From Multiculturalism To Hybridity

From Multiculturalism to Hybridity: New Approaches to Teaching Switzerland places Switzerland within the context of transnational labor migration and examines how this German-, French-, Italian-, and Romansh-speaking nation is being transformed by the influx of migrants from all over the world who now constitute a fifth of the population. This dynamic mixture of cultures and races is embodied by a new generation of citizens who call themselves “Secondas and Secondos,” the second generation. Today, Switzerland is leading all industrial nations in growth potential and economic benefits from migration (OECD). The articles in this volume analyze the challenges, successes, and ongoing struggles Switzerland experiences with migration, focusing specifically on what it means to shape a nation-state by political will rather than linguistic and cultural unity. From Multiculturalism to Hybridity also offers teaching suggestions for the French, German, and Italian language and literature classroom as well as for courses in Social, Cultural, and Political Studies. Articles address the hybrid literatures and cultures of Switzerland including films, pageants, smellscapes, and women’s issues and place Switzerland in the context of a unifying European continent. Readers will find ideas and resources for critically investigating and teaching the concepts of cultural hybridity and transculturalism in the high school and college classroom.

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 volume of essays covers all phases and geographical areas of African literature, including lesser known areas such as oral literature, literature written in African languages and Lusophone literature. Also included are articles on Caribbean literature, developments in South African theatre, and two articles on African film. Several writers receive special attention: Chinua Achebe, Maryse Conde, Wole Soyinka, Niyi Osundare, Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Hampate Ba. Also included are the key-note addresses by Achebe, Conde and Osundare.

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.

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 period in which we live is marked by increasingly frequent and intense cultural encounters of all kinds. However we react to it, the global trend towards mixing or hybridization is impossible to miss, from curry and chips – recently voted the favourite dish in Britain – to Thai saunas, Zen Judaism, Nigerian Kung Fu, ‘Bollywood’ films or salsa or reggae music. Some people celebrate these phenomena, whilst others fear or condemn them. No wonder, then, that theorists such as Homi Bhabha, Stuart Hall, Paul Gilroy, and Ien Ang, have engaged with hybridity in their work and sought to untangle these complex events and reactions; or that a variety of disciplines now devote increasing attention to the works of these theorists and to the processes of cultural encounter, contact, interaction, exchange and hybridization. In this concise book, leading historian Peter Burke considers these fascinating and contested phenomena, ranging over theories, practices, processes and events in a manner that is as wide-ranging and vibrant as the topic at hand.

The Chinese have been one of the oldest and largest ethnic communities across the world with well over 35 million people living overseas. Despite their relatively large cultural distance from the host countries, and the ordeals faced by generations of Chinese immigrants due to stereotypes, prejudice, and racism, many have adjusted remarkably well economically and socially in their new country. But how do generations of Chinese immigrants reconcile seemingly incompatible demands from home and host cultures to negotiate bicultural or multicultural identities? Identity, Hybridity and Cultural Home explores the multifaceted concept of cultural identity to uncover the meaning of cultural home for Chinese immigrants in multicultural environments. It questions the conventional notion of a stable and secure cultural identity, challenges the common conception of bilingualism and biculturalism, analyses hybrid identities, and identifies directions for future research on the critical issue of searching for a cultural home in a multicultural society.

Introduction. Hybridity: The Never-ending Metamorphosis?, Encounters of a Heterogeneous Kind: Hybridity in Cultural Theory, National Reconciliation and Colonial Resistance: The Notion of Hybridity in José Martí, Mestizaje: "I understand the reality, I just do not like the word:" Perspectives on an Option, On Border Artists and Transculturation: The Politics of Postmodern Performances and Latin America.