Mapping the Transnational

Abstract

This essay presents a synthesis of different conceptual approaches to the issue of cross-cultural experiences and contact-zones among cultures and languages, with a special emphasis on the importance of spaces of “crossing.” Through these critical lenses, national identity becomes a fluid concept, and borders are redefined as necessary but at the same time also shifting. The idea of “navigation” is here a key to working within a framework that simultaneously posits norms of identity and opens national identity up to discontinuity and displacement. The uneasy articulation of multiple figurations of displaced identities is key to the question of crossing linguistic and cultural borders.