Travel and Home: Conceiving Transnational Communities through Royce's Betweenness Relation

Abstract

In this essay, I examine two concepts in Royce’s work—travel and home—in order to interpret Royce’s motivations and interests in conceiving his theory of community and provincialism. Through this examination, I chart the “betweenness relation” throughout his major works in logic, ethics and social and political thought to articulate two requirements of the betweenness relation as a. respecting individuality through the recognition of discrete intermediaries between separate entities and b. recognizing hope—understood as a logical assurance—that connections between disparate entities will emerge. By the end of the paper, I show how this analysis applies to transnational communities as theorized by Randolph Bourne and can offer a shift in thinking how Royce’s provincialism can be a resource in understanding the formation of transnational identities.