DECONSTRUCTION ON THE MOVE - FROM LIBIDINAL ECONOMY TO LIMINAL MATERIALISM

In the wake of the Mobius spiralling of relativism and reflexivity, mu ch of the theoretically inclined literature within human geography has turned to the motifs of difference and otherness as a possible basis for fostering a coming together and rapprochement of previously incomm ensurate theoretical-practices. Much of this effort has been undertake n in an explicit attempt to maintain political, moral, and ethical res ponsibility in the face of a dangerous slide into passive nihilism and indifference. In the first half of the paper I argue that the attempt to forge a universal currency which would enable difference to circul ate freely within contemporary human geography is flawed for three int errelated reasons. First, by working through a libidinal economy of ne gation it forces difference to conform to the Same. Specifically, diff erence is captured as so-many standard deviations from the Norm. Secon d, this apparatus of capture is predestined to yield a state of confus ion, imprecision, and indistinction which can only be contained within a quotation market. Third, by dwelling upon negation and appropriatio n, and through capturing difference within a normalized economy of the Same, the forging of a universal currency within a quotation market d eprives itself of the ability to effectively affirm difference, othern ess, alterity, and singularity in and of themselves. Such an affirmati on would require an act of ex-appropriation, rather than one of approp riation. Consequently, by drawing upon the liminal materialism of a de constructive experience, in the second half of the paper I explore fou r movements of ex-appropriation: radical passivity, destabilization on the move, telephony, and picnolepsy. The paper concludes with a discu ssion of the ethics of the event.