On Heterogeneity and Spatiality

Naoki Sakai is an adamant proponent of heterogeneity, seeking in his work to disrupt national and regional constructs that obscure the signs of difference contained within them.  Constant throughout Translation and Subjectivity is a fervent desire to transcend such binaries as West and East, universal and particular, modern and premodern.

One of the difficulties of area studies is that the dimensions of the field are delineated by the very boundaries that easily reify cultural difference and discourage a more direct engagement with, for example, "Japan."  We have already seen how Harootunian posits the uneven encounters with modernity in everyday life as one possible site of critical analysis, and Sakai emphasizes the decentering effects of language and translation as another.

I wonder of we might draw upon spatiality--both physical and textual--as a way of linking the work of these two scholars.  In the first case, space defines the physical relationships between human beings in society, enabling a social encounter that goes beyond the rigid capitalist model of existence (the human as homo economicus).  In the latter, space exists within the text itself, enabling a linguistic encounter that alters the reader's understanding of the world.  These spatial relationships are by no means bound to a culturally specific context, yet they resist the homogenizing tendencies of ethnocentric discourse by remaining forever open to interpretation.