Hybridity Concept In Postcolonial Studies Cultural Studies Essay

Hybridity Concept In Postcompound Studies Cultural Studies EssayIntroductionThis chapter seeks to examine break models that underpin this study. Hybridity, separateness and stereotyping in postcolonial studies are discussed in congeneric to the central argument of this thesis which is the roles teachers and students play at aiming for the construction of shared Malaysian individualism in multicultural classrooms. The intention of this literature review is to identify the signifi chiffonierce of loan-blendity, otherness and stereotyping in post colonial studies to my research and how Bhabhas notion of The third gear billet helps to formulate the establishment of collective individuation in students zone of development (Gutierrez, Baqudano-Lopez and Tejeda (1999).Hybridity concept in Postcolonial studiesThe flow of information and the movement of people in this ever evolving, interconnected and interactive world have been a profound reason in the creation of new finishings in the form of mixing of local and external ideas and values. This kind of mixing is a tiny part of the loose and slippery meaning of hybridity. The experimental condition hybridity is used in many areas such as hybrid economy (the mixture of private enterprises and government active participation in global economy) (Koizumi,2010) hybrid cars, hybrid language (creole and patois), and most importantly in relation to this study is in the arena of hybrid cultures (Tomlinson,1999 Coombs Brah,2000).Easthope (1998) contends that hybridity can have three meanings in scathe of biology, ethnicity and culture. In biological science, hybrid could mean the composition of contagious component in human being, animals or plants. In the second and third definitions, hybridity can be understood to mean an individual who possesses two or more(prenominal)(prenominal) ethnic and cultural identities. However de Toro emphasises that the meaning of hybridity in new-fashioned cultural theory has not hing to do with the biological and zoological origin of the term (de Toro, 2004). Hutnyk (2005) on the other pile reveals that the term hybridity and syncretism seem to serve the inner cultural aspects of colonialism and the global market.Several key thinkers in the realm of hybridity includes among others Homi Bhabha, Robert Young, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Stuart Hall and Paul Gilroy, who project upon related concepts from Deleuze, Derrida, Marx, Fanon and Bakhtin to name a few.(Ref) In particular, Bhabha has developed his concept of hybridity from literary and cultural theory to describe the construction of culture and identity within conditions of colonial antagonism and equity (Meredith, 1998 Bhabha, 1994 Bhabha, 1996).In socio-cultural milieu, hybridity is used as an explicative term and hybridity became a useful tool in forming a discourse of racial mixing which was seen as an aberration in the end of 18th century. The kind of hybrid during this era was largely referring to inter marriage of black and white and the offspring were identified as the hybrid product. It has also been referred to as an abuse term in colonial discourse for those who are products of miscegenation or mixed-breeds. Papastergiadis in Werbner Modood (2000) on the other hand asserts that the positive feature of hybridity is that it invariably acknowledges that identity is constructed through a negotiation of difference and that the presence of fissures, gaps and contradictions is not necessarily a sign of failure. (ibid258). Therefore hybridity can be seen in both negative and positive forms.Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin (2006) assert that hybridity occurs in post-colonial societies as a result of economic and political expansion and subordination and when the coloniser diluted indigenous peoples (the colonised) social practices and assimilate them to a new social mold. They also further explain that hybridity extends until after the period of imperialism when patterns of im migrations from rural to urban region and from other imperial areas of influence such as Chinese and Indian labourers coming in into the Malay Peninsula during the labour intensive period.However, with the end imperialism, with the salary increase of immigration and economic liberalisation, the term hybridity has profoundly been used in many opposite dimensions and is one of the most disputed terms in postcolonial studies. It can view as many forms including cultural, political and linguistics. It is important to note that hybridity can be interpreted in many different accounts from a slight hybrid to the extreme of culture clash. In the postcolonial studies the term hybrid commonly refers to the creation of new trans-cultural forms within the contact zone produced by colonisation (Ashcroft et al.,2003). One other dimension of this term is the hybrid talk which is associated with the emergence of postcolonial discourse and its critique of cultural imperialism.(elaborate)Easthope (1998) on the other hand asserts that in his discussions of hybridity, it has no fix definition except in relation to non-hybriditythat the opposition between difference and absolute presence needs to be relativised by introducing more than one concept of identity, that a coherent, speaking font cannot live in the gaps between identities. (p.347).Pieterse (2001221) maintains that New hybrid forms are significant indicators of profound changes that are taking place as a consequence of mobility, migration and multiculturalism. In addition, cultural diasporization (Hall, 1990) signifies a new form of identity as a result of interculturality and diasporic relations (Anthias,2010). However, Anthias (ibid620) postulates thatIf hybrid social identities are now the characteristic identities of the modern world, then struggles over cultural hegemony and the underlying mechanisms that support it, become increasingly empty signifiers merely to occupy the space of the hybrid constitutes an ema ncipator human condition.In addition, de Toro (1991,1996a) contends that hybridity is al elans inherent to culture, identity and nations besides it is the object of reflections and definitions of different settings and also applied in very different fields. Correspondingly, de Toro suggests that one has to understand the notion of hybridity in a broader metacontext and has to see hybridity as mixing systems at the base of the combination of different models and processes.The discussion of hybridity in this study focuses on the contemporary debate more or less culture, ethnicity and identity which underpins de Toros model of hybridity as a cultural category. The main argument of this study is the problematic nature of managing the differences of cultural, ethnical and religious groups in Malaysias plural