Writing Against Expulsion

Abstract

Abstract Across the mid-century texts with which the book is concerned, and in the face of the geopolitical non-place, there was a drive to envision a non-expulsive spatiality. This chapter details the importance of thinking about the Universal Declaration in spatial and relational terms. The commitment to envisioning a non-expulsive spatiality is established through the 1951 Convention on Refugees with its emphasis on non-refoulement. Drawing on the defining terminology of the Universal Declaration, an evolving image of ‘reciprocal recognitions’ is traced through Olson’s manifesto, Arendt’s Human Condition and Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks. Across these texts, ‘recognition’ is identified as a transitional term, not generating a politics in itself but opening up the intersecting intention to articulate non-expulsive spatiality.