Introduction to the semiotics of belonging
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Massimo Leone,
Massimo Leone (b. 1975) is a research professor at the University of Torino 〈massimo.leone@unito.it〉. His research interests include semiotics, semiotics of culture, semiotics of religion, and visual semiotics. His publications includeReligious conversion and identity: The semiotic analysis of texts (2004);Saints and signs: A semiotic reading of conversion in early modern Catholicism (2010); andSémiotique de l'âme , 3 vols. (2012).
Abstract
The article proposes a phenomenological and semiotic theoretical framework for the intelligibility of the meaning of belonging, one of the most fundamental concepts in present-day cultures and societies. After defining belonging as a spatial enunciation that brings about 1) the frontiers of a space of belonging; 2) the consequent opposition between an environment of belonging and one of non-belonging; and 3) the relation between, on the one hand, the subject of enunciation and, on the other hand, the opposition /environment of belonging/ versus /environment of non-belonging/, the article articulates a typology of “figures of crossing,” in which belonging is manifested through the narrative dialectics between placement and displacement. In the theoretical framework of tensive phenomenology and semiotics, four macro-regimes of belonging are singled out: “sedentary estrangement,” “nomadic belonging,” “nomadic estrangement,” and “sedentary belonging.” Moreover, four semantic paths dynamically representing the transition between these regimes are identified: “exile/invasion,” “cosmopolitanism/curiosity,” “acclimation/tolerance,” and “alienation/suspicion.” In the conclusion, the theoretical framework developed by the article is proposed as instrument for the analysis of the “rhetorics of belonging” in present-day cultures and societies.
About the author
Massimo Leone (b. 1975) is a research professor at the University of Torino 〈massimo.leone@unito.it〉. His research interests include semiotics, semiotics of culture, semiotics of religion, and visual semiotics. His publications include Religious conversion and identity: The semiotic analysis of texts (2004); Saints and signs: A semiotic reading of conversion in early modern Catholicism (2010); and Sémiotique de l'âme, 3 vols. (2012).
©[2012] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
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- Masthead
- Urban morphogenesis
- The mirrored Madonna: Text and symbol in body writing artworks
- Termes d'adresse et liste
- Vision science: An empirical basis for Roentgen semiotics
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- Text semiotics: Between philology and hermeneutics – from the document to the work
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- Le chronotope littéraire de l'étranger
- Pointing to show agreement
- Intertextuality, translation, and the semiotics of museum presentation: The case of bilingual texts in Chinese museums
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- Review of Søren Brier's (2008) Cybersemiotics: Why information is not enough
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