Assembling No: Remarks on Diaspora and Intransitivity

Diaspora, imagined in terms of a people that belong both to a place of departure and to a place of arrival, is implicitly transitive. Narrated in these terms, a diasporic people is defined by being in-between two places, by a transitive zone of indeterminacy. It is marked, at its arrival-place, by its belonging to another (departure-)place, and thus as not fully belonging to the (arrival-)place; it is marked, at its departure-place, by its belonging to another (arrival-)place, and thus as not fully belonging to the (departure-)place.¹ To be in-between departure and arrival is to be in-between places of belonging. This in-between is simultaneously articulated as a belonging-too-much (belonging to more than any one given place) and a belonging-not-enough (failing to belong to any one given place)—the both/and valence of diaspora is likewise a neither/nor valence.