Coda: Eleven Stars Over the Last Moments of Andalusia

Chapter Summary

Concluding this volume is a meditation from Devleena Ghosh on the relationship of exile to place, and about exile as a leitmotiv of contemporary displacement in an increasingly transnational world. For Ghosh the fundamental question posed by exile is, “How does one define the multivalent, multiplex condition of exile?” Ghosh identifies four nodes of exilic aspiration and struggle—exile as the future “will be”; exile as a nostalgia for privilege; exile as geography; exile as language—which either singly or in combination enable and disable the capacity for those in exile to be politically engaged, hence the global imperative for that engagement.