ABSTRACT
This chapter examines episodes in the long history of transatlantic movements between America and Liberia in an effort to posit that hope may be spatially, rather than only temporally, constituted, and to explore how a spatialized constitution of hope factors into the production of at least some forms of diasporan identity. In such instances, diasporan mythologies of social origin may garner social subscription because they sustain a belief in the realizability of aspirations in the face of evidence-past, present and, in future, foreseeable-by locating that realizability elsewhere. In short, even when it became possible to realize social attachments to Africa, these tended to undermine subscription to diasporan identity narratives. However, in relying on spatialized strategies for constituting hope, diasporan identity narratives implicitly assign spatial criteria to potentiality, requiring relocation as a requisite for the realization of aspirations while precluding any potential for realizing aspirations in the lived.
