CHAPTER 2: RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MIGRANTS AND THE HOST
2.5. Hybridity
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whom the nature of their mobility is unprivileged, i.e. dictated by necessity or even forced, such as migrants and refugees, are conceived of as either people out of place or as transnationals.
These cosmopolitans exist in a global arena which Ong (2006) describes as a “global assemblage”, where citizenship rights are accessed through class and skills. Migrants who lack this status are excluded. Concessions and privileges are bestowed based on the value of the resources the foreign immigrant has to offer. For instance in Asian megacities like Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Singapore, skilled migrants are categorized as expatriates and granted global citizenship status, while those that are less skilled are labeled ‘aliens’ (Ong 2007: 88).
Paradoxically, not all migrants are cosmopolitans, but all cosmopolitans are migrants. In summary, cosmopolitanism’s notion of openness and deterritorialization is selective and is not inclusive of all migrants. Beneath its principle of universalism lies localization, as it aims to develop the state economically; therefore, selective tolerance of migrants’ diversity becomes a compromise to achieve economic development.
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in hierarchies” (Bostanci 2009: 2). Therefore, cultural hybridity assumes that due to globalization and increased movement, culture has become more heterogeneous and it is difficult to maintain homogeneity because it is ever-changing and evolving. While assimilation assumes that the host community’s culture dominates that of the migrant and therefore leads to them relinquishing their culture, hybridity argues that there is no subordination or supremacy of one culture over another. Rather, culture is a continuous blend of difference which gives birth to new cultures in an on-going cycle of crossbreeding.
The hybrid nature of culture suggests that the notion of a culturally homogenous community is fallacious as culture in itself is a mix. Ipsen (2002: 292) explains that “the construction of myths of homogeneous cultural continua is therefore the result of a misconception of how cultures evolve and how they interact, ignoring the fact that cultures are in utter need of contact-making in cultural interfaces so they will have a prospect of continuous development”. Therefore, no culture exists in isolation of others but rather reflects other cultures it has come in contact with. However minimal, there is interaction between members of host communities and immigrants which gives birth to various forms of hybridity. The theory posits that total exclusion in order to maintain cultural homogeneity is impossible due to the globalization of culture. Hybridity not only alters the cultural composition of host communities, but influences integration. Ipsen (2002) reiterates that due to increased migration, most host countries have had to deal with a complex form of heterogeneity which is a result of cultural hybridity. Since the notion of hybridity assumes that cultural identity should be unbounded because culture in itself is unfixed, according to this school of thought, integration should also be unbounded. Eberhardt (2010: 58) reiterates that hybridity opposes the boundaries of identity and the use of such boundaries to perpetuate othering and exclusion. It talks of a “third space” or “in-betweenness” where hybridity occurs and integration is negotiated. The in-betweenness reffered to in hybridity is different from that of cosmopolitanism. In this case, the space moves beyond geographical space to include biological and socio-cultural spaces. Eberhardt (2010: 61) describes this third space as
a site for resistance, struggle, and negotiation. It is a space where new forms of cultural meanings are produced, and where the limitations of existing boundaries, and categorizations, are re-established. This third space is an ambivalent site where cultural meaning, and representation, is not fixed… In
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the third space it is believed that the two sides, the dominant host country culture and the other, meet to negotiate their cultural differences, and to create a culture that is hybrid.
Since hybridity creates a third space where cultures mingle, it invariably redefines identity. If identity can be redefined, processes of othering can also be redefined. Yazdiha (2010: 37) elucidates that it is possible to reorient people’s perceptions of othering and redefine their exclusionary system of labelling or othering. He further argues that
hybridity has the ability to empower marginalized collectives and deconstruct bounded labels, which are used in the service of subordination. In essence, hybridity has the potential to allow once subjugated collectivities to reclaim a part of the cultural space in which they move. Hybridity can be seen not as a means of division or sorting out the various histories and diverse narratives to individualize identities, but rather a means of reimagining an interconnected collective (Yazdiha 2010: 36).
Simply put, hybridity does not divide but rather connects diverse groups. This third space does not exist as a new heterogeneous community but as one that acts as a bridge between diverse groups as a result of being a product of them. “According to the hybridity concept, migrant actors do not find themselves in an either-or but, rather, in a both and” (Goethe Institut 2014: n.p.). “Either-or” has to do with othering; it implies us and them. However, when diverse identities merge, it evolves to “both and” which denotes a part of or inclusion.
The third space enables the hybrid to renegotiate othering because the boundary between
“us” and “them” has been blurred. Behera (2013: 5) explains that hybrids can be integrated into the host community because of their diverse identity; they are able to articulate their interests because they belong to the third space. Meredith (1998: 2) states that hybridity is
“celebrated and privileged as a kind of superior cultural intelligence owing to the advantage of in-betweenness, the straddling of two cultures and the consequent ability to negotiate the difference”. Does hybridity therefore imply a gradual blending of differences and heterogeneity into sameness and homogeneity?
Hoon (2006: 159) explains that “the concept of hybridity confronts and problematizes all these boundaries, but does not erase them, and suggests a blurring of boundaries and,
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consequently, an unsettling of identities”. The blurring of boundaries implies the mixture and overlapping of cultures and identities. When the lines become blurred othering is nearly impossible. Hybridity seeks togetherness or coexistence rather than homogeneity. Deleuze and Guattari (2004: 322) describe this as a “block of coexistence”. Ang adds that,
unlike other key concepts in the contemporary politics of difference – such as diaspora and multiculturalism – it (hybridity) foregrounds complicated entanglement rather than identity, togetherness-in-difference rather than separateness and virtual apartheid. It is also a concept that prevents the absorption of all difference into a hegemonic plane of sameness and homogeneity (2003: 142).
Therefore, the unboundedness of culture creates a complex heterogeneity which allows for togetherness rather than homogeneity that propagates separateness (Ipsen 2002). It is complex because rather than differences dividing, they connect. Ha (2006: 2) describes it as a dynamic mixture and intermingling which is founded on border transgression. Does this imply that hybridity does away with exclusion? Or does it create a novel system of hierarchical othering?
Critics argue that hybridity does not necessarily imply the total eradication of othering based on cultural diversity or perceived cultural boundaries. Ha (2006: 3) explains that “while it is right to assume that hybridity will have effects on processes of othering and dominant culturalistic world views, it would be naive to believe that hybridity provides a formula for an all-encompassing solution”. Indeed, the notion of hybridity cannot exclude that of homogeneity as international does not remove nation-state; rather it is reignited indirectly through the emphasis on a hybrid culture (Stockhammer 2013: 12). Simply put, hybridity emphasizes in-betweenness and the third space which is a product of the first and second spaces, the pure and impure or the homogeneous and diverse. In addition, the third space in which the hybrid exists does not necessarily empower people to renegotiate their position and eliminate othering. As Hogstrom (2009: 5) reiterates,
there will also be differences within the group of those who are in-between, so knowing exactly how these subjects, or people, are formed is nearly impossible without looking at every single case in detail. The result is a very
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diverse group of people who do not fit into our preconceived view of who we are. It is these people who are somewhere in-between that can be called hybrids.
Hybridity as a means of integration is therefore, more complex than cultural mix explanations. Simply put, "the hybrid is not the opposite of hierarchy and hegemony, but of binary and dichotomy" (Schneider 1997: 43). Hybridity not only removes the boundaries of culture, but also widens the margins of diversity. It could therefore have the dual effect of either inclusion or integration or more groups to exclude.