What is hybridization
- 1. DONE BY: KAVITA DOOKIE & ALICIA SOOKLAL
- 2. Hybridization refers to the process of cultural and ethnic mixing to produce new or ‘creole’ forms. These mixtures of people and culture, began with the era of “DISCOVERY” (inhabitants of the New World migrated through the Caribbean from South America), and has been a part of history since then. When hybridization occurred, they adopted each other’s language and adapted cultural practices. However, plantation society was the institution under which hybridization became deeply established in Caribbean society and culture.
- 3. POSITIVE EFFECTS OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY We enjoy a variety of food, festivals, music and cultural expressions such as dance. Ethnic politics develops, with political parties becomes polarized according to race. Politics then becomes a contest between ethnicities. One can learn to appreciate other cultures and an array of perspectives by growing up in society. For example, having close friends in other groups, being invited to religious celebrations and festivals, or by just observing family life in another culture. Ethnic hate arises out of the feeling of ethnic superiority compounded by perceptions that one group is getting more of the national pie than one’s own group. Persons learn from an early age that conflicts is endemic and that they need skills of negotiation and alliance building to accommodate all the many perspectives that arise. They recognize the importance of maintaining ‘balance’ between the ethnicities which is the essence in democracy-letting all voices be heard Ethnic prejudices are perpetuated through socialization within the family, which is reinforced in interaction with friends and acquaintances; differences appear to be so profound that myths and misconcepts of the other race or ethnic group are believed as fact.
- 4. Amerindians, African, and to the lesser extent Indian women, were forced to cohabit with the and have children for the European conquistador, slave masters and overseers therefore a mixed or coloured ‘race’ of people were born. Many of the children of such unions had physical features proclaiming their ‘white’ inheritance. By inference, according to racial ideologies, lighter skinned children were ‘better’ than their maternal ancestors, they were dealt with more leniently and some were educated, all because they had biological/physical traits publicizing their European connections. A pigmentocracy evolved, where persons of fairer complexion were more prestige and powerful in society than others. Skin, colour and to a lesser extent hair texture and facial features plays in the development of society, culture and identity in the Caribbean. NB: Sexual unions between persons of different races, resulting in children of mixed races is called miscegenation.
- 5. WHITES NON WHITES White or almost white looked forward to a better prospects and life chances than the non whites. Rewarded with more lucrative employment and entry into exclusive social circles. Spaniards regarded the aboriginal inhabitant as subhuman. Reserved for the non whites. Considered as superiority Considered as inferiority Allowed to have an education Not allowed to have an education Had control over the non whites Had to obey the white masters otherwise they would be brutally punished or even sold to other white masters Non whites were sometimes forced to cohabit with and have children for their slaves master and overseers. They had little or no say. What they thought were considered as valueless.
- 6. Mulatto-British historians, enslaved Africans and their white Europeans overlords produced the ethnic group known as mulattoes.
- 7. Mestizo-Europeans first encountered the Amerindians in the fifteenth century, and in that violent impact between the powerful and the powerless the mixed race of mestizos was born.
- 8. Dougla-East Indian and African mixture
- 9. Creole-any person born or anything created in the Caribbean.
- 10. Transculturation describes the process whereby a culture changes drastically, actually overcoming itself and translating into something new. The experience of slavery to newly arrived Africans and ‘creole’ Africans in the Caribbean could be described as a process of transculturation. Transculturation in the case of slavery involves the experience, for newly arrived Africans, of moving from being steeped in African cultures to a hybrid culture.
- 11. Interculturation refers to the mixing of cultures that goes on between groups who share a space. The groups do not have to necessarily give up on their culture but participate in various ways in each others lives. For example the interaction between persons of different ethnicities within such culture. This is where Africans and Indian meet but do not mix. They feed off each other, producing some degree of incorporation and merging.
- 12. Assimilation occurs when a dominant group makes a bid to enculturate another by attempting to supplant all aspects of its culture and make it over into the image of the dominant group.
- 13. Cultural erasure-refers to the practices that have died out or are dying out. For example, the Tainos and Arawaks of the Greater Antilles still survives in place names and in local dialects to some extent. Therefore the practices of the Tainos and Arawaks could have survived and be hybridized within local contexts in the Caribbean.
- 14. Cultural retention-refers to practices that have survived even when most other forms and symbols of a culture are no longer evidence. For example, language or religion.
- 15. Cultural renewal-occurs when a group goes through a conscious rejuvenation process and returns to some elements of its culture, which it believes have been ignored or suppressed. It comes about largely through a change of consciousness brought on by historical forces of change at a certain time. For example the black power movement.
- 16. Hybridization is a process that occurs in creole societies where different groups have met and forged relationships under conditions of oppression. They were forced to live under conditions that suppressed their culture or their freedom to interact, they developed ways of copying and integrating that produced distinctly new cultural forms. Terms like ‘cultural erasure’, ‘cultural retention’, and ‘cultural renewal’ have been used to describe elements of Caribbean society and culture, as well as the terms ‘transculturation’ and ‘interculturation’ that attempts to provide more explanatory power. Whether racial or cultural hybridization, creole varieties of people, religion, customs and language have contributed enormously to cultural diversity in the Caribbean.