False Proximities

This chapter examines the configuration of Bangladeshi identity/multiplicity in relation to its Proximate Other (Bengali Indian), by the spiritual and cultural mapping of real ( eco-literal and ecological) space through representative space and subsequent deterritorializations and reterritorializations. One lens through which to reconfigure space/subjectivity in Bangladesh is to blow up the false proximities that have given a sense of closeness to this neighborly identity, near-kin, in repeated imaginings of the Bengali subject, in the artifacts of “culture” (history, literature, and social discourse). I propose an alternative to the notion of politico-cultural hegemony through a neologism, “false proximities,” in the particular case of West Bengal–Bangladesh relations and imaginary in the formation of Bengali subjectivity. This re-evaluation of the latter through geocriticism foregrounds the porous borders of the spatial and literary, while grounding itself in the spiritual–historical anachronisms that have shaped this subjectivity, considering reconfigurations via cultural lines of flight and polychronic movement across such borders.