Tracing Paper

This chapter provides theoretical underpinnings for the analytical approach taken throughout the book, which is based on Derrida’s mobilisation of the concepts ‘presence’ and ‘trace’. ‘Presence’ is the term that Derrida uses to critique the way that Western thought functions to create its own certainty; the ‘trace; the underbelly of presence; undermines this certainty. The ‘trace’ is developed as a way of reading that imagines working with a sheet of tracing paper, laid over the fixed meanings of presence.