Exil, eller att kontextualisera utifrån cirkulation

Exile, or context as circulation

The chapter discusses what it means to contextualize when the focus lies on the circulation of ideas and things. It is argued that one main question concerns the relationship between the local meaning of for example ideas and their transformation as they move through space and time. It is suggested that a focus on circulation entails the study of how ideas change meaning or gain a deepened meaning as they circulate, and in some cases how processes of circulation produce new ideas. In the chapter, the exile of the Spanish author María Zambrano is used as an example to delineate how different approaches to contextualization through circulation may lead to somewhat different results. The chapter also discusses different arenas in which knowledge circulates. It mentions networks and extended friendship relations, institutions of knowledge such as universities and elementary schools and sometimes courts as well as different kinds of medias through which knowledge is diffused and sometimes produced. As a conclusion the chapter discusses what kind of questions regarding theoretical outlook and material that might motivate the choice between approaches or a specific focus on one or other arena of knowledge circulation.