The Need to Belong

The Need to Belong

Series Editors Dr Robert Fisher Lisa Howard Dr Ken Monteith Advisory Board Simon Bacon Katarzyna Bronk John L. Hochheimer Stephen Morris Peter Twohig

Ana Borlescu Ann-Marie Cook Peter Mario Kreuter John Parry Karl Spracklen S Ram Vemuri

An At the Interface research and publications project. http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/ The Diversity and Recognition Hub ‘Multiculturalism, Conflict and Belonging’

2015

The Need to Belong: Perpetual Conflicts and Temporary Stability

Edited by

Albin Wagener and Tina Rahimy

Inter-Disciplinary Press Oxford, United Kingdom

© Inter-Disciplinary Press 2015 http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/id-press/

The Inter-Disciplinary Press is part of Inter-Disciplinary.Net – a global network for research and publishing. The Inter-Disciplinary Press aims to promote and encourage the kind of work which is collaborative, innovative, imaginative, and which provides an exemplar for inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary publishing.

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ISBN: 978-1-84888-175-4 First published in the United Kingdom in Paperback format in 2015. First Edition.

Table of Contents Introduction Albin Wagener and Tina Rahimy Part One

Concepts, Reflections and Interrogations Undermined Empathy, Undermined Coexistence: Japanese Discursive Formations Related to Empathy Setsuko Adachi

Part Two

3

From Affirmation to Contestation: On the Politics of Recognition Renante D. Pilapil

23

Cultural Entanglements of Human Rights Discourse Agnieszka Jarzewicz

43

The Battleground of a Milieu: On the Concept of Flight and Its Political Milieu Tina Rahimy

61

Myths, Arts and Re-Appropriations Writing New Identities: South Asian Women, North America and Three Asian-American Novels Madhubanti Bhattacharyya

77

Global Tribe in the Local Practice: Lapses in the Celebration of Brazilian’s Rave Scene Carolina de Camargo Abreu

91

Globalisation, Transculturalism and Environment: Sharing and Understanding Indigenous Perspectives through Poetry Antonio Cuadrado-Fernandez

109

The Image of Dance and the Narrative of Secular Culture in Edward Said’s After the Last Sky Rachid Belghiti

129

The Cheongsam: A Site of Wonder and Contestation for Canadian Women of Chinese Heritage Cheryl Sim

143

Part Three Collective Interpretations and Identity Policies Crioulas Media: Technology, Language and Identity from a Quilombola Community in Brazil to the Multicultural World Tiago Assis

165

Multicultural Belongings on the Contemporary Stage: Krishen Jit’s Theatre of Identity in Malaysia Charlene Rajendran

187

Designing Identity: An Attempt to Manufacture Singaporeans Michael Kearney

207

From Liberal Nationalism to Nationalistic Liberalism: Liberal Values and the Prospects for Progressive Nationalism Debopriyo Bal and Benjamin Herscovitch

231

Representations and Defence Processes in Cross-Cultural Conflicts: France and the Case of its ‘National Identity’ Albin Wagener

249

Introduction Albin Wagener and Tina Rahimy ***** 1. Constructions and De-Constructions When it comes to a discussion of identities, belonging, culture and as they relate to local, national, and global issues, current trends introduce the topic as something inherently reflexive, claiming the developments induced by globalization make the discussion itself more important than ever, and that this alone would allow the relevance of such discussion. Is it the effect and the reality of globalization that which makes men and citizens question their identity and their manner of belonging to a community? We assess that this sort of self-important introduction is based on two premises, which eventually appear to be partially wrong: The process of globalization alone is not responsible for the problems revealed in terms of identity and culture; the light is often shed on globalization as if it would be the cause of misled encounters and conflicting relationships. Globalization is neither a uniform notion nor an object of one form of politics or scientific and artistic discipline. Even movements such as anti-globalization are part of these globalizing processes, whether culturally, economically or politically. Also notion such as identity, belonging and culture have ambiguous meaning and differ within time and space whenever we change our notion of globalization and politics. Secondly, the concept of globalization is not merely the opposite of locality. Local movements can appear on a global level. So are nationalistic movements comparable, or do they even share similar traits no matter where they are located? The political thinker Hannah Arendt warns us about extreme global ambition of totalitarian nation-states. On the other hand global movements such as is the case with non-governmental organization and Micro credits could have a local effect and strategy. The historical reality of exchange and transculturalism, however, shows merely the complexity and immensity of the process of globalization. Each period needs its own reflection and thought on notions such as globalization and identity. Each time we have to find new ways to belong. There is no uniform way of belonging and community, neither within the same period nor in the lapse of time. In this perspective, dealing with cultural and identity conflicts is both synchronic and diachronic at the same time: it is rooted in a very definite context yet echoes through centuries and epochs as human History is a history of conquests, exchanges, travels, transcontinental discoveries and geographical encounters. The present times do not reinvent this basic description; they merely

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__________________________________________________________________ stress it out insofar as it does occur in an era of hypercommunication, which only renders these issues more visible than they have ever been before. Even if the present globalizing process were not as acute as it is, the issues raised will always be relevant. They remain pertinent because they are based on our central and essential need to belong, which itself extends its implications on a tridimensional scope: - An individual dimension, as this need gets expressed in a situation of personal intimacy, and even more if the individual is torn between different cultural, social or psychological influences; human beings have to perpetually construct and de-construct themselves through this viewpoint and their relation with family, friends and others. - A collective/social, which is not the opposite of the individual, dimension, insofar as groups and institutions try to define and redefine common values, perspectives, actions and decisions in order to create a sense of belonging and a shared adhesion; cultures, subcultures, shared habits and moral systems do emerge through this need to belong. - A political dimension, which relates to the individual as well as the collective/social dimension, could on the one hand indicate the extension of power by using, manipulating or playing with this need to belong, in order to rally votes, donations, working forces and various adhesions and thus increase their area of influence. And on the other hand politics give rise to minor movements resisting these forms of hierarchical structures and realities. Each event in the world of men is a complex weaving reality of all three dimensions; a complex simultaneous happening of different individual and a community. We are collective and individuals at the same time. In this contextual triad of individual, social and political dimension, the need to belong is exploited and expressed through collisions and collusions, conflicts and reunions, negotiations and ignorance, cultural stereotypes and display of identity. We may need a certain form of cognitive stability and emotional comfort, yet the surrounding environment of stakes triggered by a human need to belong makes the world a puzzling and paradoxical place; it does not mean that this world lacks logic and coherence, but that it remains the shared theatre of collective currents and micro political forces.


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__________________________________________________________________ 2. Transdisciplinary Perspectives The contributions made to this volume have been thoroughly selected after passionate discussions and demanding debates during the 4 th Multiculturalism, Conflict and Belonging conference, held in Oxford on September 2010. In many aspects, this event has initiated new developments in terms of conceptualizing identity, its collective and individual management and its place as a concept in society. Moreover, it has been articulated with cultural expressions, national policies and personal experiences in various domains; the present volume reflects the diversity of viewpoints on the present issue, as contributions emerge from the fields of anthropology, social sciences, literature studies, linguistics, philosophy and political sciences. In order to propose a substantial development of these various perspectives, the present volume has been divided into three sections, thus reflecting the multifaceted implications and struggles related to the human need to belong. The first part of this book, entitled ‘Concepts, Reflections and Interrogations’, starts with an intercultural reflexion on the concept of empathy and of its symbolic and social declensions in the occidental scientific paradigm as opposed to the Japanese language. In this perspective, Setsuko Adachi asserts that even wellestablished concepts which are deemed as universal to the eyes of occidental scholars are indeed hard to adapt when it comes to mere linguistic differences. In this sense, Japanese concepts such as amae and karen present a subtle singularity, thus presenting a new form of co-existence. In a political sense, co-existence also needs a critical approach linked to the debates surrounding the question of recognition. This essential issue is raised by Renante Pilapil, who puts this very question in the perspective of contestation, democratic functioning, power and ideology, starting from a philosophical critique of Charles Taylor’s theories and leading to the proposal of James Tully’s contestation approach. The universal issues surrounding the need of mutual recognition are also underlined by a cultural interpretation of the theory of Human Rights. Agnieszka Jarzewicz links this theory to the problems of cultural exclusion, particularly in the sense that the theory of Human Rights may underline a universal equality of all cultures. This suggestion is criticized in the sense as it does not necessarily takes a closer look at cultural singularities. In some sense, culture also concentrates complex mechanics linked to power and as such, it needs to be looked at through the lens of its social implications. This intricate complexity is eventually defined as a battleground by Tina Rahimy, thus signifying the ultimate link between struggling ideologies, radical policies and the need of moving back to everyday life reflections. In the end, the purpose of this essential thinking would be to create non-exclusive communities and to try to expose a new definition of relationality backed by politics and artistic expressions. In fact, ‘Myths, Arts and Re-appropriations’ remain pivotal notions in the understanding of the human need to belong. The second part of this collective

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__________________________________________________________________ volume suggest that, within the basic and pragmatic issues of human societies, individuals and tribes ultimately try to make sense in order to find a relevant way of living together. In this sense, individuals are literally trying to write or re-write their own identity in the midst of collective contexts. Through this perspective, Madhubanti Bhattacharyya shows that identities are not necessarily tied to monolithic divides such as ethnicity or religion. Through the study of three novels, it is suggested that, as soon as individuals are trapped into a multi-referential context, it remains problematic to choose between personal history, new environments and multi-layered dimensions of everyday life. However, a solution might be to re-create new spaces which would gather different influences. According to Carolina de Camargo Abreu, thorough anthropological reports show how individuals within communities subscribe to new re-appropriations and myths: the case of the Global Tribe celebrated in Trance communities throughout the world point to the fact that through various artistic performances and expressions, especially music or painting, human beings may be creative enough to found brand new interpretations through a polymorphous approach of culture, linked to a return to strictly natural environmental basics. This new human blend of nature and culture as a creation of a new identity is also to be witnessed in poetry, insofar as this particular form of writing uses stylistic and metaphoric processes of expression. Antonio Cuadrado-Fernandez specifically posits that the very form of poetry represents a different gate to issues surrounding identity, especially as it manages to melt natural environmental references with cultural needs through a unique form of expression. This blending solution may also be found in the association of different forms of art, such as prose and, for instance, photographed dance rituals. In this perspective, Rachid Belghiti presents Edward Said’s After the last sky through a thorough analysis of links existing between dance, history, images and written narratives, by gathering them into a single expressive choreography. The fusion of physical declensions of identities with collective and individual stories show that human beings remain able to bend time, space and alleged frames in order to create new sense. This new sense is finally investigated by Cheryl Sim through a study of the Chinese cheongsam, as it represents a reappropriation of tradition in the context of a hegemonic policy of multiculturalism allowing co-existence, yet without creating the means of dialogue between different cultural universes. Furthermore, institutionalized policies and political discourses may ultimately restrain individuals and societies from creating new forms of expression of their own need to belong. The third and final part of this project, named ‘Collective Interpretations and Identity Policies’, eventually tries to underline the double meaning within official discourses by exploring different collective systems. These discourses may first be represented through new technologies, particularly for indigenous communities such as the Brazilian Quilombola explored by Tiago Assis. This very case shows that it remains tricky for isolated communities to


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__________________________________________________________________ preserve their language and identity in a multicultural world which has already made a patchwork of significant choices in terms of new forms of communication and global policies. The complex relation between small communities and an interconnected world is also to be found at more local scales, between citizen and national guidance. The case of the Theatre of identity presented and studies by Charlene Rajendran in relation to Malaysia, its country of emergence, shows that individual everyday experiences are not necessarily in tune with incantatory multicultural policies. Individual identity is thus depicted as a multicultural experience and performance, allowing the multiplicity of belongings for human beings. This resistance remains particularly beneficial when national policies literally are trying to manufacture their own citizens through particular interpretations of society and history. According to Michael Kearney, such interpretations are to be found in the creation of Singapore’s seemingly ideal diversity. Despite of the official discourse praising the multicultural equality of Singaporeans, the Identity Matrixing Model (IMM) allows to understand how national policies participate in the constitution of identity through an internalization processed by individuals. In this perspective, it remains hard for citizens to be able to choose for a particular form of socio-political construct, when official discourses tend to re-create a collective myth. Debopriyo Bal and Benjamin Herscovitch thus propose a new liberal form of Nationalism through philosophical and political developments, in order to grant to citizens the possibility to share liberal ideals and to build a politically viable society simply based on collective values. Despite of this progressive viewpoint, national policies in the 21 st century still remain framed in the reproduction of re-appropriated fictions, thus trying to close collective identities and freeze them for political purposes. Albin Wagener asserts that this very process is operating in France for instance, where the need to belong is bound to a monocultural form of Nationalism in order to defend the country against the puzzling threats of multifaceted identities and multi-layered cultural references. In this perspective, it might remain hard for some Nations to step out of their traditional schemata and to offer their citizens the right to re-create and re-express their own versions of belonging and identity. 3. Conflicts or Stability? The following chapters suggest that it might be helpful to start a progressive educational process in order to allow citizens to create new ways of expressing their own evolutions of identity, their own cultural references and the paths chosen in order to belong to new social, political, existential and artistic spheres. If conflict has to be avoided if it ultimately threatens mutual acceptation, it is still necessary to confront re-appropriations and expressions and to de-construct collective fictions in order to re-construct new ways of telling stories of identity and belonging. In this perspective, stability is not a valuable option either, as it might freeze these fictions in time and space and grant citizens with a comfortable yet

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__________________________________________________________________ philosophically and pragmatically dangerous unified viewpoint on social relations, artistic experiences, environmental symbolisms and life in general. In a historical moment where crisis seems to create and embody a new form of norm, stability has to be re-thought as a complex form of relative harmony, where balances are constantly shaped and re-shaped through thorough negotiations, in individual and collective actions and interactions. Thus, conflicts become coherent parts of these negotiation processes, insofar as they represent particular moments of these very negotiations, when disagreements may emerge in a sharp way: conflicts only occur when stabilities need to be redefined. In this perspective, they are not margin phenomena which should be avoided at any cost, but only relevant moments which imply underground movements that need to find a way to express themselves, such as lava must find a volcano to burst out when energies in Earth’s mantle demand it. Moments of conflict are part of life and of human evolution, particularly in cases when processes of identification are involved and must find a way out through human experience. This is how the following chapters have to be understood: it is not a heavy critique on the fact that conflicts, disagreements or instabilities are expressed, but a tribute to human creativity in action, through various pressure points and influences, but in definite need of sense and meaning. This volume is about how human beings are trying to shape and elaborate meaning in critical situations, which are often only everyday situations. In this sense, it would be useless to look at human experience and the way to build a new education of other and self, if one could not adopt a comprehensive and even benevolent perspective on human life, taking both its genius and flaws into account.

Part One Concepts, Reflections and Interrogations

Undermined Empathy, Undermined Coexistence: Japanese Discursive Formations Related to Empathy Setsuko Adachi Abstract Conflicts between the inseparable forces of globalisation and counter-globalisation are accelerating today amongst myriad regional cultural sets. Ongoing globalisation is characterized by the development of Advanced Information and Communication Systems (AICS). These systems often disseminate, on a global scale, information that undermines many regional cultural constructions, altering locally constructed worldviews. In the constantly conflicting and altering situations of globalisation, an enhancing of mutually respectful coexistence is needed; in order to achieve this, the fostering of empathy, ‘the ability to imagine oneself in another’s place and understand the other’s feelings, desires, ideas, and actions’1 in identities is crucial. To better comprehend the operations of the concept of empathy in regional cultural sets and within individual identities, conducting a study on the cultural/linguistic/psychological constructions embedded in languages/discourses to reveal the discursive formations related to empathy will be helpful. An examination of current Japanese discursive formations reveals a lack of empathy; this absence of empathy, within the culturally constructed discursive formations that govern the discourses operating within the Japanese regional identity set, undermines possibilities for coexistence with non-Japanese regional sets. The theories used in conducting the study are based upon Lacan’s notions on language and culture. According to Lacan language ‘with its structure, exists prior to each subject’s entry into it’ and ‘the subject, while he may appear to be the slave of language, is still more the slave of a discourse’ and that the term culture ‘may well be reduced to language.’2 Though this chapter examines empathy in current Japanese discursive formations, the premise and methods are applicable to the analysis of many concepts related to multiculturalism. The first section will layout the concepts needed to discuss coexistence in the chapter, in relation to empathy. It will then analyse empathy, or the lack of, in current Japanese discursive formations; it will also discuss the cultural/linguistic/psychological structures that castrate empathy. Finally, suggestions on how to alter the structures that undermine coexistence will be made. Key Words: AICS, amae, ba, coexistence, empathy, globalisation, Japanese discursive formations, peripheral-centrism. *****

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Undermined Empathy, Undermined Coexistence

