Poststructuralism and the culture of national identity. Bhabha rethinking questions of identity, social agency and national affiliation, bhabha provides a working, if controversial, theory of cultural hybridity one that goes far beyond previous attempts by others. Bhabha 1996 the history of hybridity has caused some to consider the employment of the concept as problematic, indeed, offensive. Rethinking questions of identity, social agency and national affiliation, bhabha provides a working, if controversial, theory of cultural hybridity one that goes far beyond previous attempts by others. On the other, according to zapf, bhabha also introduced a concept that seems to have been designed to be applied to a wider context from the beginning 306. Bhabha calls cultural difference, 1 which designates the internal difference between the speaking subject and the subject that is spoken about or partially shaped in that act of speaking as well as the difference between self and other. Hybridity, immigrant identity and ethnic impersonation in. Cultural diversity and cultural differences homi k. This volume explores his writings and their influence on postcolonial theory, introducing in clear and accessible language the key concepts of his work, such as ambivalence, mimicry, hybridity and translation. Hybridity demonstrates how cultures come to be represented by processes of iteration. This paper considers homi bhabha s notion of hybridity and a cultural third space in his seminal 1994 work the location of culture.
It argues that bhabhas concept of hybridisation is predicated upon the everchanging location of. Postmodern space, postcolonial time and the trials of cultural translation in the location of culture. Bhabhas postcolonial theory offers a great potential for a new. Homi bhabha was born into the parsi community of bombay in 1949 and grew up in the shade of firetemple. Homi bhabha claims that a salient characteristic of colonial culture is its hybridity, its. Homi k bhabha 2 interrogating identity the location of culture chapter 2 postcolonial theory duration. Bhabhas term interstices means to respond to derridas account of difference as spatial differentiation. Bhabha in a chapter called how newness enters the world.
Bhabha and his book the location of culture 1994 has made prominenant contributions in postcolonial criticism. To dream not of the past or pres ent, nor the continuous present. The ambivalence of colonial discourse homi bhabha mimicry reveals something in so far as it is distinct from what might be called an itself that is behind. Buy homi bhabha ebooks to read online or download in pdf or epub on your pc, tablet or mobile device. Bhabha is lecturer in english literature and literary theory at the university of sussex. Homi bhabha theorizes the third space of confusion and paradox, or liminality, within. I f hybridity is heresy, then to blaspheme is to dream. Bhabhas theories of hybridity and ambivalence as the. The principal proposition is the hybridity of colonial identity, which, as a cultural form, made the colonial masters ambivalent, and, as such, altered the authority of power. Homi bhabhas concept of hybridity literary theory and.
Bhabha, francoise lionnet, paul gilroy, and stuart hall employ this discourse of creolization, with a very varied vocabulary, as a way to combat the domination of one voice, one canon, one mode of thought, singular identities, linear history, and so forth. Because it is modelled on derridean difference, bhabhas hybridity is advocated as a position or effect in between existing positions. In the location of culture, he uses concepts such as mimicry, interstice, hybridity, and liminality to argue that cultural production is always most productive where it is most ambivalent. Prayer elmo raj volumei, issueii september 2014 128 works cited bhabha, homi k. Along with his other ideas such as sly civility and colonial nonsense. Home postcolonialism homi bhabhas concept of hybridity. It problematizes the signs of racial and cultural priority, so that the national is no longer naturalizable.
Bhabha s theories of hybridity and ambivalence as the. In spite of what will appear to be rather simplistic arguments, some elements of friedmans critique can bring up elements for a further reflection. The paper will overview bhabhas definition of cultural hybridity and friedmans critique. This paper considers homi bhabhas notion of hybridity and a cultural third space in his seminal 1994 work the location of culture.
The ambivalence of colonial discourse, in the location of culture, pp. The term hybridity has become one of the most recurrent concepts in postcolonial cultural criticism. The paper will then explore some tropes that this episode in the debate over cultural hybridity lea. Coetzees disgrace and foe in terms of homi bhabhas. Bhabha, who defines hybridity as a metonym of presence and places it amidst power relations, noting differences between colonial and.
In other words, the universal applicability of bhabhas approach, though frequently criticized, turns it into a. Bhahbas notion of cultural hybridity reorients the lens in. In particular, the condition of cultural hybridity has been highlighted by examining the postcolonial cultures of migrants which are based on fusions and translations of existing elements. Bhabhas postcolonial theory offers a great potential for a new landscape in the interpretation of the biblical literature that was produced and consumed in the imperial and colonial contexts of antiquity.
Homi bhabhas concept of hybridity by nasrullah mambrol on april 8, 2016 12. Bhabha, whose analysis of colonizercolonized relations stresses their interdependence and the mutual construction of their subjectivities see mimicry and ambivalence. Along with his other ideas such as sly civility and colonial nonsense, by the late 199os it had passed into the currency of theoretical debate and has remained influential ever since. One of the most widely employed and most disputed terms in postcolonial theory, hybridity commonly refers to the creation of new transcultural forms within the contact zone produced by colonization.
