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Leavingleaving is a term used in narrative theory and cultural studies to describe a recurring motif in which a character repeatedly departs from a space and later returns, creating a sustained loop of departure and arrival. The word is a portmanteau of leaving and leaving, emphasizing repetition rather than a single act. It has appeared in scholarly essays and critical readings of fiction and film to address how time, space, and identity are experienced through cycles rather than through a linear progression.

Core features include repetition of a leaving event, non-linear temporality, and emotional ambiguity about the motives for departure. The motif often signals unsettled attachments, freedom versus obligation, or trauma that resists closure. In practice, leavingleaving can shape characterization and narrative structure by forcing the audience to track multiple departures and returns, with each return reframing earlier events.

In contemporary criticism, examples discuss protagonists who leave a hometown to seek elsewhere, only to reverse course repeatedly, thereby dissolving easy categories of belonging. The device is also analyzed in diaspora studies as a literary analogue to migratory circuits. Reception is mixed: some scholars praise leavingleaving for capturing modern precarity and fluid identities, while others criticize it as opaque when used without clear purpose.

Because leavingleaving is not a standardized theory but a descriptive label, its precise definition varies by author and context and the term lacks a universally agreed formal definition.