preserving and sparing spaces. 28 Heidegger allows us to see that because
dwelling is being, to be must also mean to preserve, to spare, to build up
walls and create borders. Yet, for what reason do we delineate spaces for
ourselves? Why do we preserve, or more importantly, from whom do we
preserve? This is the heart of the matter. In being there is always already
an anticipatory stance, an expectation even before we know what it is that
we expect. That is to say, there is an encounter with the other before the
encounter with the other. This is the manner in which we “get ready”
for the other, of knowing how to say “come” without knowing how to
utter the call. 29 Thus the act of “getting ready” is a deconstruction; it is a
destabilizing of our own being, an inbreaking and disruption of our dwell-
ing. We encounter the other that has not yet arrived via our anticipation
that is played out in the realization of being through dwelling. Then we
see that the other has seemingly been present all along, though only now
have we become aware of her gaze upon us. We grasp that our here in
which dwelling occurs is the invention of her there, and the reverse is also
true. In our mutual gaze upon one another, the dwelling we are set about
building comes into question. The manner in which we build and dwell
has now become an ethical question, and we are compelled by the gaze to
answer. We are called to respond; we have the responsibility to respond.
Our response is no mere acknowledgment of the other; it is also constitu-
tive of our being because it alters the manner in which we dwell.
We cannot, at this point, ignore or disregard the manner in which
we have been speaking of the other, or of the way that Derrida does so:
namely that the other can only be spoken of in terms of the moment of
arrival. Even speaking of the self is accomplished in terms of the presence
of the other. What this means, what such statements insinuate, is that
the other is a generative force by which we are conditioned into what we
are. Deconstruction is generated by the performance enacted by the other
upon arrival. 30 It is not the essence of the other, or some characteristic
attribute of which the other is in possession, inherently. Rather, it is in the
movement of the other, it is in the characteristic nature of how the other
acts. The other arrives. We all arrive. Arrival is constitutive of being. To
arrive is not mere action that we can choose to do or not do. Being itself is
determined, revealed by arrival. Arrival is necessary for being to be being.
Without arrival, there is no other.
The relational character of the self and other cannot be understated.
Being’s dwelling is both contextualized and made possible in the pres-
ence of the other. The other sets the condition for the dwelling of being.
60 J. VAZQUEZ