Synopses & Reviews
In this era where nearly everyone at least pays lip service to the importance of multiculturalism, why is it still so difficult to negotiate differences across cultures? Why does racism still persistand how does it strike at the foundations of multiculturalism?
Bringing together some of the worlds most influential postcolonial theorists, Debating Cultural Hybridity examines the place and meaning of cultural hybridity in our ever-more-connected, yet crisis-ridden and xenophobic world. Taking as its starting point the fact that personal identities are themselves multicultural, the contributors illuminate the complexity and flexibility of culture and identity, defining their potential openness as well as their closures, to show why anti-racism and multiculturalism remain so difficult to fight for, even today.
Review
“It is marvelous to see this early collection of classic insightful articles on hybridity published again, with new introductions.”
Review
“An indispensable classic text for anyone interested in a complex and nuanced analysis of questions of culture, identity, and hybridity.”
Review
“In the globalized world of the twenty-first century, cultural mixing and ethnic cross-fertilization is a commonplace experience. Debating Cultural Hybridity offers a superb set of essays to understand the complexity of this experience and its political and social implications.”
Review
“The reissue of these seminal essays reminds us that the turn to hybridity was never an invitation to celebration, but rather a challenge to think about the necessary conditions for an emancipatory politics. Given the civilizational hierarchy and liberal homogeneity that has informed the racisms of the 'war on terror' era, their exploration of the complex task of building anti-racist alliances remains vital.”
Synopsis
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.
About the Author
Pnina Werbner is Professor Emerita of Social Anthropology, Keele University, author of The Manchester Migration Trilogy - The Migration Process (1990/2002), Imagined Diasporas (2002), Pilgrims of Love (2003) - and editor of several theoretical collections on hybridity, cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism, migration and citizenship, including Anthropology and the New Cosmopolitanism and The Political Aesthetics of Global Revolt.Tariq Modood is professor of sociology, politics, and public policy at the University of Bristol.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Homi K. Bhabha
Preface to the critique influence change edition
Preface to the first edition
Introduction: The Dialectics of Cultural Hybridity
Pnina Werbner
Part One: Hybridity, Globalisation and the Practice of Cultural Complexity
1. From Complex Culture to Cultural Complexity
Hans-Rudolf Wicker
2. The Making and Unmaking of Strangers
Zygmunt Bauman
3. Identity and Difference in a Globalised World
Alberto Melucci
4. Global Crises, the Struggle for Cultural Identity and Intellectual Porkbarrelling: Cosmopolitans versus Locals, Ethnics and Nationals in an Era of De-hegemonisation
Jonathan Friedman
5. 'The Enigma of Arrival': Hybridity and Authenticity in the Global Space
Peter Van Der Veer
6. Adorno at Womad: South Asian Crossovers and the Limits of Hybridity-Talk
John Hutnyk
Part Two: Essentialism versus Hybridity: Negotiating Difference
7. Is It So Diffcult to be an Anti-Racist?
Michel Wieviorka
8. 'Difference', Cultural Racism and Anti-Racism
Tariq Modood
9. Constructions of Whiteness in European and American Anti-Racism
Alastair Bonnett
10. Ethnicity, Gender Relations and Multiculturalism
Nira Yuval-Davis
13. Dominant and Demotic Discourses of Culture: Their Relevance to Multi-Ethnic Alliances
Gerd Baumann
14. Essentialising Essentialism, Essentialising Silence: Ambivalence and Multiplicity in the Constructions of Racism and Ethnicity
Pnina Werbner
Part Three: Mapping Hybridity
15. Tracing Hybridity in Theory
Nikos Papastergiadis