__________________________________________________________________ 1. Introduction: Globalisation, Coexistence, and Empathy Globalisation refers to dynamic phenomena that result from the global operations of political and/or economic systems, which bind together different peoples and regions. Conflicts between the inseparable forces of globalisation and counter-globalisation are accelerating today amongst myriad regional cultural sets. Ongoing globalisation is characterised by the development of Advanced Information and Communication Systems (AICS). These systems often disseminate, on a global scale, information that undermines many regional cultural constructions, altering locally constructed worldviews: AICS promote hybridisation and transculturality within locally constructed world views and implement borderless values that cut across regional cultural sets. In the constantly conflicting and altering situations of globalisation, enhancing mutually respectful coexistence is needed. To achieve this, empathy needs to be fostered in identities. Empathy in one definition is the ‘ability to imagine oneself in another’s place and understand the other’s feelings, desires, ideas, and actions.’3 In regards to coexistence in transculturality two factors of empathy need to be emphasized. One is, as Evan Thompson states in his book, Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind, the capability to understand ‘foreign experience’ that is not ‘reducible to some additive combination of perception and inference:’ the experience is ‘non-primordial,’ it is not lived by, in the first-person subjectivity.4 It enables hybridised and diversified different identities to understand each other: empathy is observed to function among other living things as well as humans and also cuts across species.5 This requires, which is the second factor, the recognition of the different existences as equals, which is connected to the capabilities of body-mapping, ‘the ability to map one’s own body onto that of another and make the other movements one’s own.’6 The two factors combined bring the capability of objectifying the self within other as well as understandings of the different and foreign other. [E]mpathy involves the possibility of seeing myself from your perspective, that is, as you empathetically perceive me. Empathy thus becomes reiterated, so that I empathetically imagine your empathetic experience of me and you empathetically imagine my experience of you.7 The developing of empathy thus enables identities to ‘participate[s] in an intersubjective viewpoint that transcends … first-person singular perspectives.’8 Neuroscientific advances are shedding light on empathy in human structure through the investigation of the ‘interrelation between the brain, the body, the environment and other human beings’9 and these neuroscientific advances add and open up different perspectives. For example, Antonio Cuadrado-Fernandez utilizes the discoveries of interrelatedness of brain and body to view the principles of

Setsuko Adachi

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__________________________________________________________________ Cartesian dualism from a more ‘organicist and integrative perspective’ to understand the ‘sense of oneness with the land’ in Indigenous Anglophone poetries. 10 Neurophysiology provides evidence for empathy, the cognitions of foreign experience, through the study of affective resonance and sensorimotor coupling. It is understood that empathy is the ‘dynamic coupling or pairing of the living bodies of self and other,’ the body-mapping, which operates ‘at the level of the unconscious schema’ and this ‘can be linked to mind science by referring to the growing body of psychological and neurophysical evidence for coupling mechanisms linking self and other at sensorimotor and affective levels.’ The findings at the levels of neurons, such as ‘mirror neurons,’ provide the evidence for the coupling of self and other, that ‘perception of an action automatically activates not simply processes of perceptual recognition for that action, but also various aspects of the motor processes for generating it.’ Furthermore, ‘emotive coupling and affective resonance also occur between self and other’ that ‘[n]ewborn babies cry in response to the sound of another baby’s cry, a reaction that is thought to provide some of the underpinnings for the later development of cognitive empathy.’11 What the neuroscientific achievements present is that empathy exists in human structure. It is also explicit that this capability relies on the recognition of the other. This reliance on the ability to recognize the other is where the cultural manipulations of empathy both positive and negative occur. Positive ones serve coexistence through enhancement of empathy that leads to the recognition of the different other as ‘a being that deserves concern and respect,’ 12 which brings benevolent coexistence. Negative ones dysfunction empathy: Agnieszka Jarzewicz surmises that the gaining of an ‘axiologically neutral perspective in cognition’ is not possible in her chapter ‘Cultural Entanglements of Human Rights Discourse’13 and Renante D. Pilapil examines approaches and ideologies of the recognition struggles in cultural social beings in ‘From Affirmation to Contestation: On the Politics of Recognition’. 14 Both chapters examine problematic cultural constructions where cultural manipulations generate negative perceptions of the other. The negative results of cultural manipulations of/in humans today are described by Frans de Waal as follows: The greatest problem today, with so many groups rubbing shoulders on a crowded planet, is excessive loyalty to one’s own nation, group or religion. Humans are capable of deep disdain for anyone who looks different or thinks another way, even between neighboring groups with almost identical DNA … The lives of strangers are often considered worthless. 15 Humans undergo ‘enculturation’ as social beings: Thompson writes, ‘the ‘enculturation’ of the mind in language fundamentally transforms the nature of

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__________________________________________________________________ human cognition,’ and ‘as one acquires a language, one internalizes, through imitative and cultural learning, the communicative intentions of others.’16 In other words, enculturation of Symbolic Orders takes place: Symbolic Orders are culturally constructed systems that transmit to the child ‘the language, customs, concepts, and ‘truths’ upon which identity is founded;’ they will be internalised and govern the engagement of the child with the world.17 Michael Kearney in his ‘Designing Identity: An Attempt to Manufacture Singaporeans,’ draws attention to artificial intentional engagement in creating discursive formations in identities. He illuminates the internalising processes, the results and ongoing configurations of the ‘endeavour to engineer identity and regulate social behaviour so as to create from an ethnically diverse population (Chinese, Indian, Malay, Eurasian) Singaporeans in an attempt to secure order and progress’18 utilizing the Identity Matrixing Model. 19 A poignant point is that if empathy is undermined, there is ample space for artificial manufacturing, reviving, and reinforcing empathy: and in order to achieve coexistence within the diversification of identities in transculturality, which is rapidly developing with the matrixing of the MetaSymbolic Order 20 that permeates identities through their access to AICS, undermined empathy needs to be addressed. Thus, to analyse the operation of the concept of empathy in the cultural/linguistic/psychological constructions embedded in languages/discourses will reveal discursive formations related to empathy that constitute Symbolic Orders. The analysis will help to foster empathy in regional cultural sets: the premise and methods that the chapter utilizes are applicable to the analysis of many concepts related to multiculturalism. In the case of Japan, an examination of the current Japanese discursive formations reveals a lack of empathy; 21 this absence undermines coexistence with non-Japanese regional cultural sets. The first section will layout the concepts needed to discuss coexistence in the chapter in relation to empathy. It will then analyse empathy, or the lack of, in current Japanese discursive formations; it will also discuss the cultural/linguistic/psychological structures that castrate empathy. Finally, suggestions on how to alter the structures that undermine coexistence will be made. 2. Linguistic/Cultural Analysis: Lacan and Doi The features of discursive formations that govern discourses in Symbolic Orders can be extracted through linguistic/cultural analysis. Jacques Lacan stated language ‘with its structure, exists prior to each subject’s entry into it’ and ‘the subject, while he may appear to be the slave of language, is still more the slave of a discourse’ and that the term culture ‘may well be reduced to language.’22 Takeo Doi shares the view with Lacan that culture is language (in the following quote Doi is using the word ‘nation’ implying a national culture):

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__________________________________________________________________ The typical psychology of a given nation can be learned only through familiarity with its native language. The language comprises everything which is intrinsic to the soul of a nation and therefore provides the best projective test there is for each nation.23 The understanding of cultural/linguistic relationships led Doi to realize that the word, concept of, amae is a peculiar existence to Japanese language/culture: while the phenomenon is common in all human psychological systems, it is the Japanese language that has signified the phenomenon as amae; a discursive formation embedded in the Japanese Symbolic Order: [T]he word amae is, as a word, peculiar to the Japanese language yet describes a psychological phenomenon that is basically common to mankind as a whole [; this] shows not only how especially familiar the psychology in question is to the Japanese but also that the Japanese social structure is formed in such a way as to permit expression of that psychology. This implies in turn that amae is a key concept for the understanding not only of the psychological makeup of the individual Japanese but of the structure of Japanese society as a whole.24 Applying the method that Doi utilized to discover the concept of amae, it can be pointed out that the concept of empathy is lacking in Japanese discursive formations: the signification for empathy is absent from Japanese language. Sympathy exists but empathy is not operating in the Japanese Symbolic Order. 3. The Lack of Empathy To begin with, empathy and sympathy are both relationships based on understanding emotions that other people have. To clarify the structural differences between empathy and sympathy in their contemporary usage, brief definition comparisons will be useful. Empathy as mentioned before is defined as ‘the ability to imagine oneself in another’s place and understand the other’s feelings, desires, ideas, and actions,’ a simpler definition says ‘the ability to understand another person’s feeling, experience etc.’25 Sympathy has three sub-entries for the word: ‘1. the feeling of being sorry for sb; showing that you understand and care about sb’s problems, 2. the act of showing support for or approval of an idea, a cause, an organization, etc., 3. friendship and understanding between people who have similar opinions or interests.’ 26 Barnes and Thagard quote Lauren Wispe who describes differences between empathy and sympathy as follows:

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__________________________________________________________________ In empathy the self is the vehicle for understanding, and it never loses its identity. Sympathy, on the other hand, is concerned with communion rather than accuracy, and self-awareness is reduced rather than enhanced.... In empathy one substitutes oneself for the other person; in sympathy one substitutes others for oneself. 27 A distinction that can be discerned from these definitions is that empathy is focused on the ability to understand different emotions and is not opinionated. However, in sympathy differences in emotion are not the focus, the focus is on emotional union, the sameness. Sympathy functions upon identifications with cultural ideologies that provide individuals with ego-centric views, whereas in empathy the focus is on respective recognition that requires objective views with non-egocentricity. The lack of empathy in the Japanese Symbolic Order can be observed through Japanese descriptions for the English word empathy. Three widely used EnglishJapanese dictionaries 28 have kyokan (ඹឤ) listed for empathy. 29 Definitions of kyokan according to Kojien and Shinmeikai, two of the most referred to Japanese dictionaries are:30 (Translation of the word sympathy) To feel and understand exactly the same feelings: to feel and understand psychological states that other people are experiencing and about their claims etc as one’s own. To agree.31 To attain the sameness in emotion (thoughts).32 It is evident that these Japanese definitions of empathy are not empathy but sympathy: first of all, the word kyokan, according to Kojien, is the ‘[t]ranslation of the word sympathy.’ For sympathy, an English-Japanese dictionary33 lists words in three groupings34 that coincide with the already mentioned definitions of the three sub-entries. A Japanese word that always comes first for sympathy is dojo (ྠ᝟). Kojien defines dojo as ‘to feel together, especially of anguish and unhappiness, as if it is happening to oneself’ and Shinmeikai, ‘to understand the pain and anguish that others are facing from their points of view and to encourage them with heartwarming words that things will turn out good eventually, so live steadily and strongly.’ As the words’ definitions show, Japanese language does not distinguish the two concepts. Doi in his study showed amae is a psychological structure that individuals raised in Japanese Symbolic Orders utilize to build and understand relationships; it is a discursive formation that governs their thoughts and behaviours, which is matrixed into identities vertically and horizontally to produce and retain a Japanese identity and Japan’s cultural and social systems. The lack of

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__________________________________________________________________ empathy indicates that amae and empathy are not compatible: amae actually is structured to castrate empathy and to interfere with the development of respectful diversified coexistence. 4. Amae and Ba-Estrangement System: Psychological Castration of Empathy Amae is a mechanism where the ideal state is a psychologically stable state within a child where no external threats exist; the child’s mother is the child’s whole world and the existence of the rest of the world is extinguished from the child’s mind. It is a psychological system that was developed to maintain psychological unity after physical separation. The psychological system amae devised is that an individual/child does not, cannot make and/or is not responsible for making decisions: decisions are made by sharing the same will with whoever is occupying the protector/the top of the hierarchy/mother role, to have a unity; this brings stability to the group. This type of group structure is termed ba: it is an amae unit of people devised to foster emotional unity. Ba is an estrangement system: The desire for oneness with the protector and the other people in a given group/ba is so deep-seated that people will be inconsistent in their decisions; an individual’s desire to be united with a protector/ba that they are in at a particular moment in time will often result in them making decisions that contradict decisions that they made at previous occasions in different bas. The ability to discern who is hierarchically higher is extremely important in this system. A member of a ba feels the immediate security of a ba, the positive sentiment of being welcomed, a sense of being approved of by the leader and the ba, and of being acknowledged as good. This occurs to such an extent that their actions within an immediate ba will supersede the rest of the world and their individual integrity. It can be discerned that amae’s interest lies in preserving and presenting a ba as a momentarily perfect world; its focus is on introverted continuity and desire for the centripetal unity of the ba where each constituent of the ba is firmly entrenched in their hierarchical position. When a situation arises where an individual faces the need to choose a ba, a strong deciding factor will be the hierarchical relationship between the bas that are in conflict. Amae-ba fosters an intricate hierarchical hodological map, an internalised map that navigates individuals through a Symbolic Order. 35 Japanese linguistic communication is conducted by the hierarchical amae-ba system. Uchida noted that Japanese communication is performed through exercising power by intimidating inferiors and that in Japanese communication the decisions of who is hierarchically higher/superior take precedence over the contents of the right or wrong of the messages, and that in some cases communication is no longer necessary once the hierarchical relationship is confirmed.36 At the top of this hierarchy is the ultimate ba of Japaneseness: this Japaneseness offers membership to those who adhere to the system and were raised

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__________________________________________________________________ in Japanese Symbolic Orders linguistically and spatially, irregularities are excluded as not real or secondary Japanese. Adhering to the amae-ba system means to compete to gain a hierarchical membership and for an approval in the ultimate ba of Japaneseness. In Japanese Symbolic Orders, where amae-ba discursive formations operate, individuals internalise binary oppositional sets such as Japanese/non-Japanese, amae-ba unity/differences, amae-ba hierarchy/equality, and amae-ba loyalty/individual integrity. In amae-ba discursive formations, dojo sympathy thrives: dojo is exercised by those who are superior. It is superiors’ reassuring acts of their hierarchical superiority by providing pity to inferiors through communion and the inferiors are expected to thank the superiors for the dojo; it is a ba unification confirmation process. Empathy, on the other hand, maintains the self as ‘the vehicle for understanding and it never loses its identity,’37 for amae this empathy structure is undesirable and it needs to be countered: empathy endangers the core structures of amae. As the Japanese translations and definitions show, amae has been successful in castrating empathy from Japanese discursive formations by altering meanings in Japanese translations. The examples of empathy castration, empathy being overridden by the enculturation of Japanese Symbolic Orders, are witnessed at war times: amae-ba discursive formations govern individuals to adhere to the Japanese amae-ba unity hierarchy and as the result individuals behave to exclude, dismiss and terminate identities with non-Japanese adherent Symbolic Orders to be loyal and act out the ultimate sacrifice for Japaneseness, which was embodied by Hirohito during WWII. Listen to the Voices from the Sea is a collection of writings, most of which are diaries and letters kept in private away from public eyes, by fallen Japanese student-soldiers, including kamikaze pilots, during WWII. The collection reveals students’ intelligence, doubts about the war, the awareness of the realities of war situations, the frustrations in inhumanness of being treated as disposable parts of machines/weapons, and also their capability of empathetic understandings of the conditions of the different other. On November 27, 1940 while Japan was enjoying its victories in China, Hidemitsu Oi wrote on the sentiment he calls karen and he expresses his empathetic understandings toward a Chinese father and his child. A dictionary definition says karen means ‘pitiful and sweet.’ 38 For Oi this is not satisfactory. Oi argues that karen is exercised when the objects of karen are perceived as empathetic equals that deserve respect and concern. He then recounts an actual karen sentiment that he experienced toward a Chinese father and his child. The sentiment of karen is often mentioned. I experience that sentiment often too. To have the heart to feel tenderness toward the small ones and weak ones is an extremely favourable sentiment out of myriads of the sentiments that occur in human hearts. The sentiment of karen, however, does not flow for the

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__________________________________________________________________ weak ones because they are not capable or have no where to rely on. It is when despite the weakness they strive to preserve their self-dignity and make the best effort with their limited power the sentiment flows out of me. The weak ones taking the protections from the stronger as granted is mere subservience in the end. In such cases the karen sentiment does not move at all.39 At an occasion I was filled with the deep sentiment of karen seeing a China-man and his child. That China-man was in his forties, tall, well nourished, plump cheeks with a long face. He was not dressed particularly rich or shabby. He held what must be his child about four in his arms watching the majestic march of the Imperial Army pass by from the roadside. They are, after all, the people of the defeated nation. How do they see and what do they think of the victorious march of the Imperial Army? There was no display of subservient sentiment. The small autonomies were dimly visible. Especially in the child, who was protected by the defeated adult, it was as if the possibility of China’s future was hidden in him. Despite of that not a particle of sympathy would be given and no heed at all would be paid to them, and they were to be simply thrown away at an impoverished village far from the light of civilisation. I felt torn apart by the sight of these two karen people as I was advancing.40 Following is another example, this one is from the end of the war when the situation is no longer optimistic for Japan. Jiroku Iwagaya on November 6, 1944 contemplates: Japanese grieve the deaths of Japanese only. Foreigners grieve the deaths of foreigners only. Why does it have to be this way? Why can’t we grieve and rejoice together as humans? Peace loving humans. … To a coward person like me, these words are taken acutely to heart. Japanese laugh and look at the death of foreigners merely because they are foreigners. I don’t and can’t understand this and thinking does not help.41 Though empathy is displayed, the fact that these fallen student soldiers publicly did not raise their voice but kept them in private and chose to obey orders in silent subjugation proves the power of enculturation: that they executed kamikaze attacks testifies to the control mechanism internalised within the identities. These were acts to prove their Japaneseness and they faithfully executed the ba hierarchical

