as deriving from the

Clive Barnettcapacity of utterances to break with contexts, toassume new ones in a movement of appropriationthat reworks the economy of established norms (seeButler 1997, 127-63).4 Other Derridean figures for this sense of constitutivemediation include trace, dissemination, supplement,iterability, writing, mimesis, hymen, pharmakon, up-plement and differance.5 This point is demonstrated forcefully by Sedgwick's(1990) analysis of the operations of modern heter-onormative practices and systems of power (see alsoFuss 1995).6 It is worth noting that the relationship betweenspeech-act theory and deconstruction is not an oppo-sitional one, in spite of the nature of the exchangebetween Derrida and John Searle (1977). Derrida'sinterruption of this tradition has generated new linesof inquiry into the conceptualization and the politicsof performativity (Cavell 1995; Felman 1983; Parkerand Sedgwick 1995), as a well as a more generalreassessment of the relations between so-called 'Con-tinental' and 'Anglo-Saxon' philosophical traditions(Dasenbrock 1989;Staten 1984).7 See Low (1999) and Rose (1997) for applications ofthis line of thought in geography.8 For a related discussion, see also Deleuze (1994).9 It should be noted that Derrida's deployment ofdifferanceworks over themes of space and timefound in the phenomenological tradition, which arediscussed in detail in Strohmayer (1998).10 For deconstruction, the 'trace' marks the place for thearrival of the Other, which cannot be anticipated orconstituted in an identity without a reduction to theSame. 'Trace' therefore bundles up the three over-determined themes of the possibilities of meaning,the ethical relation to the Other and the opening ofspace-time in the movement of temporalization andspacing (Derrida 1976, 46-7).11 For further discussion of articulation as an analyticpractice, see Grossberg (1992).12 For analyses of this sort, see Barnett (1996; 1998;1999).13 This practice of resignification is characteristic ofpost-colonial literary writing. Perhaps the bestexample is the long history of appropriations of Thetempest in a variety of geographical and historicalcontexts. See Nixon (1987) and Zabus (1994).

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