HYBRID
CULTURES - BASTARD CHILDREN OF ROMANS AND FOREIGNERS
The
Pocket Oxford Dictionary (2000, p. 430) gives the meaning of 'hybrid' as '1 offspring
of two plants or animals of different species or varieties. 2 thing composed of
diverse elements, e.g. a word with parts taken from different languages.' The
root of the term 'hybrid' is the Latin hybrida.
According
to the Wolters' Latin-Dutch dictionary hybrida means: 'bastard, Child of
a Roman and a foreigner, or of a free person and a slave.' The Grote van Dale
dictionary also first cites this original meaning, and then adds: 'something that
comprises heterogeneous elements.'
'Hybridisation'
according to the same van Dale is a common notion in biochemistry (relating to
the merging of different types of DNA). And in the social sciences and philosophy
the concepts of 'hybrid' and 'hybridity' crop up. In 'Krisis - tijdschrift voor
filosophe' hybridity is described as 'the mixture of elements which are different
and which are generally separate from each other.'
It
is interesting that the concept of hybridity is here introduced alongside authenticity,
within the framework of a study into the relationship between these two concepts.
On the basis of a study carried out into the development of Mexican culture it
is stated that this culture, as a melting together of different 'authentic' cultures,
is a typical example of a hybrid culture - but that at the same time it is highly
authentic. Authenticity and hybridity are not opposites but are natural extensions
of each other. Hybridity produces new forms of authenticity and is inherent in
processes of social and cultural dynamics in which various cultures confront each
other (Europan 6, 2001).
Within
the concept of hybridity then are the multifarious properties of genetics, genetic
distortion and impurity, the crossing of plant lines and heterogeneity. There
is an element of unique authenticity, and geo-political spatiality is also relevant.
The geo-political tone is enhanced under a consideration of the 'city' as the
authors of the above go on to say:
The
development of the city by definition involves the development of hybrid ideas,
i.e. where once border zones formed between two more or less distinct spatial
systems… The border zones are sometimes a 'problem,' but they are often precisely
the areas in which the greatest urban vitality develops. They are no longer merely
a melting together of two different systems; they have become a new system with
a logic and dynamism.
Elaborating
on the critique of authenticity, they write
…hybrids
commonly allude to an intrinsic quality which can no longer be traced back to
a specific function… but have a chameleon-like quality… that can accommodate
all kinds of different functions…
Heterogeneity,
again, in another sense of the word.
Authority
and colonising power consistently repudiated hybrid culture:
What
distinguished twentieth century French colonialism and its hybrids from earlier
precedents were the pseudo-scientific, social Darwinian discourse that accompanied
the interdiction against cross-breeding, and the violence and fear with which
hybridity was resisted (O'Connell n.d., citing Morton).
Hybrid
culture was a bastard in the colonial view. The way to suppress hybridity was
to deny, to hush, to keep from sight and to insist on hybrids adopting the vision
of the master culture.
Cultural
hybridity could not be seen in the mirrors of the colonisers, who
…refused
to see how the houses they resided in were hybrid concoctions, a hybridity that
went well beyond stylistic ambivalence….hybridity did not simply reside in
the foreign body and the native town: rather hybridity was a troubling presence
in the form of their own identity, an ambivalent space that they occupied and
whose impact they deeply felt (O'Connell n.d., citing Chattopadhay).
The
hybrida appeared as a Frankenstein of cultures, an image too dangerous to behold,
a challenging of identity. The boundaries of culture and the dwelling places of
the identity were blurred:
There
were no locks or bolts on the doors, indicating too plainly that Indian doors
were not supposed to be shut. Without the possibility of closing off rooms, the
boundary between the house and the outside world became ineffective. This blurring
of boundaries, and the consequent lack of interiority, became one of the more
disturbing aspects of colonial life, reminding the colonizers that the locus of
a hybrid culture was in their midst…The service areas were inextricably linked
to the served spaces… (O'Connell n.d., citing Chattopadhay).
Hybridity
disturbs traditions, and replaces tradition with novel solutions. The solution
is one that fits the locale. The speaker's chair of the Papua New Guinea parliament,
for example, is a cross between the one in the British House of Commons and a
traditional orator stool, 'analogous to the kind of hybrid political system being
molded' (O'Connell n.d., citing Vale). The topology of hybrid locales is not one
of being a simple child of two cultures, but rather, a 'third' independent space
with it's own self decided parameters.
In
what house though, does the personality of the realised cultural hybrid reside?
Homi Bhabha (1994, p. 2) writes of 'an ongoing negotiation that seeks to authorize
cultural hybridities that emerge in moments of historical transformation.' Whilst
this passage of historical transformation is perhaps a reference to the transformation
of cultures at shared boundaries in cities, it is applicable to Pitcairn-Norfolk
cultural heritage, where the transformation was simply explosive in the first
instance.
A trace
of this type of transformation is mapped in the District of Leistavia project.
Locating the installed component in the threshold between two spaces, follows
contentions around zones of transition being suitable to hybridisation processes.
Notes
1.
The above is mostly taken from my MA thesis Hybrid culture, nonlinearity and
creative practice submitted in partial fulfillment of the MA Art and Design
at Auckland University of Technology.
2. Bhabha, H.K. (1994). The location
of culture. London: Routledge.
3. Europan, (2001). Europan 6. Available:
http://www.europan.nl/europan6/euro6_alg_e.html
accessed 8/10/02.
4. O'Connell. (n.d.). Architecture and Identity. Available
http://www.ithaca.edu/faculty/oconnell/identity/archidenthybrid.htm accessed 15/5/02.
THEDISTRICT
OF LEISTAVIAIS
YOU