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__________________________________________________________________ order to die for Japaneseness. If they voiced whatever doubts/convictions they had, which would have been an act of integrity, however, that would have been contradictory and a denial of their Japaneseness: the ba system successfully estranged empathy. In amae-ba Japanese discursive formations empathy is made foreign. The mechanism of ba-estrangement within the discursive operation is so deeply embedded in identities that what empathy student soldiers recorded was annihilated by/within themselves to be united in the ultimate ba. Another mechanism that disconnects foreign to maintain Japanese discursive formations is katakana, which is a systematic Japanification system to represent non-Japanese sounds. If not given a translated word, the sounds need to be Japanified: they cannot maintain the non-Japanese sounds as they are in the language. For example, Japanese will not recognize auditory McDonald’s if pronounced in English even though fast food restaurants with McDonald’s signs are all over Japan. For Japanese discursive formations the sounds are wrong and it should be makudonarudo. The sound Japanification is underlined with a power play for the conveniently castrating appropriation of things foreign. Recently a new effort has been made to utilize empathy as enpashi. Once again it is another example of Japanification, the essence of the word, that empathy is based upon objective understanding of differences, is excluded to meet the demand created in identities with amae-ba discursive formations: If you are excessively sympathetic … maybe [you have] enpashi. Enpashi is a wonderful ability and gift. A person with enpashi has sensitive sympathetic abilities to understand and be considerate to others who cannot verbalize the feelings, pain and anguish. However, high susceptibilities to the physical pain and emotion of others (human and non-human) cause a confused state.42 Enpashi here is actually an intricate variation of dojo-sympathy; it has become sympathy endowed with psychic power, reflecting the amae desire to be secured in a perfect unity, and informing its readers that if one is endowed with enpashi one could be a saviour to the people that suffer from amae unity-need problems. The unsaid but assumed in this website written in Japanese is that the site is for Japanese: that is you with enpashi and others who cannot verbalize their sufferings are Japanese. In fact this enpashi is addressing a psychological issue that Japanese amae-ba discursive formations create: the fear of being rejected from the ba oneness by the hierarchical power in bas that the person exists in. These anxiety-ridden identities offer obedience to the hierarchical power of bas, and show excessive and unconditional sycophantism in ba. Enpashi on this website seems to offer the

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__________________________________________________________________ possibilities of relieving anguish by providing another ba with enpashi endowed person as the protector/the top of the hierarchy/mother role, to have a unity bringing stability to the anxiety-ridden identities in want of ba oneness. The problem is intensified because the identities operating within Japanese amae-ba hierarchical discursive formations are sealed in bas for their existence. Their concerns are solely on the survival in oneness with bas and being undermined of the empathetic recognition for accepting differences, for them being ostracised means a failure: the sense of unwelcomed and unworthy existence can reach a point where individuals, including elementary school children, commit suicide. In a book titled, People Who Are Excessively Sycophant With the Rest (Mawari ni awasesugiru hito-tachi), the psychological oppressiveness of the ba is described: Everybody does the same thing, everybody is moving toward the same direction: To feel the heated atmosphere of oneness and the sense of solidarity are thought to be the communication with and understanding of each other’s will. Because everybody has these convictions, they on the contrary shun everybody away from dialogic communications, which is to discuss differences from scratch: simply they are bad at this. This nation [Japan], when a problem occurs, it never addresses it profoundly but focuses on strengthening the pressure to be sycophantically together to keep them together. 43 The castration of empathy in Japanese discursive formations is double edged: it sustains the Japanese Symbolic Order by disconnecting its identities from other Symbolic Orders, so much so that at the same time identities living in the Japanese Symbolic Order would take their lives: the danger of self-destruction lies as seen in the student soldiers and ostracised individuals. However, it must be noted that selfdestruction is a preferred choice over connecting with different Symbolic Orders in these discursive formations. In today’s interwoven world, where the sustenance of humans is economically and politically interrelated, the empathy undermining discursive formations of Japan are doomed because they fail to acknowledge the need for coexisting with others; moreover, they disable the skills needed for respectful dialogical communications. 5. Undermining Coexistence: Peripheral-Centrism Amae is a locally constructed worldview that can be termed peripheralcentrism. Peripheral-centrism derived from China being the long time regional cultural power centre in relation to Japan: it is a binary positioning of centralsuperior power: China, as opposed to a peripheral-inferior power: Japan. Japan was

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__________________________________________________________________ able to fabricate a false sense of being the centre of the world because China tended to over-look it. Japan was peripheral, a rural place on the edge of the Chinese domain. The desire of the Japanese ruling powers was to maintain control over Japan. In order to secure their power, they implemented policies and educational systems that conveniently diminished and degraded outside of Japan. Through these Japan was able to construct the illusion that it was the centre of the world. Furthermore, this enhanced what would be a desirable relationship with the central power, China, for the peripheral, Japan: as long as it did not attract China’s attention, and China did not exercise power over Japan, the Japanese peripheral authorities could enjoy power and control over their territory. Thus, the peripheral-centric aim was to avoid involvement with non-Japanese Symbolic Orders, with those that were not constructed in Japanese linguistic/cultural discursive formations. Linguistic divides, as well as geographical divides, were useful mediums for disconnecting with the rest of the world to devise a psychological isolation to maintain Japan’s peripheral centric existence: peripheral-centrism is self-conclusive. It can be said that peripheral-centrism is a form of diminishing coexistence; whereas empathy works for coexistence, since empathy entails the ability to encounter different other. The peripheral-centric psychology is founded upon the justifications of hiding. The peripheral-centric hiding is constituted from contradictions: the peripheralcentric identities believe and behave as if the rest of the world were not there or that they were invisible to the rest of the world, but the rest of the world is there and the peripheral-centric identities are visible. The security measure of peripheralcentrism when peripheral-centric identities need to deal with an unfamiliar environment, where peripheral-centric oneness is not shared, is to maintain psychological hiding in the amae-ba peripheral-centric oneness. Following are examples of peripheral-centric hiding behaviours that elucidate peripheral-centric discordances and problematic behaviours in achieving coexistence today. Domestically, this hiding psychology surfaced in Japan as a social problem called hikikomori in the late 1990’s. 44 Hikikomori is a physical psychological representation of peripheral-centric hiding as a security measure. Hikikomori, which ‘translates as ‘withdrawal’ and refers to a person sequestered in his room for six months or longer with no social life beyond his home. (The word is a noun that describes both the problem and the person suffering from it and is also an adjective, like (‘alcoholic.’))’45 It is defined as a ‘state or condition of acute social withdrawal, esp. among adolescents or young adults; an extreme introvert,’46 which is more commonly observed in males than females. Simply put, they seek extreme degrees of isolation and confinement in the secure hands of those who will sustain them, who are weaved into their lives in a close amae structure of the hierarchical oneness/unity/sameness. The responsibility of their sustenance is left to the caretaker of her/his secured ba. The hiding behaviours of hikikomori are disturbing the Japanese society which perceives them as irresponsible social beings. However,

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__________________________________________________________________ their denial to exist, their choice to contain themselves in a secured familiar ba from a larger mainstream Japanese societal ba with unfamiliar strangers is another manifestation of peripheral-centric hiding. An example of this peripheral-centric hiding, the lack of the sense of other existences reflections, conducted by Japanese on a nation-scale today is the fact that Japanese was the fourth most commonly used language on the internet in 2009. 47 The top three languages used on the internet are English, Spanish, and Chinese: considering the numbers of Japanese speakers, Japanese coming in fourth is out of proportion. This is an indication that a limited number of Japanese users are thriving in the internet sphere utilizing Japanese extensively for their closed set: the focus is not in communicating with non-Japanese: they are communicating mostly with other Japanese; thus for them the internet is not a global tool. The peripheral-centric psychological fabrication of isolation motivates introverted desires to thrive within the Japanese Symbolic Order. It is the peripheral-centric behaviour of disregarding others, non-Japanese in this case. In the eyes of coexisting others, this Japanese behavioural pattern of disregarding and ignoring others demonstrates an offensive tendency toward anti-coexistence. The peripheral-centric penchant is also exercised in English education. The Japanese government itself is aware of its failure in producing individuals that are functional in the international environment using English and is reluctantly beginning to address the situation, and is far from achieving its objectives. For example, in 2002, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) released a proposal called ‘Developing a strategic plan to cultivate ‘Japanese With English Abilities,’’ which is ‘a concrete action plan with the aim of drastically improving the English education of Japanese people.’48 It states that to solve the Japanese inability in English, ‘a firm grasp of their own language’49 is necessary and there needs to be ‘improvements to Japanese-language education:’ 50 a peripheral-centric act of reinforcing of ideologies through linguistic/cultural divides. English textbooks for Japanese schools today, as a result, have the aspects of a guidebook that can be titled ‘an introduction to Japanese culture:’ they serve as the indoctrination of how to explain ‘things Japanese’ in English to non-Japanese and, are thus imbalanced in cultivating interests in nonJapanese cultures. The effort seems to be focused on maintaining or enculturing peripheral-centrism through English and to justify peripheral-centricism to the users of English. The issue is not within the intellectual capability of the individuals deciding on foreign language and intercultural educational programs. The problem is with the internalisation of the ideologies toward non-Japanese language related to linguistic divides to sustain the identity of peripheral centrality in peripheral-centric hiding. Tatsuru Uchida in a sarcastic manner points out the dead end the Japanese monolinguistic identity51 and Japanese peripheral-centrism is facing:

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__________________________________________________________________ What I am writing now will have only Japanese speakers as readers. Unless it is re-written in English or French, it is absolutely devoid of international availability (but nobody is going to bother to do that, it is too much trouble). This sense of helplessness of peripheral nationality is so natural that I lose the sense of self-awareness that I am writing feeling such helplessness. … If this kind of mentality is called locality, I am truly local. If so, using the locality as the scaffolding, I want to propose to the international world, ‘Can’t you give this peripheral nationality existence a yes and okay it as well?’ This is what I am thinking (But, to begin with, this won’t work unless it is translated into English).52 Uchida states that even helplessness, which is experienced as the result of him being aware of the rest of the world, is lost because the sense of peripheral nationality is so ingrained that as he sits there writing it overwhelms his sense of self-awareness and causes his feeling of helplessness to evaporate. The failure to be aware of the globalising situation of today, where there is no perfectly isolated peripherally, and failure to address the ingrained structure that castrates empathy, when coexistence is an urgent demand, will lead to hazardous relationships. The rejection of coexistence by Japanese amae discursive formations matrixed into identities through peripheral-centric monolinguism needs to be restructured. In order to alter the amae discursive formations, Japanese monolinguistic identities need to shift to multilinguistic identities. Through the shift, connections with non-amae Symbolic Orders will be constructed; this will enable an opening up of recognition of diversity and allow empathy to operate, which in turn will also help to attain a global hodological map to navigate through transcultural landscapes. 53 As Michael Kearney illuminated, identities are ‘manufactured,’ with a better grasp of empathy and vision for coexistence, the problematic governing of discursive formations that undermine empathy can be addressed and enable the manufacturing of identities that contribute to enhancing coexistence in transcultural diversity.

Notes 1

Encyclopædia Britannica Online, viewed on 27 June 2010, http://www.britannica.com/. 2 J Lacan, B Fink (trans), ‘The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious or Reason since Freud’, in Écrits, Norton & Co. Inc, New York, 2006, pp. 413-4. 3 Encyclopædia Britannica Online, op. cit.

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__________________________________________________________________ 4

E Thompson, Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind, the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge and London, 2007, pp. 386-7. 5 Empathy has been observed in other living things such as apes, dolphins, elephants, and trees; furthermore, empathy that cuts across species, for example whales and humans, is also observed. For further details, see F de Waal, The Age of Empathy: Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society, Three River Press, New York, 2009. 6 F de Waal, The Age of Empathy, p. 52. 7 Thompson op. cit., p. 398. 8 Ibid. 9 A Cuadrado-Fernandez, ‘Globalisation, Transculturalism and Environment: Sharing and Understanding Indigenous Perspectives through Poetry’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 10 See ibid. I am grateful to Antonio Cuadrado-Fernandez for informing of and directing me to the advances in empathy in neuroscience. 11 Thompson op. cit., pp. 393-5. 12 Ibid., p. 401. 13 A Jarzewicz, ‘Cultural Entanglements of Human Rights Discourse’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 14 R D Pilapil, ‘From Affirmation to Contestation: On the Politics of Recognition’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 15 De Waal, op. cit., pp. 203-4. 16 Thompson, op. cit., p. 407. 17 M Kearney, ‘Transcultural Identity Formation: The Matrixing of Language(s) and Regional and Global Cultural Constructions’, in Proceedings of the Malaysia International Conference on Foreign Languages (MICFL): Languages and the Construction of Identities, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia, 2010, p. 407. 18 M Kearney, ‘Designing Identity: An Attempt to Manufacture Singaporeans’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 19 For further details on Identity Matrixing, see M Kearney & S Adachi, ‘Mapping Hybrid Identities: A Matrixing Model for Transculturality’, in From Conflict to Recognition: Moving Multiculturalism Forward, M Kearney (ed), InterDisciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 20 For the Meta-Symbolic Order, see ibid. 21 The impetus for this chapter grew out of discussions with my colleague, Dr. Michael Kearney that were based upon his observations of Japanese psycholinguistic patterns and social interaction; for his keen analysis of cultures, I am grateful.

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Lacan, op. cit., pp. 413-4. T Doi, J Bester (trans.), The Anatomy of Dependence, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 2001, p. 15. 24 Ibid., p. 28. 25 Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000. 26 Ibid. 27 A Barnes & P Thagard, ‘Empathy and Analogy‘. in Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review, vol. 36, 1997, viewed on 8 July 2010, http://cogsci.uwaterloo.ca/Articles/Pages/Empathy.html. 28 Genius English Japanese Dictionary, Taishukan, 2001-2002, Readers EnglishJapanese Dictionary, Kenkyusha, 1999, Readers Plus, Kenkyusha, 1994+2002. 29 Another word that is listed in all three dictionaries is ‘kanjoinyu (ឤ᝟⛣ ධ),’ however, the chapter will focus on the word kyokan since kanjoinyu seems to be more of an artistic term. 30 In the chapter, unless it is noted, the Japanese-English translations are mine. 31 Kojien, 5th Edition, Iwanami Shoten, Tokyo, 2004. 32 Shinmeikai Kokugo Jiten, 5th Edition, Sanseido, Tokyo, 1997. 33 Readers’ English-Japanese Dictionary, Kenkyusha, Tokyo, 1999. 34 Following are the words listed in three groupings that coincide with the English definitions. English translations will not be provided since translating these Japanese words into English will fail to convey the meanings accurately: 1. ྠ᝟ࠊ 23

ᛮ࠸ࡸࡾࠊယࢀࡳ 2.a ྠឤࠊඹ㬆ࠊ㈶ᡂࠊዲឤࠊᢎㄆࠊඹឤ b.ឤᛂࠊ஺ឤࠊඹឤࠊ ඹ᣺ࠊඹ㬆 3.ㄪ࿴ࠊ⼥࿴ࠊ୍⮴. 35

For hodological map, see Kearney & Adachi, op.cit. T Uchida, Nihon henkyo-ron, Shincho-sensho, Tokyo, 2010, p. 221. 37 Barnes & Thagard, op. cit. 38 Kojien, op.cit. 39 Kike Wadatsumi no Koe [Listen to the Voices from the Sea: Writings of the Fallen Japanese Students], Nihon Senbotsu Gakusei Kinen-Kai (Comp.), Iwanami Shoten, Tokyo, 2009, p. 37. 40 Ibid., p. 38. 41 Ibid., pp. 275-6. 42 Kyokan-ryoku=enpashi, viewed on 11 January 2011, http://tmo39.com/empathy.aspx. 43 Y Nakoshi and Rob@Otsuki, Mawari ni awasesugiru hito-tachi, IBC Publishing, Tokyo, 2005, pp. 30-1. 44 I am grateful to Lia Tsuladze for asking me the relationship between amae and hikikomori syndrome at the the 4th Global Conference, Multiculturalism, Conflict and Belonging (MCB4), held at Oriel College, Oxford University, September 2326, 2010. This part is developed as a response to the question put forth by Lia. 36

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__________________________________________________________________ 45

M Jones, ‘Shutting Themselves In’, in New York Times, January 15, 2006, viewed on 11 January 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/magazine/15japanese.html. 46 Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com’s 21st Century Lexicon. Dictionary.com, LLC, viewed on 11 January 2011, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hikikomori. 47 Top 10 Languages Used in the Web, Internet World Stats, viewed on 19 July 2010, http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm. 48 MEXT Press Release, ‘Developing a strategic plan to cultivate ‘Japanese With English Abilities,’’ MEXT, updated 2 July 2002, viewed on 30 July 2010, http://www.mext.go.jp/english/news/2002/07/020901.htm. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid. 51 For further discussions on monolinguistic identities, see S Adachi, ‘A Monolinguistic Identity in Transculturality: Japanese and Foreign Languages’, in Proceedings of the Malaysia International Conference on Foreign Languages (MICFL): Languages and the Construction of Identities, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia, 2010. 52 Uchida, op. cit., 2010, p. 210. 53 For global hodological map, see Kearney & Adachi, op. cit.

Bibliography Adachi, S., ‘A Monolinguistic Identity in Transculturality: Japanese and Foreign Languages’, in Proceedings of the Malaysia International Conference on Foreign Languages (MICFL): Languages and the Construction of Identities, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia, 2010. Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000. Barnes, A. & P. Thagard, ‘Empathy and Analogy‘, in Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review, vol. 36, 1997, pp. 705-720, viewed on 8 July 2010, . Cuadrado-Fernandez A., ‘Globalisation, Transculturalism and Environment: Sharing and Understanding Indigenous Perspectives through Poetry’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Doi, T., J. Bester (trans.), The Anatomy of Dependence. Kodansha International, Tokyo, 2001.

