New hybridities, old concepts: the limits of 'culture'

Abstract

Approaches that find hybrid social forms to be results of interculturality and diasporic relations claim that these are able to transcend "old ethnicities" and that they constitute transgressive cultural formations. I shall argue that the concept of hybridity, although denoting important developments and challenges to static and essentialist notions of ethnicity and identity, presents both conceptual and substantive difficulties. In addition, approaches to "hybridity" may unintentionally provide a gloss over existing cultural hierarchies and hegemonic practices. I shall reformulate the basis for treating "identities" outside the parameters of the old ethnicities, by developing the concept of "translocational" positionality. It is argued that this is a more adequate means for addressing the range of issues relating to belonging hailed by the notion of hybridity.