Case Study 5 Cultural Hybridity Theory Homi Bhabha

Case Study 5: Cultural Hybridity Theory: Homi Bhabha, Peter Burke

Hybridity v Hybridity: a combination of two or more identities within one person “without an assumed or imposed hierarchy. ” (Bhabha) v The notion developed by Homi K. Bhabha in The Location of Culture (1994). v Homi K. Bhabha, a specialist in postcolonial theory (born in 1949 in India, educated in the UK, works in the US). v Bhabha was influenced by Lacan, Derrida, Bakhtin, Foucault, Said.

Hybridity v Hybridity often is a mixture of the colonized experience and the colonial influence (ex. , education). v Can refer to ethnicity, language, and culture. v Creates a liminal space between overlapping cultures, the ambivalent third space of “cutting edge of translation and negotiation” (Bhabha).

Cultural Hybridity (2009) by Peter Burke v The process of hybridization and globalization are interconnected. v Hybridization involves artefacts (ex. , architecture, arts, literature), practices (ex. , religion, political institutions), and people (‘double consciousness’ generated by life in between cultures).

Cultural Hybridity (2009) by Peter Burke v Encounter with a new culture involves “cultural translation. ” v All cultures have a (different) degree of hybridity. v A living culture both gives and receives in the process of cultural exchange. v Encounters result in exchange. v Cultural change can occur by addition, not necessarily by substitution.

Cultural Hybridity Peter Burke: St. Francis Xavier Memorial Church in Nagasaki “[F]rontier zones, like cosmopolitan cities, may be described as ‘intercultures, ’ intersections between cultures, in which the process of mixing ends in the creation of something new and distinctive …. ”

Cultural Hybridity: Responses to Exchange v Acceptance (ex. , fashion for the foreign). v Rejection - resistance or/and purification (ex. , sakoku and dismissal of guns by samurai in the 17 th cent. ). v Segregation (Western vs traditional ‘double life’ in public and at home in Meiji Japan). v Adaptation (ex. , modifications done to suit local tastes).

Cultural Hybridity: Circularity: An influence returned to its country of origin in an new form modified by an influenced culture. Ex. , Japanese adaptations of Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly which was influenced by the music from Japan. A Statue of MB in Nagasaki