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__________________________________________________________________ Encyclopædia Britannica Online, viewed on 27 June 2010, . Genius English-Japanese Dictionary. Taishukan, Tokyo, 2001-2002. ‘hikikomori’, in Dictionary.com’s 21st Century Lexicon, viewed on 11 January 2011, . Internet World Stats, ‘Top 10 Languages Used in the Web’, viewed on 19 July 2010, . Jarzewicz A., ‘Cultural Entanglements of Human Rights Discourse’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Jones, M., ‘Shutting Themselves In’, in New York Times, January 15, 2006, viewed on 11 January 2011, . Kearney M. & S. Adachi, ‘Mapping Hybrid Identities: A Matrixing Model for Transculturality’, in From Conflict to Recognition: Moving Multiculturalism Forward. M. Kearney (ed), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Kearney M., ‘Designing Identity: An Attempt to Manufacture Singaporean’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. -, ‘Transcultural Identity Formation: The Matrixing of Language(s) and Regional and Global Cultural Constructions’, in Proceedings of the Malaysia International Conference on Foreign Languages (MICFL): Languages and the Construction of Identities. Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia, 2010. Kike Wadatsumi no Koe [Listen to the Voices from the Sea: Writings of the Fallen Japanese Students], Nihon Senbotsu Gakusei Kinen-Kai (Comp.). Iwanami Shoten, Tokyo, 2009. Kojien, 5th Edition. Iwanami Shoten, Tokyo, 2004. ‘Kyokan-ryoku=enpashi’, viewed on 11 January, 2011, . Lacan, J., B. Fink (trans), ‘The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious or Reason since Freud’, in Écrits. Norton & Co. Inc, New York, 2006.

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__________________________________________________________________ MEXT Press Release, ‘Developing a strategic plan to cultivate ‘Japanese With English Abilities’, MEXT, updated 2 July 2002, viewed on 30 July 2012, . Nakoshi, Y. & Rob@Otsuki, Mawari ni awasesugiru hito-tachi. IBC Publishing, Tokyo, 2005. Pilapil R. D., ‘From Affirmation to Contestation: On the Politics of Recognition’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Readers English-JapaneseDictionary. Kenkyusha, Tokyo, 1999. Readers Plus. Kenkyusha, Tokyo, 1994 & 2002. Shinmeikai Kokugo Jiten. 5th Edition. Sanseido, Tokyo, 1997. Thompson, E., Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge and London, 2007. Uchida, T., Nihon henkyo-ron. Shincho-sensho, Tokyo, 2010. De Waal F., The Age of Empathy: Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society. Three River Press, New York, 2009. Setsuko Adachi is an Associate Professor at Kogakuin University in Tokyo. She publishes and lectures on Comparative Culture and Comparative Literature. While her focus has recently been on the formation of human identity, currently her main interest is in the relationships between cultural regional identities and ongoing transcultural globalisation.

From Affirmation to Contestation: On the Politics of Recognition Renante D. Pilapil Abstract The chapter aims to examine the affirmative approach in understanding the politics of recognition advanced by Charles Taylor. Such an approach to recognition suggests that individuals and groups need due recognition most particularly through formal means of their cultural identities. Doing so is not only necessary for cultural preservation as stipulated by the principle of authenticity, but it also functions as a gesture of equal respect for cultures. The chapter argues that despite its attractive features, Taylor’s affirmative approach to recognition is problematic because it assumes a homology of individual and collective interests, essentializes identity, perpetuates hegemonic structures, and ignores the condition of ontological misrecognition. Contrary to the affirmative approach, James Tully’s contestation approach to recognition will be explored and consequently defended as a better alternative since it does not suffer the same problems as Taylor’s. Key Words: Recognition, justice, affirmation, contestation, Taylor, Tully, authenticity. ***** Contemporary discussions on the claims of social justice are no longer limited to the liberal tradition’s theory of redistribution that combines liberty and equality to justify the redistribution of socio-economic resources. With the demise of communism and the eventual surge of capitalism, as well as the onslaught of migration, redistribution has been trumped by recognition as an alternative normative ground of justice. New social movements on gender, nationality, ethnicity, and race do not simply claim for an equal share of material resources, but instead, for recognition of their identities. As Nancy Fraser perspicuously puts it, ‘from the battles on multiculturalism to struggles over gender and sexuality, from campaigns on national sovereignty and subnational autonomy to newly energized movements for international human rights,’ the world’s current social conflicts are driven by a common claim—recognition.1 Charles Taylor calls this ‘cultural turn’ of politics as the ‘politics of recognition’.2 The main thrust of this politics is that human beings do not only need primary goods such as wealth and income in their pursuit of the good life, but also ‘goods’ affecting their social relationships that are necessary for their well-being. Foremost of these is recognition, more particularly due recognition of their identities. This cultural turn is strictly speaking not a historically new development as identity-related issues were already central in the resistance movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries, such as the women’s campaigns for the right to vote, the anti-colonial resistance of nationalist

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From Affirmation to Contestation

__________________________________________________________________ movements, and the black revolt against slavery.3 However, never has it been that justice as recognition of identity and difference so pervasive and pressing as it is in modern politics today. And as shown by Charlene Rajendran, it even permeates the world of performing arts as in theatre.4 This chapter aims to undertake a diagnosis of the politics of recognition by looking into the affirmative approach of recognition advanced by Taylor. It attempts to critically reconstruct the arguments of such a view and expose its problematic implications. The chapter argues that affirmative approach to recognition suffers four problems: 1) assuming a homology of individual and collective interests; 2) essentializing identity; 3) perpetuating hegemony; and 4) turning a blind eye on the ontological limits of recognition. In contrast to the affirmative approach, the nascent contestation approach to recognition advanced by James Tully is explored. The chapter contends that the contestation approach is a better approach to recognition since it does not suffer the same problems as that of the affirmative approach. The chapter will proceed in four parts. Part I will critically discuss Taylor’s politics of recognition anchored in the idea of affirmation. Part II will in turn expose some of the limitations of such an approach. Part III will briefly introduce Tully’s contestation approach, and Part IV will present a brief conclusion. 1. Taylor’s Politics of Recognition Drawing upon his account of modern subjectivity, Taylor claims that at the end of romanticism a new understanding of individual identity had emerged— individualized identity.5 Such a notion of identity means that beyond the existential fact that individuals belong to a common humanity, each person possesses attributes and potentialities that he does not share with others, and that only he can articulate and discover. In this context, identity is understood at a more fundamental level — the person’s sense of self — which points to what makes a particular person unique making him irreplaceable, unrepeatable, and unexchangeable. According to Taylor, along with this development of individualized identity is the birth of the moral ideal of ‘authenticity’. To be authentic means to be true to oneself and one’s particular way of being. One must only obey one’s distinct inner voice, and not the voice outside of oneself. 6 Taylor admonishes that living according to one’s individualized identity is not only an ethical injunction, that is, one loses the point of one’s life if one imitates other’s life, but more importantly it is an inescapable ontological condition. 7 Clearly, authenticity is tied up with the conversation of what it means to be fully human. Authentic human existence is that which is truly free and highly original. 8 In an attempt to politicize his ontological insights, Taylor extends the notion of identity and authenticity to groups. From the fact that identity is not constituted monologically but dialogically, he makes reference to collective or cultural identities that are based on social categories such as race, ethnicity, gender,

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__________________________________________________________________ sexuality, and religion. Collective identities collectively constitute the kinds of person: men, women, Catholics, Muslims, Asian, European, African, and so on. Unfortunately, Taylor does not say much about the nature of collective identities. Kwame Anthony Appiah’s account of the structure of social identities is particularly instructive here. Appiah points to three features that characterize social identities. First, there are the available vocabularies in public discourse that can be ascribed to some people as members of the group.9 These publicly known labels, which could be true or false, are usually organized around a set of attributes and stereotypes about their physical appearance, history, beliefs, traditions, and behavior. For example, South Africans are known to be disarmingly kind and hospitable, or that the Japanese are particularly hard-working.10 Second, there exist patterns of behavior towards the individual as a member of this group or collectivity. 11 Just stereotypes; ‘treatmentas’ is either negative or positive. While the vilest form of treatment is discrimination as racism or ethnic hatred, the positive form of treatment includes giving special considerations to members of the group. And third, collective identities presuppose that there is an individual internalization or ‘wholehearted’ identification with the ascriptions as part of a person’s identity.12 This identification makes a difference, it affects the way the individual feels, as the feeling of pride when one’s group triumphs; and the way the individual acts, as a gesture of generosity to another member or a stranger, or an act of prohibiting one’s action in public to avoid putting one’s group in a bad light. In other words, identification with the group ascriptions becomes a source of norms and social expectations.13 Because persons have various social attachments, they have various social identities that they can identify with. One can be a male of Asian descent who is a Protestant, liberal, leftist, speaks Thai as well as English, and works as a teacher. Which of these social identities is given priority and to what extent it is embraced will depend on the person himself. Often, his decision is influenced by the circumstances he is in, by the people surrounding him, or the available options for action.14 What makes Taylor’s account of collective social identities unique and yet controversial is his narrowing down of the latter to national cultural identities. The latter is defined on the basis of shared common history, tradition, values, language, symbols, beliefs, and practices distinct from others. Taylor understands culture as a unified and homogeneous identity with an irreducible uniqueness. With this idea of group identity, he decisively applies the same principle of authenticity to the ‘culture-bearing people among peoples’, claiming that just as individuals have to be true to their individualized identity, the Volk (or nations) should also be true to its own culture.15 Immediately, one can notice here that Taylor’s concept of cultural identity might not be completely convincing. It does not only treat cultures as homogeneous but also as fixed. It is as if cultural identity is already finished and

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__________________________________________________________________ does not undergo any changes as it encounters other forms of culture. This is quite perplexing given that Taylor himself admits of how identities, at least on the individual level, is formed dialogically. Just as there is a nugget of selfhood, Taylor also thinks that there is a nugget of cultural identity. I will come back to this issue later. Given the account of identity and authenticity, it is not surprising that Taylor endorses cultural recognition — either the cultural identity of a group to which the individual is a member or culture itself particularly ethno-culture. Contrary to liberal neutrality, he defends (1) granting legal guarantees to cultures for the sake of cultural survival and (2) granting a presumption of equal worth to distinct cultures. Taylor has no qualms about making a general endorsement of differential treatment to minority groups as demonstrated in his support for legal guarantees in the name of collective cultural survival. He draws upon his own experience in French Canada where Quebeckers demand particular forms of legal recognition such as self-government rights and language rights over and above the individual rights applicable to all Canadian citizens as stipulated in the Canadian Charter of Rights.16 What motivates Taylor to give paramount importance to cultural survival? Why must cultural difference be recognized? Taylor locates the reason in the nature of culture as an ‘irreducibly social good’ in the sense that it ‘makes conceivable actions, feelings, valued ways of life’.17 The argument is very simple. For Taylor, culture provides the horizon or background through which persons are able to impute value or find fulfilment about certain things. It is within culture that they acquire values and ideals, develop life goals, and capacities to make choices. In other words, culture is undeniably vital for human flourishing, for what makes a good life. From this Taylor makes a swift conclusion: ‘If these things [as self-fulfilment, self-satisfaction] are goods, then other things being equal, so is the culture that makes them possible. If I want to maximize these goods, I must want to preserve and strengthen [my emphasis] this culture.’18 Because culture provides the context through which things can appear meaningful or crucial for us, Taylor believes that culture has to be preserved. What is at issue in cultural preservation, he says, is not simply the survival of individuals within these communities but more importantly the survival of particular identities and languages of groups for future generation.19 In the case of Quebec Canada, for example, the formal recognition of Quebec as a ‘distinct society’ by the Canadian government by granting it self-government rights and language rights assures the cultural survival of French Canadians. Such measure creates members of the community, that is, an indefinite future generation, who will continue to identify themselves as French Canadians.20 Taylor argues that ignoring the demands of culture, or the assimilation of one minority culture to the majority culture goes against the ideal of authenticity, thereby putting at risk the chances of survival of the minority group in question. Thus, contrary to difference-blind liberalism that

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__________________________________________________________________ operates on the politics of equal dignity, he endorses granting special legal guarantees to cultures. Moreover, Taylor is not only concerned with preserving cultural distinctness but also with recognizing the equal value of different cultures. Acknowledging the distinctness of a culture is analytically different from giving distinct worth or value to a culture. As he sharply puts it: ‘the further demand we are looking at here is that we all recognize the equal value of different cultures; that we not only let them survive, but acknowledge their worth.’21 The basis of this ‘obligation’ is that ‘we owe equal respect to all cultures’22 in the sense that the latter have something unique and important to say to humanity. Hence, the recognition of their identity in this context is not simply done out of solidarity but rather out of the recognition of their identities as worthwhile in themselves. The recognition of equal value of cultures is necessary for the esteem of the culture in question. It must be stressed however that while no culture has an equal right to social esteem, cultures have a right not be disesteemed. Although the injunction to respect cultures sounds appealing, it poses some discomfort. According to Thomas Sowell, not all cultures deserve respect in the sense that the achievements of some cultures are not really impressive or that they mostly have practices that are abhorrent. For example, cultures that practice female genital mutilation, or burning of widows (sati) have nothing respectable in them. What Sowell consistently insists is that respect has to be earned. 23 However, Sowell’s position is not completely convincing because he overemphasizes the ‘merit’ aspect of respect, when the fact is that respect, as Kant says, is about the equal dignity of individuals regardless of what they have achieved. Respect must be given to a person by virtue of his being a morally autonomous person. Yet, while this is largely true, it has to be asked whether or not the same concept of equal dignity is applicable to cultures such that one can say that they deserve to be respected. And if it is, it has to be known how the moral content of the notion of respecting the equal worth of cultures is defined and how to turn it into a moral demand.24 Fortunately, Taylor provides a clarification of his position. He says that to recognize and respect the equal value of cultures is but a presumption, an attitude in dealing with cultures. 25 It does not mean that recognition of equal value has to be granted to any culture automatically regardless of the achievements of the particular culture in question. Authentic respect can only be given to a culture after one has understood the latter’s value through an actual study of its cultural achievements. Taylor argues that what has to happen in this instance would be, in the language of Hans-Georg Gadamer, a ‘fusion of horizons’.26 The standard or background valuation of the interpreter and the horizon of the culture he is studying move together within a broader horizon, a process that consequently transforms the standards of the interpreter. What can come out of this ‘fusion of horizons’ are new vocabularies of comparison through which the differences between the horizons are articulated and communicated.27

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__________________________________________________________________ Hence, if and when recognition and respect of equal value is granted to a culture, it is not done simply because one wants to appease its members but because one understands and sees the reasons of its worth. Although the process of fusion of horizons is more complex than how Gadamer paints it, the crucial point here is that the presumption of equal respect to cultures is actually a moral injunction against ethnocentrism and indifferent ignorance of other cultures. Now, despite the attractiveness of Taylor’s affirmative approach to recognition, it is not as straightforward as it initially appears. 2. The Limits of Affirmative Recognition 2.1 The Issue of Homology When Taylor says that cultural survival ought to be guaranteed not only through institutional or state mechanisms because doing otherwise violates the ideal of authenticity, wouldn’t the idea of protecting the distinctness of cultures run the risk of jeopardizing the pursuit of authenticity of its members and therefore of their autonomy? Taylor tends to assume a homology of individualistic and collective thrust of talk of authenticity, and consequently, the individual pursuit of recognition of identities is assumed to always run in tandem with the collective pursuits of cultural recognition.28 This naïve optimism puts him in a precarious situation because it grossly ignores the fundamental fact that what the individual desires does not necessarily coincide with the preferences of the group to which he belongs. What would Taylor say when the right to difference of groups disrespects the right to authenticity of individuals, as in the case of illiberal groups? It is disappointing that Taylor’s account is incapable of answering this issue because, as Seyla Benhabib puts it, he fails to specify ‘which webs of interlocution should be normatively privileged, and under which circumstances and by whom.’29 Consequently, Taylor fails to foresee the possible tension between the right to equal dignity of individuals (personal autonomy) and the right to authenticity (difference) of collective movements. How would he react when granting collective rights to groups violate the right to equal dignity of individual members? Consider a particular case in the Philippines. Through the Code of Muslim Personal Laws of 1977, the Philippine government recognizes the right of Filipino Muslims to preserve their religious customs on marriage (and inheritance), including the right of Muslim men to marry non-Muslim women. However, disappointingly the same right does not hold for Filipino Muslim women. In Islam, a Muslim woman is strictly prohibited to marry a non-Muslim man. If she does, the marriage is considered null and void and as such, the woman is not married according to Islamic laws, and is considered to be involved in an adulterous relationship. This attracts the death penalty as a punishment. Hence, the special decree runs contrary to Article II Section 14 of the 1987 Philippine Constitution which states that: ‘The State (…) shall ensure the fundamental equality before the law of women and men.’30

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__________________________________________________________________ It would be misleading to accuse Taylor of being clueless on issues such as this. In fact, he painstakingly argues that it is necessary to make a distinction between fundamental liberties, which should not be infringed, and privileges and immunities that can be revoked and restricted due to public policy. 31 He is optimistic about the fact that a society with strong collective goals can be liberal and capable of respecting diversity, so long as it can provide safety nets for protecting fundamental rights. However, despite this clarification, Taylor again demonstrates his naïve optimism and fails to acknowledge their possible tension. The fact is that the goals of the individual or the principle of equal dignity do not sit easily with the collective goal of authenticity. What would Taylor do to manage such tension? My intuition is that, because of his communitarian bias, he would be more inclined to endorse the priority of the latter over the former, that is, the priority of the community over the individual. This position is conceptually incoherent and politically dangerous. Conceptually, it is incoherent to attribute moral status to the community or groups per se.32 Yes, it is true that one’s identity is partially defined by one’s membership in a community, and therefore, the latter constitutes the conditions of one’s flourishing. But, what gives the community its moral status is the individual living being who suffers or flourishes, who feels pain and pleasure. Because the community intrinsically has no moral claim independent from that of the members, the subject matter of morality must not be the community but rather the individual. Politically, the thesis of the priority of the community also has serious repercussions. Once cultures, as opposed to individuals, are taken to be the reference point, the latter can become the moral servants of the former. The right to equal dignity of individuals is subordinated to the claims of authenticity of movements of collective identities. In other words, ultimately the autonomy of individuals is sacrificed in the name of the group. Applied to the issue of preservation of culture, this means that claims of group authenticity could be guaranteed at the expense of the individual. 2.2 The Medusa Syndrome One of the most common objections to formal affirmative recognition is that it has the tendency to essentialize or reify identities. It risks reducing identity into a single fixed essence, incapable of undergoing any transformation. To recall, even at the ontological level, essentialism is already at work as demonstrated by Taylor’s idea of the nugget of selfhood that individuals are tasked to discover and according to which they live in authenticity. But, even at the political level as in the case of politics of recognition, essentialism is also at work in two ways. First, it occurs when the recognition of cultural identity, say a cultural practice, is traced to some arbitrary point in a people’s history. The idea is that despite the passage of time the identity remains the same and has not undergone a dramatic change. 33 This nostalgic and retrospective understanding of identity keeps it frozen in time.

