Cultural meaning can never be finally fixed because signs constantly slip and get reappropriated

Evidence

The dosed conception of diaspora rests on a binary conception of difference. It is founded on the construction of an exclusionary frontier and depends on the construction of an “Other” and a fixed opposition between inside and outside. But the syncretized configurations of Caribbean cultural identity require Derrida’s notion of différance—differences that do not work through binaries, veiled boundaries that do not finally separate but double up as places de passage, and meanings that are positional and relational, always on the slide along a spectrum without end or beginning. Difference, we know, is essential to meaning, and meaning is critical for culture. But in a profoundly counterintuitive move, modern linguistics after Saussure insists that meaning cannot be finally fixed. There is always the inevitable “slippage” of meaning in the open semiosis of a culture, as that which seems fixed continues to be dialogically reappropriated. The fantasy of a final meaning remains haunted by “lack” or “excess,” but is never graspable in the plenitude of its presence to itself. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 834

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines différance as differences that work through veiled boundaries doubling as passages rather than binary frontiers — a core tool for understanding diasporic identity formation.
• XREF: Directly feeds the Islamophobia field’s vocabulary on how ‘Other’-construction operates — this binary frontier vs. différance distinction will be the lens for how identity is performed in the postcolonial selfhood readings. — connects to: Geocultural aggregates shift so fast they cannot ground fixed ontology. — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 710