Abstract

In this paper, I explore one way of thinking about political community. Drawing on Jean-Luc Nancy's idea of community, I suggest that community is not a full circle, but an open-ended line. Thinking community-as-a-line is to shift our focus from the completed pictures of community to the inception of community. In this way of thinking, community is a shared mode of being. I argue that at the heart of sharing lies translation-communication – or translation space – where one (singularity) is perpetually ingrained in others (plurality). The subject constantly “emerges” in relation to others in translation space. I argue that looking at community as a line is a way to avoid the statist boundary, the subject of which is situated either inside or outside. I further argue that the elusive subject in translation space engages in politics through escape.

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