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__________________________________________________________________ Second, by providing constitutional guarantees to cultural groups, the understanding of culture is narrowed down. Generally, to talk of culture is to talk of an order of meaningful differences. It is a set of ways of thinking and doing things. It is a way of life, that is, a way of conceptualizing our world and organizing it. But, formal affirmative recognition tends to reduce culture into particular practices deemed to be central or integral to the culture, thereby, effectively displacing other practices that are crucial for sustaining the larger and more central practices. In this sense, formal recognition of cultural practices imposes a ‘holistic, monochromic, and idealistic’ cultural identity.34 Appiah puts this phenomenon emphatically: ‘[A]cts of recognition, and the civil apparatus of such recognition, can (…) ossify the identities that are their object. Because here a gaze can turn to stone, we can call this the Medusa Syndrome.’35 Micheal Kearney’s account of how the Singaporean government tries to ‘manufacture’ Singaporean identity through its educational policies, housing schemes, and social regulations is a telling example of this tendency to essentialize cultural identity. 36 What is wrong with essentialism? Nancy Fraser argues that it drastically ‘simplif[ies] people’s self-understandings—denying the complexity of their lives, the multiplicity of their identifications, and the cross-pulls of their various affiliations.’37 Anti-essentialists argue that reifying identities disregards the complexity of personal and social identity as well as social and political dynamics that impact on identities. They claim that individual identity is not fixed but rather continues to change as one engages in the process of socialization, including the process of mutual recognition. A person’s identity today may not be the same identity tomorrow. It is no wonder that today the concept of ‘hybrid identities’ is increasingly common even in the literary world as Madhubanti Bhattacharya has interestingly shown in her analysis of three Asian-American novels whose protagonists are all ethnically South Asian American citizens.38 According to Benhabib, ‘[c]ultures are not homogeneous wholes; they are selfdefinitions and symbolizations which their members articulate in the course of partaking of complex social and significative practices.’39 Cultural essentialism misses the fundamental fact that cultures, being a shared framework of meanings, are also continuously constructed in and through social interaction. Cultural identities are shaped and produced by a culture’s interaction with other cultural establishments, that is, through intercultural processes (between cultures). Just as the formation of individual identity takes place through a struggle with others, cultural identity can emerge and change through the process of ‘struggle’ with other cultures and the greater society. But, this is not the only process of interaction involved in the dynamic process of cultural identity construction. Intimately intertwined with intercultural processes are intracultural processes (within culture). Granted that cultures provide their members with the enabling context of choice, members of cultural groups contribute to cultural reproduction not only when they appropriate and enrich aspects of their culture but also when they

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__________________________________________________________________ challenge them; that is to say, when they say no to the cultural offerings of their own group or community. Thus, cultures are ‘constant creations, recreations, and negotiations of imaginary boundaries between ‘we’ and the ‘other/s’.’40 Moreover, essentializing cultures does not only disregard the fluid character of cultures but more importantly it produces a serious political implication — the balkanization of peoples. Since groups are understood to have their own cultural identity different from others, instead of promoting integration or interconnectedness of peoples, it tends to amplify treating the otherness of others. Inevitably, this increases the possibility of discrimination and reinforces the binary inclusion-exclusion. Take the case of South Africans who consider ubuntu, which literally means shared and equal humanity suggesting hospitality to others, as their unique trait.41 However, according to Rebecca Fasselt, the same notion of ubuntu is used to highlight the difference of South African identity from other peoples in Africa. In sharp contrast to South Africa, the rest of the African continent is described as ‘lands of civil war and suffering, of refugee camps and starving people seeking refuge in South Africa from their own failed states.’ To most South Africans, Africa ‘spells failure.’ Hence, ubuntu, a distinctly South African trait, perpetuates inadvertently the hierarchy of difference by conceiving the rest of Africa as other. As such, Agnieska Jarzewicz correctly points that it is difficult to avoid the exclusionary power of cultural recognition. 42 2.3 The Question of Power and Ideology One of the justifications of formal affirmative recognition is that it provides the necessary condition of autonomy to members of a group. It combats forms of subordination that underlie the experience of injustice by constitutionalizing group rights that guarantee protections to vulnerable groups. According to Jarzewicz, this could potentially create a shift or reversal of the center of power in which groups that demand recognition of their identity can claim greater power since the granted or recognized claims maybe inconsistent with the duly accepted national law. 43 However, this is not my concern here. Such a view also rather makes too quick a step since it does not automatically follow that when a group’s claim has been recognized, it becomes more powerful than the recognition-giver. My concern is different—that institutional measures of affirmative recognition inadequately address the injustice of misrecognition and inadvertently promote rather than prevent domination, and therefore injustice. Through a cunning way of encouraging a positive self-image that conforms to social expectations, formal affirmative recognition puts individuals into existing structures of domination. Individuals are ‘subjected’ to ‘normativizing’ measures, that is, they become subjects—’persons who are aware of their responsibilities and rights only to the extent to which they are subjected to a system of practical rules and roleascriptions that lends them a social identity.’44 Through acts of recognition, individuals are made to assume a particular self-conception on the basis of which

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__________________________________________________________________ they willingly accept tasks and duties within the society. By normalizing and normativizing subjects, formal affirmative recognition reinforces existing social hierarchies. Rather than confronting, de-stabilizing, and transforming repressive institutions of power, formal affirmative recognition functions as an accomplice to their perpetuation. It encourages the dominated to be willing victims by taking the structures or institutions of power and domination as givens. The domination in this context does not occur at the level of intragroup but at the level of the greater society, that is, between individuals/groups and the authority or institution that grants them recognition. By making it appear that subjective agency depends on the granting of recognition by external powers, formal affirmative recognition actually reproduces the very logic of repressive schemes. What is at issue here is the sugar-coating or covering-up of relations of power in cultural recognition. Take the case of the affirmative measures recognizing women’s identity as policies of equal opportunity or quota systems. Although these measures may help contribute to women’s self-respect or self-esteem, they leave untouched the structural sources of domination such as the institutionalized hierarchy of cultural values. It is in this sense that, using the language of Louis Althusser, the institutional practices of recognition are regarded as nothing but central mechanisms of ideology. They are part of the ideological apparatuses of the state, the latter being defined by the Marxist tradition as a ‘machine’ of repression.45 Through institutional acts of recognition, individuals (or the proletariat) are shaped according to the interests of those in power and are made to believe in the illusion that they are autonomous beings. The repressive character of the state is masked in order to keep it in power and to maintain its hold over the people. In the end, formal affirmative recognition is considered a hegemonic self-validation of the recognizer, done in the name of the individual’s and group’s need for affirmation of their identity.46 In Hegelian parlance, it is a device for establishing the mastery of the master and the enslavement of the slave. These lines of reasoning lie at the heart of what Fraser calls the ‘deconstructive strategy’ of recognition that seeks to address the root causes of misrecognition by exposing the dynamics of power relations and re-structuring existing hegemonic institutions of power or patterns of cultural value.47 It seeks to transform social structures that monopolize power in public affairs and that hold control over how individuals are supposed to live their lives. 2.4 Ontological Misrecognition Recall that based on the notion of affirmative recognition, the identities of individuals and groups must be given due recognition. To recognize is to treat individuals in terms of who or what they are. The assumption here is that we can always make a clear distinction between recognition and misrecognition of people’s identities. But, is this really the case? The concern is that this naive

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__________________________________________________________________ optimism must be tempered with an admission of a sense of uncertainty. Take the concept of identity: if identity serves as the criterion of recognition, as Taylor suggests, how can we be certain that proper recognition takes place when identity is at the same time yet-to-be constructed, when it remains to be worked out in the intersubjective process of recognition? When the criterion is at the same time the one that remains to be settled, how can we distinguish with certainty acts of due recognition from acts of misrecognition? How can we be sure that in our recognition of someone’s identity, we do not misrecognize him? It would not be implausible to say that because identity remains to be constructed the pursuit of recognition can become bound up with some sort of misrecognition. There may be no bright line that divides recognition and misrecognition. This situation only illustrates a more fundamental problem. If recognition can be bound up with misrecognition, it is because we find ourselves in the condition of what Patchen Markell calls ‘ontological misrecognition,’ our ‘failure to acknowledge the nature and circumstances of our activity.’48 We participate in a political activity in which we demand, give, or receive recognition from others that either forms or mal-forms our personal identities, but we only do so in the condition of an incomplete transparency. We do not fully know what we are doing when we are performing such activity. Our motivations and our actions elude full clarity. Social practices of recognition constitute only the external impediments of achieving self-realization. Other than these, there are also internal factors, for instance the existential fact of not being able to achieve full lucidity in relation to ourselves (and in relation to others). We can become obscure to ourselves; we can have a hard time coming to grips with who we really are and what we are doing. We know that we are made up of contingent facts —say, brown eyes, bald, shy, short tempered, and so on — which are connected to our identity in some way. But as to how they become part of our personhood despite their contingency is not entirely clear to us. Or, take the case of love. It is not entirely clear why one continues to love someone even if her favourable contingent facts — beauty, good attitude, or intelligence —have disappeared. Without these contingent facts that define her identity, she is no longer the same person, but despite that she still is loved. That we are in ontological misrecognition does not mean that it is pointless to talk of recognition as justice, or even to talk of due recognition of cultural identities at all. Rather, the point is that there is an invitation to find a politics of recognition that admits of a certain sense of humility, of our condition of fallibility and contingency. That is to say, there is an invitation to find a politics that does not pretend to demonstrate absolute certainty by ignoring the unpredictability and vulnerability of politics, or a politics that recognizes the ‘tragic’ dimension of the political life.49 Concretely, this means a type of politics of recognition that humbly admits that even when it aspires to structure public life that is open to all voices or accommodating to various claims of identity groups, it can potentially exclude or

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__________________________________________________________________ marginalize some of them. Recognition of one identity group, which generates an ‘ideal identity’, does not mean better recognition of another group. Strictly speaking, this form of politics of recognition does not, on its own, settle political disputes or prescribe courses of action. Nonetheless, it can have subtle but powerful effects. According to Markell, it cannot only alter our perspective of understanding the nature of the problems that confront us, but also it can change our view of the possible courses of action that we can take. 50 Further, it can expose the underlying dangers of some political options as well as the neglected promises in others. It can do the work of ‘prefiguration’, ‘providing us with a broad orientation, a set of emphases, presumptions, sensitivities, and rules of thumb that we bring with into politics but which by no means fully determine the judgments we make once we are there.’51 Given the four problems of the affirmative approach to recognition, the temptation now is to explore an alternative approach that could perhaps better articulate what is involved in recognition struggles. That is to say, an approach of recognition that firstly does not assume a homology of individual and collective interest; secondly does not essentialize identity; thirdly is not blind to the role of power relations and domination; and finally is tamed by humility due to ontological misrecognition. James Tully’s praxis view on recognition as contestation is an interesting proposal. 3. Towards a Contestation Approach to Recognition Instead of focusing on identifying and justifying formal schemes of affirmation of individual or group identities, Tully defines recognition in terms of practices or the activity of recognition struggles themselves. Drawing upon Hannah Arendt’s conception of the political game and Ludwig Wittgenstein’s ‘language-games’, he describes struggles for recognition as a multiple and complex process that instantiates political practice within constitutionalist and federal democracies.52 Tully contends that theorists and practitioners of recognition fail to appreciate the importance of the ‘friction of the rough ground of practice’ of democratic relations in defining the meaning of recognition. 53 The existence of an end-state or a finite good, say an ideal of justice, is assumed and it can be achieved through activities or practices.54 Tully argues that the affirmative approach to recognition which presupposes a perfect solution to demands for recognition is naïve and mistaken as evidenced by the fact that recognition demands in recent years have not in the least been abated. Taking off from his idea of a constitutional democracy as primarily agonic consisting of the dynamic play between consensus and dissensus or agreement and disagreement, Tully recasts the meaning of recognition struggles. He regards them as struggles over the current rules or norms of recognition (in the sense of laws, conventions, or customs).55 He attributes norms of mutual recognition to any ‘system of ruled-governed cooperation’ whether it is political, economic, cultural,

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__________________________________________________________________ or civic.56 Such ‘action coordination system’ does not only cover states, municipalities, political organizations, and human rights regimes but also schools, the market, and financial corporations. Individual members recognize one another and work together according to the norms and rules of the cooperative system, paving the way for the possibility of developing some understanding about their identity as members, say as ‘subjects’ of a particular religious group. Thinking along the same lines as Foucault, Tully believes that individuals are ‘normalized’ and ‘subjectified’ by norms of recognition. In a way, this demonstrates his allergy towards ontological conceptions of identity and instead he endorses the political dimension of identity by taking it as a function of membership. Because there are different systems of action to which individuals are members, the latter are subjected to multiple norms of mutual recognition that become the basis of their identities: male, female, Turkish, Chinese, Buddhist, Muslim, Christian, and so on. According to Tully, the normalizing and subjectifying character of norms of recognition does not shield them from being contested. Rather, it is the very source of fierce disputes. Struggle for recognition can break out in cases when norms of recognition exclude or are undemocratically imposed. 57 There are two things that occur simultaneously in these ‘struggles’: (1) challenging existing rules and norms of recognition; and (2) demanding new ones. These are brought against those who maintain the status quo, or those who contradict the proposed change, or those who push for a different change on their own. 58 Inevitably, this double-movement of ‘challenging and demanding’ compels a critical response from the implicated others. As soon as the demands of recognition are acknowledged, a situation of ‘agonic negotiation’ would be entered into. As such, agreements on new rules of recognition may be reached but occasions for contestation and resistance in the future remain. Tully provides two reasons for this. First, he connects it with the nature of agonistic democracy.59 One enduring aspect of an open democracy is that an all-encompassing or universal agreement is but a mere chimera. In a democratic polity where citizens have the right to exercise political freedom, there will always be the possibility of conflict, a place for questions and challenges as well as replies and defences. Second, he draws it upon the character of the struggles for recognition. They are complex and unpredictable. Multiple actors are involved, so that a group’s demand for recognition can also provoke other demands from other groups or members of the group. This could take the form of defence of the status quo, or a willingness to negotiate, or an offering of a counter-proposal.60 Tully cautions that in some instances, recognition can also produce unintended effects on its members, as granting a right to a religious minority to protect it from the majority may unintentionally oppress its own members in some random ways. And so the rules of the game are challenged again. Indeed, for Tully, acts of recognition are provisional, partial, and changing as part of the dynamic and unpredictable process of democratic activity. As he puts it

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__________________________________________________________________ succinctly: ‘any formal recognition at best will be a codification of the state of processes of identity negotiation at a particular time (my emphasis), a reification of a moment of the more primary activities’.61 Acts of recognition are not permanent. The identities of citizens always undergo changes, and as this happens the rules of recognition are likewise contested. In this respect, the idea of full recognition can never be realized in practical terms. Tully explains what identity politics is about: Identity politics should not be seen as struggles for the definitive recognition of an authentic, autonomous or self-realizing identity (…). Rather (…) [its aim] is to ensure that any form of public recognition is not a fixed and unchangeable structure of domination but is open to question, contestation and change over time, as the identities of the participants change.62 For him, to address more effectively the demands of identity groups does not require discovering and constitutionalizing ‘the just and definitive form of recognition;’ but rather ensuring that ‘ineliminable, agonic democratic games of recognition’ can be freely played.63 Tully’s position offers a fresh and reasonable approach to describing recognition by departing from concerns on formal schemes of recognition to the actual games of recognition. But one question remains: doesn’t Tully’s praxis approach fall into the same problems as the affirmative approach to recognition? I believe that it does not for four reasons. First, the idea of practices of freedom does not pretend that there is always some kind of harmony in the interest of the individual and the collective. Second, it does not essentialize identities of individuals and groups because it is rather concerned with what goes on in the actual practices of recognition. Third, since it essentially defines recognition in terms of agonistic political games, then it does not ignore the role of power relations and domination in recognition. And fourth, it displays no pretension of achieving full recognition where due recognition and misrecognition are clearly and completely demarcated. More particularly, it does not make a false utopian claim that only a completely just society is morally legitimate or acceptable. As Tully puts it, a democratic and free society may have rules of recognition that contain some features of injustice; but so long as its citizens are always free to participate in the game of contestation and negotiation, such society remains morally legitimate.64 As such, the idea of practices of freedom does not pretend that there is always a final resolution to struggles for recognition within or between groups.

