Ancient Wandering and Permanent Temporariness

Abstract

To move towards an understanding of displacement from within, and the forms of its overcoming, the following chapter brings into dialogue the ancient experience of wandering and the 21st century condition of permanent temporariness. It explores whether these are the same or different phenomena, and whether the latter is a uniquely modern experience. In particular, it is interested in the turning points that lead to the defiance of the condition and its regime. It traces modes of existence that subvert the liminal state and allow for possibilities of living beyond the present moment through returns and futures that are part of everyday practices, even if they are splintered. Such actions, it is argued, allow for the repositioning of the self in relation to the world, and thus the exposition of cracks within the status quo. The investigation confronts experiences that appear to be uniquely those of the present day—such as non-arrival and forced immobility. In its exploration it engages current responses to de-placement by those who have experience of the condition first hand. It is a dialogue between the work of such creators as the architects Petti and Hilal, the poets Qasmiyeh and Husseini, and the community builders of Dandara, with ancient discourses of the outcast that are found in Euripides’ Medea, the experience of Xenophon and such philosophers as Diogenes the Cynic. In so doing, it seeks to expose the way seemingly exceptional forms of politics and existence, instead, reveal themselves as society’s ‘systemic edge’.