conjunction in the quest for the construction of shared Malaysian identity. The discussion of hybridity in the Malaysian context in this study therefore is not about purpose a mi dway to the solution of differences in cultures and identity but to identify a space where cultural, religious and ethnic difference can be celebrated.In as much the arguments in the succeeding sections deal with ethnicity, culture and religion, this study does not attempt to explicate an in depth discussion of the cultural theory concept. However, cultural theory will be reviewed at a surface level.In the linguistics setting, Bakhtin (1981) puts forward the notion of linguistic hybridity. He, according to Young (1995) delineates the way in which language, even within a single sentence, can be doubled-voiced. Bakhtin affirms that linguistic hybridity mixes two social languages within the limits of a single utterance but differentiated by other factors of those social utterances. Simplistically, it describes the ability to be simultaneously the same but different (ibid20). Young further postulates that for Bakhtin, hybridity describes the process of the authorial debunk of anothers speech, through a language that is double-accented and double-styled.Bakhtin (1981) divides his linguistic hybridity into two intentional hybridity and unconscious or organic hybridity. The former occurs when a voice has the ability to ironise and unmask the other within the same utterance. The organic hybridity , on the other hand occurs when two languages fused together. the languages change historically primarily by hybridization, by content of a mixing of various languages co-existing within the boundaries of a single dialect, a single national language, a single branch, a single group of different branches, in the historical as well as paleontological past of languages. (Ibid358).The language hybridity phenomenon is one of main discussions in this current study as the multicultural society evolves in Malaya then Malaysia respectively, languages evolve in tandem. The discussion involves the emergence of Malaysian English or Manglish in social interactions of the populace within ones ingest ethnic community or with the other communities at large. This is argued in the discussions and findings chapter of this current study.The section that follows discusses in greater detail of hybridity in the light of Bhabhas (1998) work on cultural variety and cultural difference.Understanding Bhabhas concept of hybridity in relation to cultural diversityBhabhas conception of hybridity is developed from literary and cultural theory by which he identifies that the governing bodies (coloniser) translate the identity of the colonised (the other) in tandem with the essentialist beliefs. This action of translation however does not produce nighthing that is kn avow to the coloniser or the colonised but essentially new (Papastergiadis, 1997). Bhabha believes that it is this new blurred boundaries or spaces in-between subject-position that are identified as the locality of the disruption and displacement of preponderating influence of colonial narratives and cultural structu res and practice.Bhabha (1994) claims that the difference in cultural practices within different groups, however rational a person is, is actually very baffling and even impossible and counterproductive, to try and fit together different forms of culture and to pretend that they can easily coexist. As he affirmsThe assumption that at some level all forms of cultural diversity may be understood on the basis of a particular universal concept, whether it be human being, class, or race, can be both very dangerous and very limiting in trying to understand the ways in which cultural practices construct their own systems of meaning and social organisation (ibid209)There is truth to a certain degree to the statement above in terms of the universality of cultural diversity applied in many pluralistic countries including Malaysia. However, to a larger extent, this present study, at a later stage would render the limitations of that statement amidst difficulties and multitudes of problems in inter-ethnic kinship Malaysian society has proven its ability to be one of the select few which are able to prove that the differences in cultural practices could be the throttle not hindrance or counterproductive amongst different groups to coexist.This concept of the third space is central and useful in analysing this current study in terms of its interstitial positioning between cultural and ethnic identity with that of a negotiated identity (shared identity) in the Malaysian context.Bhabha believes that the process of cultural hybridity gives rise to new and unidentifiable, a new era of negotiation of meaning and representation. For him controversies are inevitable and unavoidable in a multicultural society as negotiations happen almost in all circumstances including socio-politics and economy down to minute affairs such as in classrooms context. The implication of western colonial legacy which had changed cultural ideology of a former colonised nation is central to the modern discourse of negotiation and instead of questioning the legality of certain cultural status designate to immigrant cultures, it is inevitable but to accept, admire and celebrate diversity in ways which are appropriately befitting the society as a whole.The significance of the hybridity conceptPost-colonial cultural politics assertions integration and assimilation to unificationAs a result of hybridisation, dominant culture becomes diluted and more dispersed less interconnected and can then be negotiated.The process of cultural hybridisation allows greater opportunity for local culture to be emphasised thus presents a greater likelihood for more people to feel the sense of belonging. (Canclini,1995Pieterse,2004).Hybridity needs to be considered as a continuous transaction of renewals and compromise of the practices of identityA more analytical perspective that reviews the assumption about culture and identity from us-them dualism to a collective sense of both. Therefore acceptance and conciliation of both difference and similarity.5.0. The Third SpaceAppropriation of The Third Space to the studyOthernessStereotyping in Post Colonial Studies9.0 Applying hybridity, otherness and stereotyping to the construction of shared identity identicalness in Plural SocietyPropagating and espousing a new conception of shared identityNew opportunities, new challenges to develop a collective sense of identityIdentity is multiple, overlapping and context-sensitive (Kwame Appiah in Koizumi)New conception of self hybrid self rejects singular identity and adopt a fluid context-dependent identityClassification of identity formation inherited and acquired (social and psychological)The Construction Malaysian IdentitySummary