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__________________________________________________________________ 4. Conclusion I have tried to describe two ways of looking at the politics of recognition: 1) the affirmation approach advanced by Taylor; and 2) the contestation approach advanced by Tully. I have presented four ambiguities of the first account namely assuming a homology of individual and group interest, essentializing identities, perpetuating hegemonic structures, and ignoring the ontological limits of recognition. On these bases, Tully’s alternative account of recognition has been proposed, that is, the practical account that sees struggles for recognition as struggles over rules or norms of mutual recognition. Struggles for recognition are an ongoing process that affects the development of democratic relations of political inclusion. Since the contestation approach does not suffer the same problems as the affirmation approach, it might be more defensible and practicable than the latter. Of course, there might be other problematic implications of Tully’s approach, but to discuss them here is beyond the scope of this chapter.

Notes 1

Nancy Fraser, ‘Social Justice in the Age of Identity Politics,’ in Redistribution or Recognition: A Political-Philosophical Exchange, Joel Golb, James Ingram, and Christiane Wilke (trans.), Verso, London/New York, 2003, p. 89. 2 Charles Taylor, ‘The Politics of Recognition’, in Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition, Amy Gutmann (ed), Princeton University Press, Princeton (New Jersey), 1994. Cf. also Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts, Joel Anderson (trans.), MIT Press, Cambridge (Mass.), 1995. 3 Craig Calhoun, Critical Social Theory: Culture, History, and the Challenge of Difference, Blackwell, Oxford, 1995, p. 216. Honneth agrees with Calhoun’s reading here. 4 Cf. Charlene Rajendran, ‘Multicultural Belongings on the Contemporary Stage: Krishen Jit’s Theatre of Identity in Malaysia’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 5 Taylor, ‘The Politics of Recognition’, p. 28. 6 Ibid., p. 28. 7 Ibid., p. 30. 8 Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.), 1992, p. 16. 9 Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Ethics of Identity, Princeton University Press, Princeton (New Jersey), 2005, pp. 66-67. 10 Rebecca Fasselt, ‘Ke Nako (It Is Time) to Scrutinise Ubuntu: Reading ‘South African Hospitality’ towards African Immigrants in Patricia Schonstein Pinnock’s Skyline’. Paper presented at the Multiculturalism, Conflict, and Belonging Conference, Oriel College, Oxford University on September 2010.

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__________________________________________________________________ 11

Appiah, The Ethics of Identity, p. 68. Ibid. 13 See also Amy Gutmann, Identity in Democracy, Princeton University Press, Princeton/Oxford, 2003, pp. 10-11. 14 Sarah Song, Justice, Gender, and the Politics of Multiculturalism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007, p. 34. 15 Taylor, ‘The Politics of Recognition’, p. 31. 16 Taylor, ‘The Politics of Recognition’, p. 52. 17 Charles Taylor, Philosophical Arguments, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.), 1995, p. 140. 18 Ibid., p. 137. 19 Song, Justice, Gender, and Multiculturalism, p. 21. 20 Taylor, ‘The Politics of Recognition’, pp. 58-59. 21 Ibid., p. 64. 22 Ibid., p. 66. 23 Thomas Sowell, Migrations and Cultures: A World View, Basic Books, New York, 1996, pp. ix-x. 24 Lawrence Blum, ‘Recognition, Value, and Equality: A Critique of Charles Taylor’s and Nancy Fraser’s Critique of Multiculturalism’, in Theorizing Multiculturalism: A Guide to Current Debate, Cynthia Willett (ed), Blackwell, Oxford, 1998, p. 83. 25 Taylor, ‘The Politics of Recognition’, p. 66. 26 See Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, Sheed & Ward, London, 1975, p. 273. 27 Charles Taylor, Philosophy and the Human Sciences: Philosophical Papers, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/London, 1985, pp. 116-33. 28 Seyla Benhabib, The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era, Princeton University Press, Princeton (New Jersey), 2002, pp. 52-53. 29 Ibid., p. 56. 30 http://www.lawphil.net/consti/cons1987.html. Viewed on 29 March 2011. 31 Taylor, ‘The Politics of Recognition’, p. 59. 32 Will Kymlicka, Liberalism, Community, and Culture, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1988, p. 242. 33 Avigail Eisenberg, Reasons of Identity: A Normative Guide to the Political and Legal Assessment of Identity Claims, Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York, 2009, p. 125. 34 See also Seyla Benhabib, ‘Nous et ‘les Autres’ The Politics of Complex Cultural Dialogue in a Global Civilization’, in Multicultural Questions, Christian Joppke & Steven Lukes (eds), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999, p. 54. 35 Appiah, The Ethics of Identity, p. 110. 12

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__________________________________________________________________ 36

Cf. Michael Kearney, ‘Designing Identity: An Attempt to Manufacture Singaporeans’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 37 Fraser, ‘Social Justice in the Age of Identity Politics’, pp. 76. See also Nancy Fraser, ‘Rethinking Recognition’. New Left Review, vol 3, 2000, pp. 107-120. 38 Cf. Madhubanti Bhattacharya, ‘Writing New Identities: South Asian Women, North America and three Asian-American Novels,’ in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 39 Benhabib, ‘Nous et ‘les Autres’’, pp. 54-55. See also Benhabib, The Claims of Culture, pp. 60-61. 40 Benhabib, The Claims of Culture, p. 8. 41 Fasselt, ‘Ke Nako (It Is Time)’. 42 Cf. Agnieszka Jarzewicz, ‘Cultural Entanglements of Human Rights Discourse’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2011. 43 Ibid. 44 Axel Honneth, ‘Recognition As Ideology’, in Recognition and Power and the Tradition of Critical Social Theory, Bert van den Brink & David Owen (eds), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007, p. 324. 45 Louis Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, Monthly Review Press, New York, 1971, pp. 137 & 142. 46 Himani Bannerji, The Dark Side of the Nation: Essays on Multiculturalism, Nationalism, and Gender, Canadian Scholars, Toronto, 2002, p. 148. 47 Nancy Fraser, ‘From Redisribution to Recognition?’, in Adding Insult to Injury: Fraser Debates Her Critics, Kevin Olson (ed), Verso, London/New York, 2008, pp. 28-29. 48 Patchen Markell, Bound by Recognition, Princeton University Press, Princeton (New Jersey), 2003, p. 59. 49 J. Donald Moon, Constructing Community: Moral Pluralism and Tragic Conflicts, Princeton University Press, Princeton (New Jersey), 1993, p. 10. 50 Markel, Bound by Recognition, p. 178. 51 Ibid., p. 178. 52 James Tully, Public Philosophy in a New Key vol. I, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008, pp. 145-47. 53 James Tully, ‘Struggles over Recognition and Redistribution’. Constellations, vol. 7 no. 4, 2000, p. 478. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid., p. 470. 56 James Tully, ‘Reconciling Struggles over the Recognition of Minorities: Towards a Dialogical Approach’, in Diversity and Equality: The Changing

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__________________________________________________________________ Framework of Freedom in Canada, University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver/Toronto, 2006, p. 7. 57 Tully, ‘Struggles over Recognition and Redistribution’, p. 479. 58 Ibid., pp. 470 & 474. 59 Cf. Chantal Mouffe, The Return of the Political, Verso, London/New York, 2005. 60 Tully, ‘Struggles over Recognition and Redistribution’, p. 474. 61 Ibid., p. 477. 62 James Tully, Public Philosophy in a New Key vol. II, pp. 183-84. 63 Tully, ‘Struggles over Recognition and Redistribution,’ p. 469. 64 Ibid., p. 477.

Bibliography Althusser, L., Lenin and Philosophy and Philosophy and Other Essays. Monthly Review Press, New York, 1971. Appiah, K. A., The Ethics of Authenticity. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2005. Bannerji, H., The Dark Side of the Nation: Essays on Multiculturalism, Nationalism, and Gender. Canadian Scholars, Toronto, 2002. Bhattacharya, M., ‘Writing New Identities: South Asian Women, North America and three Asian-American Novels’ in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Benhabib, S., ‘Nous et ‘les Autres’ The Politics of Complex Cultural Dialogue in a Global Civilization’, in Multicultural Questions, C. Joppke & S. Luckes (eds), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999, pp. 44-64. Benhabib, S., The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2002. Blum, L., ‘Recognition, Value, and Equality: A Critique of Charles Taylor’s and Nancy Fraser’s Critique of Multiculturalism’, in Theorizing Multiculturalism: A Guide to Current Debate, C. Willet (ed), Blackwell, Oxford, 1998, pp. 73-99. Calhoun, C., Critical Social Theory: Culture, History, and the Challenge of Difference. Blackwell, Oxford, 1995.

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__________________________________________________________________ Eisenberg, A., Reasons of Identity: A Normative Guide to the Political and Legal Assessment of Identity Claims. Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York, 2009. Fasselt, R., ‘Ke Nako (It Is Time) to Scrutinise Ubuntu: Reading ‘South African Hospitality’ towards African Immigrants in Patricia Schonstein Pinnock’s Skyline’. Paper presented at the Multiculturalism, Conflict, and Belonging Conference in Oriel College, Oxford University on September 2010. Fraser, N. & A. Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange. J. Golb, et. al. Verso, London/New York, 2003. Fraser, N., ‘Rethinking Recognition’. New Left Review, vol. 3, 2000, pp. 107- 120. Fraser, N., ‘From Redistribution to Recognition? Dilemmas of Justice in a ‘Postsocialist’ Age’, in Adding Insult to Injury: Nancy Fraser Debates Her Critics. L. Olson (ed.), Verso, London/New York, 2008, pp. 9-41. Gadamer, H. G., Truth and Method. Sheed & Ward, London, 1975. Gutmann, A., Identity Princeton/Oxford, 2003.

in

Democracy.

Princeton

University

Press,

Honneth, A., The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts. J. Anderson (trans.). Polity Press, Cambridge, 1995. Honneth, A., ‘Recognition As Ideology’, in Recognition and Power and the Tradition of Critical Social Theory, B. van den Brink & D. Owen (eds), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007, pp. 323-3347. Jarzewicz, A., ‘Cultural Entanglements of Human Rights Discourse’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Kearney, M., ‘Designing Identities: An Attempt at Manufacturing Singaporeans’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Kymlicka, W, Liberalism, Community, and Culture. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1988. Markell, P., Bound by Recognition. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2003.

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__________________________________________________________________ Moon, J. D., Constructing Community: Moral Pluralism and Tragic Conflicts. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1993. Mouffe, C., The Return of the Political. Verso, London/New York, 2005. Rajendran, C., ‘Multicultural Belongings on the Contemporary Stage: Krishen Jit’s Theatre of Identity in Malaysia’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Song, S., Justice, Gender, and the Politics of Multiculturalism. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007. Sowell, T., Migrations and Cultures: A World View. Basic Books, New York, 1996. Taylor, C., ‘Politics of Recognition’, in Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition. A. Gutmann (ed), Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1992, pp. 25-74 Taylor, C., Philosophy and the Human Sciences: Philosophical Papers. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/London, 1985. Thompson, S., The Political Theory of Recognition: A Critical Introduction. Polity Press, Cambridge, 2006. Tully, J., Public Philosophy in a New Key Volume I & II. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/New York, 2008a/b. Tully, J. ‘Reconciling Struggles over the Recognition of Minorities: Towards a Dialogical Approach’, in Diversity and Equality: The Changing Framework of Freedom in Canada, A. Eisenberg (ed), University of British Columbia Press, Toronto/Vancouver, 2006, pp. 15-33. Tully, J., Political Philosophy as a Critical Activity’, in What Is Political Theory, S. White & J. D. Moon (eds), Sage Publications, London, 2004, pp. 12-29. Tully, J., ‘Struggles over Recognition and Distribution’. Constellations, vol. 7, no. 4, 2000, pp. 469-82. Renante D. Pilapil is a PhD in Philosophy at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.

Cultural Entanglements of Human Rights Discourse Agnieszka Jarzewicz Abstract To reconsider the dialectics of inclusion and exclusion in multicultural social realities I shall juxtapose multiculturalism and ethnocentrism, both in their radical and soft varieties. These two distinct positions, perspectives and doctrines will be analysed in regard and by contrast to some universal precepts of liberal legal systems. In particular, the claim about the equal value of all cultures will be brought into critical focus. The core of that discussion lies in a position one takes towards human rights discourse. Radical approaches are criticised here as incapable of contributing to the de-escalation of cultural exclusion or what has been sometimes called cultural wars. Diminishing the depth of cultural exclusion, achieved by softening both of those approaches, is needed. This provides us with an alternative view which demonstrates how the doctrinal distinction belittles under some axiological confinement of equality and tolerance. In the course of my argumentation, it ought to become clear that sharing a critical concept of culture grants support and depth for handling the challenges of peaceful coexistence through non-violent approaches, which of course need further substantiation. Key Words: Multiculturalism, ethnocentrism, culture, inclusion, exclusion, human rights, equality, toleration, transformative recognition, non-violence. ***** 1. Perplexed by Meaning: From Worship to the Disempowerment of Culture Multiculturalism, as a normative approach towards cultural diversity, postulates to overcome pervasive systems of cultural oppression and domination that are rooted in patterns and problems of (mis)interpreting others – their identities, values and behaviour. This ideology of emancipation from cultural inequality and injustice varies considerably depending on the concept of culture it espouses, on how it seeks to remedy cultural inequality, and on the axiological systems deployed for offering the required remedies. Multiculturalism, seen through the prism of disputes on the issue of cultural equality, falls into two separate groups: radical and soft varieties. Ethnocentrism, which is considered to be a standpoint opposite to multiculturalism by virtue of judging other cultures from the perspective centred on the heritage of ones society, also comes in radical and soft variants. Looking at the meanders of these distinct viewpoints on multiculturalism in post-modern societies, one should bear in mind that the issue of the universal status of human rights is extremely contentious and sits at the centre of the debate over cultural equality. To the service of discussion, I do restrict my scope of the term ‘ethnocentrism’, referring (in this chapter) solely to Western examples of this

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__________________________________________________________________ given doctrine. As well, in reviewing the disputes on the multicultural condition of humanity, I make some necessary cognitive and normative presuppositions about culture. After sketching out the classical and critical viewpoints on culture, while referring to the axiological horizons opened up to multicultural societies by both multiculturalism and ethnocentrism, I shall also assess the conflicts of values that these doctrines face. Although the concept of culture is historically previous and logically prior to use of the term ‘multiculturalism’, some researchers have found themselves tempted to jettison this concept all together arguing it engenders controversies in analyses of prevailing contemporary forms of public life. Considering a concept of culture theoretically redundant represents a somewhat drastic, as I suggest, radicalization of a critical approach. According to a classical conceptualisation, anticipated by the European Enlightenment, culture represents an integrative force of a collective homogenous identity. This concept has been crystallized within a broader perspective that embraces also concepts of nation-state which has been tied to a Westphalian model of sovereignty. 1 Recognized in the idea of the spirit of a people, culture has become an inherent vehicle for national unity. The powerful rhetoric was given ideological legitimacy and discursive shape (in a romantic vein) by the use of metaphors that have intertwined ethnic descent and political destiny, invoking a strengthened sense of shared social identity. These projections and embodiments in the narratives of birthright, development and maturity of a nation were publicly nourished to generate and maintain social cohesion within ideological and territorial borders. The concept of nation-state, as a culturally homogenous political entity that coincides with a sphere of collective selflegislation, has become a doctrinal point of departure for classical ideologies of nationalism and patriotism in their attempts for pursuing and justifying collective sovereignty and self-determination. In the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, classical views on culture were widely advanced early anthropology, without acknowledging the political entanglements of culture. Such a disciplinary move – I would argue, had historical consequences because at that time the issue was of vital importance for ideological and social movements proclaiming that culture should be given its territorially bounded nation and state. Still, idealized and static perspectives in representing culture as comprising consistent and interrelated sub-systems, such as language, knowledge, customs, religion, art, technology, etc., was predominant.2 It was typical to assume that culture was an autonomic product which people, large groups of people handed down from one generation to the next. Generation inheritance maintained social cohesion by reflecting homogenous solidarity within a group, defined in ethnic and territorial terms. But it would be, at best, antiquarianism to conduct research on contemporary cultures without considering them functionally related to politics at large and geopolitics in particular.

