ABSTRACT
Peter King begins his book In Dwelling: Implacability, Exclusion and Acceptance with a re ection (with reference to Derrida) on retracing our steps as a ‘form of housekeeping’, as coming to terms with what we have done and have achieved and as a way of understanding our journey:
No longer to like retracing our steps is to be against going home, rethinking or being prepared to start again. We are so convinced of where we are going that we take no precautions, we neither look back nor consider doubt worthy of us. We eschew the well-worn path that leads us back home. Whilst we might celebrate adventurousness and a positive attitude – to move forward – to retrace our steps actually demonstrates a preparedness to look back and to question where we are and how we got there; it is where we admit our mistakes, face the fact that we might have gone wrong – we are up a blind alley – and so we have not done all we could, not achieved what we thought we would, not found what we thought was there. But, of course, when we do retrace our steps we also face the prospect of unearthing what we have tried to hide, where we are so honest and open with ourselves that we have to accept we have failed, that we are lost, and so we might unsettle ourselves and perhaps others who depend upon us…We might see it is as a form of housekeeping…It is where we come to terms with what we have done and are therefore able to assess what we have achieved. Perhaps we should suggest
that it is only by retreating to our base that we can fully understand the nature of our journey; that we can see it in all its consequentiality.
