This exploration of hybridity begins by offering a description of the term and its uses in divergent and related fields, then a critique of assumptions (those of purity, of marginality and identity). A discussion of cultural creativity, syncretism, diffusion, race and biology (the history of migration, language, culture, and 'blood') leads on to consideration of how syncretism and hybridity seem to do duty as terms for the management of the more esoteric cultural aspects of colonialism and the global market. The argument focuses on cultural creativity - innovation and authenticity, ownership of cultural forms, and of technological modes of cultural mix (science fiction film as example) - to underscore how lack of attention to political and economic difference makes possible celebrations of hybridity as the fruit of late capitalist globalization. This links hybridity to more explicit political terminologies and construes hybrid artefacts as commodities of difference in the context of transition - urbanization, privatization, trinketization.
Journal description