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__________________________________________________________________ At the twilight of the twentieth century, a great deal of scepticism has been expressed by cultural researchers over the essentialist approach of conceiving culture as a clearly delineated phenomenon, a self-contained, almost autarkic universe of symbolic structures of meanings that enforce uniformity among individuals, community and state.3 It has become evident that geopolitical processes have had an enormous impact on cultural phenomena for which classical categories of analysis have fallen short or are no longer applicable. Such processes as decolonization, dissolution of the Soviet Union, but also Balkanization, ethnic cleansing, ethnocide or genocide have proved that the notion of culture is not neutral but highly politicized. Culture as a medium for political mobilisation fuels struggles that uphold and push forward the legal and political interests of strategic groups. Using Ivan Čolović, one can describe culture as a detonator of hatred nourished by a rather suspicious and perverted worship of a particularly interested conception of culture.4 On the flip-side and in the wake of massive economic migrations and computer mediated communications, cultures that use to embody collective bonds of shared interests in the name of nations, have been experiencing continuous erosion. Framed in the classical mould of nation-state or ethno-nation, the concept of culture has become blatantly inadequate to describe the constantly changing composition of a globalized world society. Increasing pluralism of values and multiplicity of worldviews within liberal democracies, undergoing rapid enlargement on account of trans-national relations, has made also the notion of a culturally homogenous basis for national cohesion questionable. As a reaction to those pluralist challenges, some liberal redefinitions of national identity, such as Will Kymlicka’s liberal culturalism or nationalistic liberalism, have emerged. The latter new revision of national identity, promoted by Benjamin Herscovitch and Debopriyo Bal,5 is considered to be a project alternative to classical nationalist ideology by appealing to a concept of thin culture. Conversely to the doctrines that bring risk of violent exclusion with regard to ethno-cultural factors maintaining the unitary model of solidarity, nationalistic liberalism is aimed at accommodating diversity within the thin culture of liberal democratic values. This is the human rights culture which requires, as I do claim, to adapt to a transformative approach to such politicized notions of cultural phenomena, concepts and signifiers, like tolerance and solidarity, cohesion and citizenship. Critical heritage of thought has called to abandon deterministic categories in representing relationships between culture, identity and individual consciousness. Culture, conceived as an autonomous product, a self-sufficient social realm, only perpetuates petrified categories and imposes rigid structures within which individuals and groups are left finding some sense of membership and identity in pigeonhole situations, rather than in fluid and changing scenarios. An actionoriented perspective that brings sharply into focus the need to probe whether and how individuals and groups participate in the common creation of the symbolic

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__________________________________________________________________ realm within which they live, dream and interact is most required and demanded. Active participation makes the contexts of social agents –with or without reflective awareness– transforming due to their idiosyncratic thus sometimes dissonant aims. If cultures do undergo constant changes and adaptations, it has been argued, a static view should be replaced with a processual approach. 6 Such a critical perspective argues for ascribing a discursive status to culture as a concept, as well as to all living cultures. 2. The Charming Promise of Emancipation under the Banner of Radical Multiculturalism A general context within which multiculturalism emerged (as a perspective and a reality which could be recognized) is a product of two social strands. On the one hand, decolonization processes which created new states or nations that regained independence, had the effect of intensifying activities of civil rights movements around the world. On the other, political-economic globalisation has resulted in the increasing differentiation among groups composing populations living under liberal democracies. In a radical variant, a central dogma of multiculturalism is based on a claim according to which equal worthiness of all cultures entails pursuing equal respect for all of them. This claim has launched a long-running debate on how to accommodate diversity and equality simultaneously and at once. My endeavour, in this chapter, is to argue that this claim, when taken to be normatively unrestricted, no matter how humanitarian or benevolent its purpose may seem, creates acute axiological dilemmas that assume zero-sum situations. For that purpose, let us reconsider a general social context in which a certain minority group makes demands for gaining approval to introduce in their everyday life practices and customs that are an integral part of their ethical or legal and political tradition but that do not cohere with, or even work against, a system of national law and cultural policy involved in trans- or supra-national levels of law. From the perspective of the minority, a positive response to their demands would produce substantial evidence for espousing the idea of cultural equality. But should the fact that such demands do not find expression in any national legislation be ignored? Validation of the doctrine inconsistent with national law would invalidate a law enforcement system, therefore threatens those who obey this law because of the presence of a tradition they may have not approved. Yielding to the demands that impinge substantially on a national or international level of law would prompt an avalanche of criticism from the mainstream society. Instead of being an instrument of righting the wrong, radical multiculturalism becomes the instrument of struggle for reversing the centres of power.7 In turn, radical ethnocentrism is not solid enough, because it exposes us to accusations of cultural imperialism. It is apparent then that both minorities and majorities are vulnerable to the dilemmas leading to zero-sum situations or definitions. And it seems to be a matter of historical contingency as to which group

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__________________________________________________________________ stands to gain control and which groups are powerless and unable to exert control over the process – none of these positions are fixed but interchangeable. 3. Self-Subverting Rationale of the Unrestricted Claim of Cultural Equality Axiological dilemmas that are posed by the idea of unlimited equality reflect some paradoxes inherent in a radical variant of cultural relativism. According to such a crude edition of that doctrine, cultures are impossible to be judged, except from within their own frameworks. In general, considering culture to be a historically relative symbolic realm, leads adherents of this radical approach to the assertion that cultures are incommensurable. Formulated to undermine the assumption and possibility of a trans-cultural perspective that can enable comparisons and judgement of any culture, this argumentation inherits a metaphysical nature of the thesis it negates.8 Thus, radical relativism is deeply rooted in universalist rhetoric.9 The idea that all cultures are equally valuable embodies in itself a universal feature because a common measure of judgements is necessary, if equality is to be claimed about all cultures. To make it evident, the assertion of incommensurability has to be subjected to philosophical scrutiny. Assuming that cultures are incomparable because they radically differ from each other implies an assertion of incommensurability. While recalling Donald Davidson’s argument against the metaphor of one world seen from incomparable viewpoints, I do take a sceptical approach to the assertion of incommensurability of cultures as one of self-refuting nature.10 Being able to compare and notice differences between various structures of significance we ought, at the same time, be capable to note a common coordinate system that constitutes the very feasibility of differentiation. Once we realize inter-dependence between distinguishing and comparing particular points of view from the existence of a coordinate system on the basis of which they are plotted, we ought not to ignore the inherent contradiction between the assertion that different cultures are incommensurable and the claim that all cultures are equal. Based on a self-subverting rationale, relativism betrays paradox, remaining an unintelligible and thus indefensible doctrine. 4. Should Human Rights be a Centre of Contention in the Debate over Cultural Equality? Is it justified to bring against those who refuse to accept the unrestricted claim about the cultural equality a charge of imperialism? Instead, should not radical multiculturalism itself face such an accusation? Judgement implicit in that claim is indeed entangled in universalist discourse, but it does not seem to be a solid position to reduce universalism by representing all its variants to imperialistic thought. There is a magnificent difference of intelligibility between universalist tendencies that are displayed by both proponents of that claim and their adversaries.

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__________________________________________________________________ The ethnocentric refusal to approve an unconfined idea of cultural equality may find its normative justification in the human rights discourse. It can be argued that incorporating the idea that cultures deserve equal respect into human rights would pose a serious threat to human rights themselves or even represent a violation of them by giving potential legitimacy to abusive cultural practices. Notwithstanding equality is one of the leitmotifs running throughout the full body of human rights, this value is attributed to human beings. In this universalist legal discourse, human beings are considered to be either a member of the human family, regardless of her/his belonging to a certain culture, or a bearer of a culture – a member of a specific group formed on the basis of language, ethnicity, race, gender, creed, migration, labour, etc. We are all equal in possessing a wide range of cultural rights, such as a right to pursue cultural development or diffusion, as well as a right to conservation and preservation of our own culture. Despite that cultural rights constitute an integral part of human rights equality has not been conferred on cultures but on human beings, thus far. Some critical readers of human rights deem them self-contradictory. This is done by quoting, for instance, The Vienna Declaration and Program of Action which specify, on the one hand, that cultural diversity must be borne in mind, while on the other hand stresses the necessity for eradicating conflicts that arise on the basis of cultural differences.11 Is not such a reading of human rights simply selective and tendentious? Cultural rights should not be invoked as if they were separated or unlimited. It is stated explicitly in Vienna Declaration that they are universal and interdependent.12 Counter-argumentation according to which it is inconsistent to undermine the claim of unlimited cultural equality in the name of human rights seems to be futile. Human beings are indeed equal in possessing a right to the protection of cultural identity and heritage, as well as a right to freedom from discrimination and a right to participate in all spheres of public life; however, no right should be obeyed at the expense of another right. It is, no doubt, highly complicated to cultivate one tradition in accordance with some human rights and, at the same time, not to infringe on rights that are crucial for others in order to follow their culture and their claims to the culture they see as their own. Should a category of supra-national law be discredited then by predicaments of the respect we should pay to substantive limits of interdependent values enshrined in particular human rights? The main reason to express scepticism towards human rights from a position of radical multiculturalism is that their individualistic and secular rhetoric fails to cohere with patterns of thinking and behaving prevailing in the non-Western cultures. It precisely this universalist legal discourse that is deemed to be imprisoned in the Enlightenment Utopia which, in turn, is put down as a modernist product incompatible with community-based ethos. According to communitarians, real protection from discrimination cannot be guaranteed as far as group rights remain unrecognized by individualist human rights. The West has been

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__________________________________________________________________ permanently accused of using human rights as an ideological tool for exercising imperialistic power over the globe. Critics maintain that behind international posturing and claims to universal validity, human rights are just concealed political instruments of exclusion of all who resist Western expansionism.13 Although the history of human rights may be traced in parallel with the history of their violation by the West in a non-Western world or even the West in the West itself, I consider that wholesale criticism is deeply misleading. Assessing the contention that human rights’ function is subordinated to Western imperialism, I follow Jürgen Habermas who considers such attitude as ‘(...) shameless instrumentalization of human rights that conceals particular interests behind a universalistic mask – a deception that leads one to the false assumption that the meaning of human rights is exhausted by their misuse.’14 The spread wide currency that radical criticism accounts have gained around the world obliges us, I believe, to examine its normative foundations. Does this radical account provide us with an alternative system of norms to facilitate and enable peaceful coexistence? An explicit answer to this question is offered in the writings of Chandran Kukathas. 15 What he means by using the label of ‘classical liberalism,’ is a regime whose strength lies in a highly controversial ideal of ‘maximal toleration’. If any is characteristic of the liberal tradition it is its wariness of the concentration of power and of the efforts of the powerful to suppress dissent. Liberal regimes have been notable for their commitment to the dispersal of power, and to the toleration of dissenting – be they conservative, socialist, fascist, theocratic, or simply anti-liberal.16 The author maintains that ‘classical liberalism’, having, in its ‘purest form’, an inclination for anarcho-multiculturalism, is a ‘perfectly coherent position’ to have. Though thinks of it, at the same time, as an ‘impossible high standard’ which requires from political regimes to preserve moral and cultural neutrality, which in the authors position means ipso facto the lack of any regime. Could a political theory be deemed coherent in defiance if?? social practice disprove the feasibility of the project promoted by this theory? To assume coexistence between fascists and liberals or any minority whose ultimate values are incompatible with liberalism is to suggest that liberals could share their credo and be willing to selfcontest, at once. In Kukathas writings, fascists are deemed to be a dissenting minority being suppressed by a dominant culture of modern liberals who refuse to share the faith in ‘maximal toleration’, whereas ‘classical liberals’ are willing to resist the powerful by being ready to accept all the subjugated. The political project based on that type of unlimited toleration tends to provide justification for deeming any group favouring anti-human rights ideology and despotic forms of power to be

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__________________________________________________________________ the victims of cultural oppression. To put the point starkly, the abuse of human rights is involved in the illusion of unlimited equality or maximal toleration. This illusive perspective does outrageously pervert a meaning of the word ‘toleration’ by inflating it to such an enormous extent that it can only generate ridiculous incongruities and lead to the violation of law. And this is a serious theoretical problem stemming from the axiological nihilism that underlies the regime of ‘maximal toleration’. 5. In Pursuit of the Golden Mean for Peaceful Coexistence Should we expect to ever escape the exclusionary power of culture? Neither multiculturalism nor ethnocentrism makes us capable of working out strategies that could be all-inclusive in resolving conflicts. Between both of those ideologies, in their radical variants, there is, nevertheless, a significant difference pertaining to the degree of intelligibility with which each doctrine circumscribes magnitude or scope of inclusion, as well as exclusion. Radical multiculturalism does not give us sufficiently comprehensible guidance on how to deal with such conflicts. Claims about unlimited cultural equality are laced with axiological nihilism and it is simply lacking intelligibility. Emancipation from the exclusionary power of culture ought not to be offered at the cost of logical embarrassment or lack of coherent argumentation. Radical multiculturalism maintains that there is no impartial standpoint from which to judge all cultures, however, it embodies universalist judgements that may be embedded in absolutism. In other words, it undermines explicitly the existence of overarching moral truths but implicitly aspires for itself such a status. To alleged non-exclusive regimes of unlimited toleration is simply a pious wish, not a feasible political project, for it is a sort of view from nowhere. Inasmuch as the political project of ‘maximal toleration’ is an exemplification of a multiculturalism based on a radically relativistic argument, it represents a selfrefuting position because it assumes a presupposition-less approach. Examining the theoretical and practical implications of this assumption has led us to see how to dismantle that radical rhetoric. Lack of logical transparency in radical multiculturalism presents a real threat and a real possibility of being a platform for violating individual liberties. An accurate diagnosis of this threat has given George Orwell’s famous dystopian allegory: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”.17 It has been also incisively worded by Isaiah Berlin, who noted in his talk on the protean nature of liberty that: “Freedom for the wolves has often meant death to the sheep.”18 Whenever equality is claimed in the name of culture and when this claim bears the responsibility for the protection of human rights, dictatorship seems to appear just around the corner. In their soft variants, both multiculturalism and ethnocentrism merge into an alternative option through the trust they can pose in the essential role that human rights have for forging peaceful coexistence. To soften axiological dilemmas that occur whenever values enshrined in human rights stand in tension with each other,

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__________________________________________________________________ strong yet voluntary commitment and contribution of all sides involved in conflicts are necessary. In search of social strategies for responding to a reciprocal challenge of inclusion, I consider quite instructive both Nancy Fraser’s proposal of transformative remedies for cultural injustice and Jürgen Habermas’ argument in favour of dialectical interpretation of the human rights’ discursive assumptions. Fraser’s response to the redistribution-recognition dilemma focuses on inclusion as a reciprocal challenge.19 Analytical distinction between redistribution and recognition represents two paradigms of justice – economic and cultural, respectively. Cultural disrespect and economic disadvantage in the political dimension of the public sphere are so intertwined that striving against them inevitably creates inevitable dilemmas. Recognition is, namely, required to promote cultural diversity whereas redistribution claims are aimed against economic orders that maintain injustice in group differentiation. Remedies fall into affirmative and transformative ones, which seem to be a key issue for the nonviolent methodology of conflicts. Notwithstanding both of those strategies are preconditioned by human rights, it is reasonable to examine how they operate in regard to disputes over the applicability and functions of human rights. A point of departure for an affirmative approach is an asymmetric relation between liberal majority, which holds and distributes – through inter alia human rights discourse – their ‘imperialistic’ power, and minorities who are the subjugated. It is expected that the majority be more and more inclusive, which is to be achieved by changing their representations imposed on minorities whose identities, in turn, are devalued, thus the demand to be positively re-valorised. It follows that affirmative revaluation of a collective identity relies on a one-sided effort. Minorities demand recognition of their rights, but with the proviso that some principal differences may not be easy at all to accommodate in liberal frameworks of thin culture. A transformative paradigm of dealing with axiological dilemmas is much more challenging because it requires from each of the collective and individual actors of multicultural societies to contribute to a general de-escalation of exclusion. Symbolic change that can be induced in this way is an overarching process, aimed at profound restructuring of the patterns of interpreting others and what might be seen as the canons of self-representation, as well. A process of deconstruction of the social frameworks that are responsible for generating conflicts would consist in a common performing redefinition of valuational structures. This, for instance, would allow the identification of what might determine the subordination of minorities, by way of their representation as a negative correlate to a majority. Pondering on the feasibility of that promising project promoted by Nancy Fraser, I wish to refer to Jürgen Habermas’ proposition of how to close the gap between communitarianism and individualism, when interpreting human rights prerequisites. According to the former account, human rights fail to recognize group rights. What is crucial for transformative recognition of the global

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__________________________________________________________________ challenges, posed by modernity, is a dialectical unity of legal person and legal community. Habermas has insisted that the concept of a human being should not be depicted as an isolated entity, metaphysically opposed to a community; an individual already equipped with the so called ‘innate rights’, as if they were ‘pregiven moral truths to be discovered’.20 Given that human rights are exercised with other members of the human family, and neither individual nor societies have a priority over each other, abrogation of an individualist thesis makes its communitarian antithesis needless. 6. Culture as a Transformative Opus of Interpretation If one espouses the unconfined idea that all cultures are of equal value we have, consequently, be ready to face either the accusation of hypocrisy or to give up our identities, no matter how flexible or rigid they might be. In their radical variants, both multiculturalism and ethnocentrism conform to classical views on culture, which have been depicted as accumulators of political power. The so called ‘anarcho-multiculturalism’, promoted by Chandran Kukathas, may result in a model of cultural policy alternative to that generated by a radically ethnocentric view, but there is no real difference between their way in which notions of culture are incorporated into each project. In both of those cases, culture is conceived as guaranteeing homogeneity in a community. When this presumption is used to promote and enforce cultural ‘purity’, xenophobia becomes the collective force to resist any transformation or even the perception of possible change. And when diversity is depicted and perceived as a threat to prosperity of a given community, we are faced with various social consequences and terrible exemplifications of a condition and future as defined as a zero-sum game. To replace an isolationist and static view of culture with a transformative paradigm has the significant effect, I would argue, of softening the dilemmas that occur whenever mutually exclusive values come into play. Cultivating human rights discourse consists in decentring ethnocentrism through a humanistic interpretation, which is twofold, as embracing a historical perspective and simultaneously taking up an adaptive approach.21 To make humanitarian law a subject of hermeneutic scrutiny, I would claim, historical and adaptive horizons of interpretation need to complement each other. Empathy as an adaptive mechanism of interpretation, for instance, represents an emotional ability to understand others, which relies on ascribing propositional attitudes to them. This type of interpretation reflects how an interpreter is imagining oneself in contexts co-defining those mental events that are interpreted. According to Setsuko Adachi22, empathy is the ability to understand differences through emotional substituting oneself for the other, whereas sympathy consists in entering an emotional union with the other by substituting the other for oneself. As I understand both of these abilities and their prominent function for the existence and sustaining of open societies, the issue of incorporating empathy into national

