Édouard Glissant and the importance of reading well: Opacitic‐reading as geographic method

Abstract

With what intentions and expectations does one arrive at reading a new philosophical text? In the case of the late Martinican thinker Édouard Glissant, engaging with his work usually begins from the premise that his thought is adapted from, or indebted to, that of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. In this paper I seek to intervene in these non‐representational aspects of our thinking that escape habituated perception and condition, yet colour our reading and thus our resulting research and writing. If — as Paul Gilroy writes, ‘Glissant's time is now’, how do we as geographers respond? I argue that rather than reject the association of Glissant's work with Deleuze and Guattari's, the more philosophically, poetic, and politically challenging and creative task comes from reconceptualising their relationship to one of connection. In order to do this, I begin with Glissant's concept of ‘opacity’, which supports difference against assimilation and which Katherine McKittrick understands as a political tool. Taking this tool in hand, I develop my conceptualisation of the opacitic to refer to the staging or taking‐place of this opacity on a subterranean and micro‐political level. Opacitic‐reading as method contends how our reading of philosophical texts can create anew moments of clarity and connection through complexity, rather than aspiring towards transparent understanding that seeks to ‘grasp’ ideas and hold onto them. For geographers, opacitic‐reading intervenes in important debates about reading Glissant specifically, engaging with the work of so‐called minority thinkers from Western perspectives, as well as contributing to broader debates about how geographers engage with philosophy and theory.