Debating Cultural Hybridity

Why is it still so difficult to negotiate differences across cultures? In what ways does racism continue to strike at the foundations of multiculturalism? Bringing together some of the world's most influential postcolonial theorists, this classic collection examines the place and meaning of cultural hybridity in the context of growing global crisis, xenophobia and racism. Starting from the reality that personal identities are multicultural identities, Debating Cultural Hybridity illuminates the complexity and the flexibility of culture and identity, defining their potential openness as well as their closures, to show why anti-racism and multiculturalism are today still such hard roads to travel.

Cultural hybridity has become one of the key buzz words of late twentieth century critical theory, cited and celebrated as a space of resistance and protest, on the one hand, and tolerance, cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism, on the other. But what are the limits of cultural hybridity? Why is it such a difficult - at times almost impossible - challenge to negotiate differences across cultures? In what ways does racism strike at the foundations of multiculturalism to create pathological cultural hybrids and ambivalences? This pathbreaking new book deconstructs established approaches and discloses why anti-racism and multiculturalism are hard roads to travel. It contains chapters by leading European sociologists and anthropologists.

Why is it still so difficult to negotiate differences across cultures? In what ways does racism continue to strike at the foundations of multiculturalism? Bringing together some of the world's most influential postcolonial theorists, this classic collection examines the place and meaning of cultural hybridity in the context of growing global crisis, xenophobia and racism. Starting from the reality that personal identities are multicultural identities, Debating Cultural Hybridity illuminates the complexity and the flexibility of culture and identity, defining their potential openness as well as their closures, to show why anti-racism and multiculturalism are today still such hard roads to travel.

This interdisciplinary collection of critical articles seeks to reassess the concept of hybridity and its relevance to post-colonial theory and literature. The challenging articles written by internationally acclaimed scholars discuss the usefulness of the term in relation to such questions as citizenship, whiteness studies and transnational identity politics. In addition to developing theories of hybridity, the articles in this volume deal with the role of hybridity in a variety of literary and cultural phenomena in geographical settings ranging from the Pacific to native North America. The collection pays particular attention to questions of hybridity, migrancy and diaspora.

Hybridity and its Discontents explores the history and experience of 'hybridity' - the mixing of peoples and cultures - in North and South America, Latin America, Britain and Ireland, South Africa, Asia and the Pacific. The contributors trace manifestations of hybridity in debates about miscengenation and racial purity, in scientific notions of genetics and 'race', in processes of cultural translation, and in ideas of nation, community and belonging. The contributors begin by examining the persistence of anxieties about racial 'contamination', from nineteenth-century fears of miscegenation to more recent debates about mixed race relationships and parenting. Examining the lived experiences of children of 'mixed parentage', contributors ask why such fears still thrive in a supposedly tolerant culture? The contributors go on to discuss how science, while apparently neutral, is part of cultural discourses, which affect its constructions and classifications of gender and 'race'. The contributors examine how new cultural forms emerge from borrowings, exchanges and intersections across ethnic and cultural boundaries, and conclude by investigating the contemporary experience of multiculturalism in an age of contested national borders and identities.

The attempt to make democratic processes more inclusive has led to the problematic notion of "multiculturalism." It is based on a new principle that 'all voices should be heard' and 'equal respect' has become the irreducible core of the liberal state. However mere dialogue is not enough. First, it tends to privilege those who are already privileged. To change this needs active, exploratory listening that is allowed to challenge everyone's picture of the world. Second, since the tensions and ambiguities are here to stay, practical ways to cope and negotiate have to be found, although it's not at all clear what is involved. The contributors to this volume explore both dimensions and in particular point to what it means when the language game of dialogicality meets its limit. However, as they point out, the limits are not absolute, but can be the entry to more complex language-games. The authors in this volume, from Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium and Britain bring a vast repertoire of resources and interpretative frames to bear on the task of opening up what might be understood by the political-ethical-aesthetic notion of 'multiculturalism'. In these contributions one can hear a plea for an enhanced conception of democratic dialogue, for the need to embrace different ontological aesthetic-moral assumptions, and for an ethics and politics which are more generous and receptive.

The UNHCR assures us that never before have there been so many people on the move at the same time, mainly because of war-inflicted circumstances. Authors from different reputed institutions share their knowledge on this open-access platform to disseminate their knowledge at the global level. This book captures issues involved in meeting the challenges of people's movements in the twenty-first century. It explores attitudes of previously colonized people in a post-colonial period, analyses food insecurity in Canada, quality of life of elderly Turkish and Polish migrants in Germany, suicidal behaviours of immigrants admitted to an Italian-teaching hospital, and migration from a public healthcare perspective and points to the problem of tuberculosis among immigrants. Challenges of a more personal nature relate to second-language learning and acculturation of Brazilian migrants in Portugal and Asians as model minorities. Empirical evidence of why immigrants leave Norway is provided, and there is a discussion on the new actors of international migration (foreign students). This book closes with the voices of trailing women when it comes to the decision to emigrate. The collective contributions from experts attempt to provide updates regarding ongoing research and developments pertaining to migration.

This book is a comparative study of the sociological field in two different Muslim societies: Malaysia and Egypt. It analyses the process of the production of 'knowledge' through the example of the modern 'Islamization of knowledge debate' and local empirical variations.