Crossing the Border?
Hybridity as Late-Capitalistic Logic of Cultural Translation and National Modernisation
Kien Nghi Ha One of the most celebrated features of hybridity is its supposed
characteristic to cross cultural and national boundaries and its ability to
translate oppositional cultural spheres into innovative expressions of the
so-called postmodern era of late capitalism.
This era is apparently based on free circulation and intermingling of ideas and
significations in a world, which is more and more shaped and reshaped by
different forces and different meanings of globalisation and migration. This
view stresses hybridity as the central term for the ongoing process of
intercultural transgression and became lately prominent in the mainstream
academic discourse. Even in the more sophisticated parts of the multicultural
integration industry sponsored by the state are obvious’ trends to refashion
national representation through inclusion and appropriation of cultural
resources, which belong to marginalized groups in the immigration society. At
the same time there is also a significant and popular desire within the mainstream
society to explore new forms of cultural consumptions, which are not purely
based on the construction of antagonistic differences and fixed stereotypes,
but rather on the culturalistic production "out of such hybridization that newness can
emerge" (Salman Rushdie).
In my presentation I will discuss the effects of
cultural hybridization on the national as well as on the economic sphere. Both
processes aim to translate the marginalized domains of discriminated minorities
into national resources, while leaving the enduring legacies and dynamics of
colonial and racist patterns in almost every Western society untouched. These
forms of hybridization turn out to work as a form of political utilisation and
therefore broaden the economic exploitation through cultural subordination. I
suggest to discuss cultural hybridity and national identity not as conceptual
oppositions, but as a functional relationship, which allows the nation to
expand and modernize the symbolic field of national self-representation by creating
a more colourful, joyful, and attractive image of itself. In the global
competition of national economies and cultures it is even for the nation a task
of growing importance to appear cosmopolitan and open for productive flows of
migrating capital, creative subjects and powerful symbols. Meanwhile, the
cultural industry have discovered hybridity to introduce the mainstream society
with new mass markets by developing innovative transcultural products. It is
nothing new, that cultural translation is greatly helpful to raise material
profits, but from my point of view I would suggest, that hybridity means much
more. I would call it a new mode of production in a globalized economy that is
increasingly obsessed with the consumption of cultural signs and meanings. With
intercultural competence and diversity training as new management guidelines
for the 21. century, hybridity became easily not only a trendy, but maybe the
major method for new ways of commodification.
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