When the terms mimicry and hybridity are invoked in literary criticism, or in classrooms looking at literature from asia, africa, or the caribbean, as well as their respective diasporas, there is usually a footnote somewhere to two essays by homi k. While easily understood as a postcolonial theorist, the range of his interests means it is perhaps better to characterize his work in terms of vernacular or translational cosmopolitanism. Bhabha s term interstices means to respond to derridas account of difference as spatial differentiation. Hybridity, in its most basic sense, refers to mixture. Rothenberg professor of the humanities at harvard university. However, in homi bhabhas initial usage of the term in his essay signs taken for wonders, he clearly thought of hybridity as a subversive tool whereby colonized people might challenge various forms of oppression bhabhas example is of the british missionaries imposition of the bible in rural india in the 19th century. Minority discourse, argues bhabha, sets the act of emergence in the antagonistic inbetween of image and sign, the accumulative and the adjunct, presence and proxy 1994, xxx.
Therefore, in this study, it has been tried to investigate tayeb salihs season of migration to the north through homi k. The entire postcolonial diasporic literature exhibits mixed feelings through the essential dichotomies marking the lives of emigres. Homi bhabhas the location of culture 1994 when historical visibility has faded, when the present tense of testimony loses its power to arrest, then the displacements of memory and the indirections of art offer us the. Its contemporary uses are scattered across numerous academic disciplines and is salient in popular culture. They are signposts struck deep into the hard and stony ground, in those contested fields, that map the terrain of intercultural communication and. Bhabha s hybridity is one of the most vital concepts in cultural criticism today. Bhabha, francoise lionnet, paul gilroy, and stuart hall employ this discourse of creolization, with a very var ied vocabulary, as a way to combat the domination of one voice, one canon. Homi bhabhas third space and african identity but as enunciation. Bhabha is one of the most highly renowned figures in contemporary postcolonial studies.
It is meant to foreclose the diverse forms of purity encompassed within essentialist theories. Apr 08, 2016 the term hybridity has been most recently associated with the work of homi k. The term originates from biology and was subsequently employed in linguistics and in racial theory in the nineteenth century. Introduction, katarzyna marciniak westmont college. As a linguistic process, it was developed by mikhail bakhtin, among others, who used it to describe the coexistence of elite and popular languages in the same group, or even in a single speaker, and by homi k. Statement of the problem the present dissertation seeks to critically investigate j. Bhabha and the mixed blessing of hybridity in biblical hermeneutics jin hee han, new york theological seminary jin hee han is professor of biblical studies at new york theological seminary, new york, ny, usa. The next significant postcolonial theorist is homi k. Bhabhas hybridity is one of the most vital concepts in cultural criticism today. With your download, get the 23 best papers relevant to this one, including 20 top related papers. Bhabha contends that all cultural statements and systems are constructed in a space that he. The most developed theorization of hybridity by homi bhabha the location of culture, 1994 does not consider it as merely fusing existing cultural elements.
Bhabhas concepts like mimicry, ambivalence and inbetweenness. Homi bhabha s third space and african identity but as enunciation. Mimicry, ambivalence, and hybridity postcolonial studies. Lecture 14 homi bhabha and the concept of cultural hybridity. Bhabhas work develops concepts that are highly significant such as ambivalence, hybridity and mimicry. Speaking in a voice that combines intellectual ease with the belief that theory itself can contribute to practical political change, bhabha has become one of. Because it is modelled on derridean difference, bhabha s hybridity is advocated as a position or effect in between existing positions. What emerges between mimesis and mimicry is a writing, a mode of representation, that marginalizes the monumentality of history. The social articulation of difference, from the minority perspective, is a complex, ongoing. Bhabha, reprinted from the location of culture, 1994, routledge. Active participation in all kinds of cultural arenas thus opens up what homi k. If cultural diversity is a category of comparative ethics, aesthetics, or ethnology, cultural difference is a process of signification through which statements of culture or on culture differentiate, discriminate, and authorize the production of fields of force, reference, applicability, and capacity.
Bhabha, a leading figure in contemporary cultural discourse, whose theory of cultural difference provides us with the conceptual vocabulary of hybridity and the third space. Terms of cultural engagement, whether antagonistic or affiliative, are produced performatively. Apr, 2018 homi k bhabha 2 interrogating identity the location of culture chapter 2 postcolonial theory duration. These concepts accentuates how colonized peoples have resisted the power of the colonizer. Homi bhabha explains the history of hybridity as history of culture and its major theoretical discussion amongst the discourses of race, postcolonialism, identity social sciences, antiracism and multiculturalism, and globalization his discussion traverses the development of hybridity rhetoric from biological to cultural illustrations in. Postcolonial perspectives emerge t he p ostcolonial and the ostmodern the postcolonial and the postmodern, by homi k. These three words signify something more than our scholarly reflections, our conceptual ambitions. Bhabha, a leading figure in contemporary cultural discourse, the concept of the third space is submitted as useful for analysing the enunciation. It is not a question of harmoniz ing with the background, but against a mottled background, of becoming mottled exactly like. Bhabha, of mimicry and man, and signs taken for wonders. The representation of difference must not be hastily read as the reflection of pregiven ethnic or cultural traits set in the fixed tablet of tradition. Lovehate relationships, contradictions between self and other. What articulates cultural differences is defined as.
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