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__________________________________________________________________ and international discursive formations may be associated with Richard Rorty’s project of sentimental education. This project assumes something that was called by Annette Baier ‘progress of sentiments’, which demands recognition of the similarities as outweighing the differences between one and the other.23 Education focused on emotional capacities and conditions of participation in an open society is, no doubt, vital and necessary. But it must be offered with the utmost caution, for there is only a thin red line, it seems to me, between forging solidarity that is based on similarities in sentimentality and imposing mechanical solidarity which is nourished by similarities in mentality. Empathy as an adaptive mechanism of maintaining a syntonic equilibrium with the others exists in the real of interpretation, whereby comprehends activity of the mind. Searching for emotional similarities should not eradicate the differences of mentality. Otherwise, it is not an attempt to understand the others by sharing sentiments with them but imposing worldviews on them. Therefore, engrafting empathy in societies undergoing transitions to multicultural democracies, I would strongly make the case, should be paired with the provision of a historical knowledge about cultures (voluntarily) involved in this process. As a strategy I believe we need to push for coalescence of adaptive and historic interpretations, because it saves us from the traps in which we may fall when approaching them separately. In light of my previous arguments, Andrzej Zaporowski’s semantic postulate to circumscribe the term ‘multiculturalism’ by the idea of cross-cultural communication comes to life and becomes a crucial way of de-essentializing notions of culture. According to Zaporowski, meaning of this term remains inflated unless communication proceeds on the basis of accepting a reciprocal alteration of positions, whether one is an interpreter or a subject of interpretation. 24 It seems to me that as far as mutuality of interpretation is absent, such processes as assimilation or ghettoizing of cultures demonstrate distorted meanings of multiculturalism in its variants of ‘melting pot’ and ‘salad bowl’, respectively. 7. Is there any Non-negotiable Core of Equality and Toleration? Despite the fact that multicultural democracies gather people who may not share the same (cultural) background, there is still a need for having to share rules of processes of mediation, communication and mutual interpretation. If a third way is to represent transformative recognition of occidental rationalism, then sources of democratic will formation lie in the acknowledgement of communicative rights as a principal means for inclusive democratic citizenship to be implemented. Presuming that minorities are to be obliged to respect individual liberties and rights (we so consider them to be homogenized to a certain degree) is an expectation that is circumscribed within the bonds of a thin culture of liberal values. Libertarian systems of values are open to discussion, yet it requires for entering into communication and negotiation the acknowledgment that human rights cannot be compromised as a principles background and a holistic legal system. According to

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__________________________________________________________________ soft ethnocentrism, as Andrzej Szahaj argues, inclusion of minorities who have been finding themselves marginalized and disadvantaged in the context of liberal democratic societies is feasible, provided that those groups simultaneously, to at least some degree, undergo liberalization.25 If we claim that acknowledging human rights discourse as a valuational system of basic normative conditions for communication gives us the freedom to promulgate our traditions and cherish our beliefs, then equality and toleration are reserved for groups whose individuals are protected by the law that establishes inalienable individual rights. While probing the extent to which liberal projects accommodate groups rights such as Kymlicka’s liberal nationalism or nationalistic liberalism offered by Herscovitch and Bal, communitarians should not be disappointed with firm demands for guaranteeing consistency between inter- and intra-cultural relations. Is there a human rights fundamentalism? Does that include propaganda of the triumph of a single axiological system over other alternatives? Could human rights discourse be just another manifestation of a wishful belief that Western values are non-contingent but eternal and paramount? Herbert Marcuse insisted on the awareness of how tolerance may be perverted when it serves to protect and preserve the interest of a repressive status quo. But he also differentiated between violence practiced by the oppressed and violence against the oppressors. Diversity deserves to be protected, but not in its full generality. An absolutist perspective, however, is at odds with a genuine role of human rights law, which is to regulate peaceful coexistence by identifying, preventing and remedying abuses. This is precisely why, in my estimation, Marcuse remarked that indiscriminate tolerance contradicts democratization. 26 Positive valorising of those who are hostile to liberal values, or wholesale neutrality towards them, is simply solidifying policies which foreshadow the exclusion of liberals and their sympathizers. The dialectic of inclusion and exclusion reflects the extent to which tolerance is a function of solidarity and finds its usage in the legal measurement of equality and liberty. Tolerance, like those other and equivalent values, is a normatively dependent concept, which means that it is relative to a certain normative rationale.27 It serves quite well, I believe, probing the extent to which some mutually exclusive and perceived as ultimate values, yet equally guaranteed by a trans- or supra-national law, may or may not be compromised or adjusted. Without guiding principles, rules and boundaries, very basic and fundamental values such as equality or freedom are constantly under the threat of turning into their opposite. It is true and the critique is correct, entering the caveat that to obey human rights is sine qua non for settling the strategies to prevent and deal with conflicts ethnocentrism clearly indicates a series of axiological boundaries beyond which categories of a zero sum game are to be applied, yet it ought not to be reduced to absolutism. This can be indeed an absolutist ideology that leads to escalation of exclusion, provided (however) that it receives underpinnings from the faith in the

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__________________________________________________________________ absolute legitimacy for judging cultures. No wonder that facing collective ethical or cognitive arrogance generates such huge frustrations among those who have failed to find themselves among the ‘privileged’. Contrary to lobbying for infallibility of a given worldview, as if it were a sort of God’s eye view, soft ethnocentrism assumes the elusiveness that comes with impartiality of value judgements. It neither follows absolutist inclinations of radical ethnocentrism, nor does eschew rational criticism centred on Western heritage. 8. The Challenge of Non-Violent Symbolic Change Cultures, if ever, should be affirmed to be of equal value, provided that this equality is validated before the law. This is, in my analysis and belief, the pivot of tolerance and multicultural equality. Liberal and despotic policies cannot be placed in the same horizon or in the same position, because equality comes with the whole panoply of ultimate values that contribute to the enhancement of international law. When equality and toleration are conceived out from nowhere then it seems as if they had to encompass cultures that may be perceived as not entitled to take advantages from the benefits of legal protection. It ought not to mean, nevertheless, that human beings can be exposed to severe stigma so as to be outlawed by a government when remaining a detainee deprived of legal protection guaranteeing a right to trial and prosecution or being socially marginalized in such a systematic manner to become a subject unable to perceive the right to have rights. Humanitarian law has to evolve in response to the need for a legal recognition of the most fundamental contemporary challenges of our times. These challenges (legitimate or not) are coming from the, so called, cultural wars, coming from the political perceptions that cultures are mutually exclusive and thus need to promote intolerance towards the threats of other cultures. When ultimate values become conflicted with each other, no right should be unduly compromised. Nor should any human right be violated in the name of any action undertaken to counter violation of the basic liberal credo. The West is addressed (and advised) to be aware not to allow post-colonialism to revive disguised in the misconceived idea and policy-making of counter-terrorism. That has been a matter of the utmost urgency, at least for a whole decade, because a military approach has been adopted whereas an internationally binding legal definition of terrorism has been obstinately absent. Therefore, implementation to human rights of an article saying that no person can be outside a law, either in peace or in war, which has been promoted by Kirk Boyd, is inevitable.28 Transformative remedies for cultural inequality and injustice, as I am convinced, can facilitate procedures for solving conflicts non-violently. This great desideratum does not suggest any illusory vision of a world without conflicts but refers to a certain mode of dealing with them – a mode that is aimed at breaking vicious circles of violence generating new violence. Even though it is mostly deemed a utopian proposition, on account of the for an enormous reorganisation of

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__________________________________________________________________ the human world as we currently know it in order to eradicate violent management of conflicts, and it is argued that sometimes the struggle for peace has to be waged by means of military operations, non-violent approaches should be actively promoted always. Investment in education, health care and ecological and sustainable development, instead of exorbitant expenditures on military, which usually backfire, seem to be the most patent example of the path of non-violent resolution of conflicts.29 To carry out such an extremely profound political and cultural transformation, it is indispensable to construct and cultivate communicative and horizontal relationships with reciprocal implications for all sides involved, especially in highly challenging processes and situations. Violent reprisal against violence is a factor making conflicts protracted and intransigent. But instead of deluding ourselves with the untenable ideal of a harmonious balance and coexistence of the fundamental values that people most cherish from their cultures and around the world, we should search for possibilities for negotiating over axiological predicaments with others across cultural differentiation.

Notes 1

J Habermas, The Postnational Constellation. Political Essays, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2001, pp. 100-120. 2 M Buchowski, ‘Antropologiczne kłopoty z multikulturalizmem’, in Czy klęska wielokulturowości, H Mamzer (ed), Wydawnictwo Fundacji Humaniora, Poznań, 2008, pp. 15-17. 3 Ibid., op. cit., pp. 18-23. 4 I Čolović, Bałkany – terror kultury, Wydawnictwo Czarne, Wołowiec 2007, pp. 5-7. 5 D Bal and B Herscovitch, ‘From Liberal Nationalism to Nationalistic Liberalism: Liberal Values and the Prospects for Progressive Nationalism’, in this volume, A Wagener and T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 6 M Buchowski, op. cit., pp. 38-43. 7 A Szahaj, Relatywizm i fundamentalizm, WN UMK, Toruń, 2008, p. 65. 8 J Kmita, ‘Towards Cultural Relativism with a Small ‘r’’, in Epistemology and History. Humanities as a Philosophical Problem and Jarzy Kmita's Approach to it, A Zeidler-Janiszewska (ed), Rodopi, Amsterdam – Atlanta, 1996, pp. 544-548. 9 B Barry, Culture and Equality. An Egalitarian Critique of Multiculturalism, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2001, p. 264. 10 D Davidson, Inquires into Truth and Interpretation, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001, pp. 183-198. 11 See, S A Hansen, ‘The Right to Take Part in Cultural Life’, in Human Rights in the World Community: Issues and Actions, R P Claude, B H Weston (eds), University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2006, pp. 223-231.

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Vienna Declaration and Program of Action, World Conference on Human Rights, United Nations Documents, 1993, pt. 5 and pt. 38. 13 R Howard-Hassman and J Donnelly, ‘Liberalism and Human Rights: A Necessary Connection’, in The Human Rights Reader. Major Political Essays, Speeches and Documents from Ancient Times to the Present, M R Ishay (ed), Routledge, New York, 2007, pp. 405-410. 14 J. Habermas, op. cit., p. 129. 15 Chandras Kukathas seems to be one of the most committed adherents of that type multiculturalism which is, in this chapter, labelled ‘radical’ on the account of promoting the idea of unlimited equality. In Kukathas’ terminology, however, his standpoint represents ‘weak multiculturalism’ on the account of support given to ‘classical liberalism’, that is, liberalism based on the principle of ‘maximal toleration’. 16 Ch Kukathas, Theoretical Foundations of Multiculturalism, p. 19. 17 G Orwell, Animal Farm, http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100011h.html. 18 I Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty, Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York, 1969, p. xiv. 19 N Fraser, Justice Interruptus. Critical Reflections on the ‘Postsocialist’ Condition, Routledge, New York, London, 1997, pp. 1-10. 20 J Habermas, op. cit., pp. 125-126. 21 J Kmita, ‘Interpretacja’, in Filozofia a nauka. Zarys encyklopedyczny, Z Cackowski, J Kmita and K Szaniawski (eds), Ossolineum, Wrocław-Łódź, 1987, pp. 261-269. 22 S Adachhi, ‘Undermined Empathy, Undermined Coexistence: Japanese Discursive Formations Related to Empathy’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 23 R Rorty, ‘Human Rights, Rationality, and Sentimentality’, (1993), in The Human Rights Reader. Major Political Essays, Speeches and Documents from Ancient Times to the Present, M R Ishay (ed), Routledge, New York, 2007, pp. 10-14. 24 A Zaporowski, ‘Is Cross-Cultural Communication Possible?’, in The New Europe at the Crossroads, U E Beitter (ed), Peter Lang Publishing, New York – Vienna, 1999, pp. 300-302. 25 A Szahaj, op.cit., pp. 73-80. 26 H Marcuse, ‘Repressive Tolerance’, in A Critique of Pure Tolerance, R P Wolff, B Moore and H Marcuse (eds), Beacon Press, Boston, 1969, pp. 95-137. 27 R Forst, ‘Toleration’, in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/toleration/, 2007. 28 K Boyd, International Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism, http://74.220.219.58/~drafting/node/1780?cat=paper&topic=361, Berkeley, 2010, p. 15. 29 K Boyd, ibid., pp. 15-17.

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Bibliography Adachi, S., ‘Undermined Empathy, Undermined Coexistence: Japanese Discursive Formations Related to Empathy’, in this volume. A. Wagener and T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Bal, D., and B. Herscovitch, ‘From Liberal Nationalism to Nationalistic Liberalism: Liberal Values and the Prospects for Progressive Nationalism’, in this volume. A. Wagener and T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Barry, B., Culture and Equality. An Egalitarian Critique of Multiculturalism. Polity Press, Cambridge, 2001. Berlin, I., Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York, 1969. Boyd, K., International Human Rights and Counter-terrorism. Berkeley, 2010. http://74.220.219.58/~drafting/node/1780?cat=paper&topic=361, Buchowski, M., ‘Antropologiczne Kłopoty z Multikulturalizmem’, in Czy Klęska Wielokulturowości. H. Mamzer (ed) Wydawnictwo Fundacji Humaniora, Poznań, 2008, pp. 15-51. Čolović, I., Bałkany – Terror Kultury. Wydawnictwo Czarne, Wołowiec 2007. Davidson, D., ‘A Nice Derangement of Epithaphs’, in Truth and Interpretation. Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson. E. LePore (ed), Blackwell, Cambridge, 1986. -, Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001. Forst, R., ‘Toleration’, in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/toleration/. Fraser, N., Justice Interruptus. Critical Reflections on the “Postsocialist” Condition. Routledge, New York, London, 1997. Hansen, S. A., ‘The Right to Take Part in Cultural Life’, in Human Rights in the World Community: Issues and Actions. R. P. Claude and B. H. Weston (eds), University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2006.

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__________________________________________________________________ Habermas, J., The Postnational Constellation. Political Essays. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2001. Howard-Hassman, R. and J. Donnelly, ‘Liberalism and Human Rights: a Necessary Connection’, in The Human Rights Reader. Major Political Essays, Speeches and Documents from Ancient Times to the Present. M. R. Ishay (ed), Routledge, New York, 2007. Kmita, J., ‘Interpretacja’, in Filozofia a nauka. Zarys encyklopedyczny. Z. Cackowski, J. Kmita and K. Szaniawski, Ossolineum, Wrocław-Łódź, 1987. –, ‘Towards cultural relativism with a small ‘r’’, in Epistemology and History. Humanities as a Philosophical Problem and Jarzy Kmita's Approach to it. A. Zeidler-Janiszewska (ed), Rodopi, Amsterdam – Atlanta, 1996. Kukathas, Ch., Theoretical Foundations of Multiculturalism. http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/pboettke/workshop/fall04/theoretical_foundations.pdf, Marcuse, H., ‘Repressive Tolerance’, in A Critique of Pure Tolerance. R. P. Wolff, B Moore and H Marcuse (eds), Beacon Press, Boston, 1969. Orwell, G., Animal Farm, http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100011h.html. Rorty, R., ‘Human Rights, Rationality, and Sentimentality’ in The Human Rights Reader. Major Political Essays, Speeches and Documents from Ancient Times to the Present. M. R. Ishay (ed), Routledge, New York, 2007. Szahaj, A., Relatywizm i fundamentalizm. WN UMK, Toruń, 2008. Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action. World Conference on Human Rights, United Nations Documents, 1993. Zaporowski, A., ‘Is Cross-Cultural Communication Possible?’, in The New Europe at the Crossroads. U. E. Beitter (ed), Peter Lang Publishing, New York – Vienna, 1999. Agnieszka Jarzewicz is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Pomeranian University, Slupsk, Poland. Her research and writings are currently devoted to the philosophical consequences of the intertwinement of politics and culture. Recently she is turning her attention to the legal, social and political

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__________________________________________________________________ processes and dimensions of the transitions being experienced in post-socialist countries, like Poland.

The Battleground of a Milieu: On the Concept of Flight and Its Political Milieu Tina Rahimy Abstract Politics of flight refers to a real political issue. The question of migration and exile raises new questions. Who are we? And what is our identity? These questions seem to be reformulations of old questions on human essence and origin. What if we realize that we have always been creatures without reference? And if so, what is subsequently the meaning of a form of life that refers to a form of hegemony and a clear context? What is the significance of a life without signification? In this chapter I argue that relating these abstract concepts, politics and context, to expression and art, will provide us with tools to point out alternative conceptualizations of politics and flight. What is the meaning of context, culture, and identity, their value, their pitfalls? What is de meaning of life for politics and art and what is their commonality, their significance? Could we, in relation to the politics of flight, research art on its effects beyond the intention of its artists? What is the politics of art without a singular subject? Politics and art are interwoven with life and our connection to other living beings. Our perspective on politics, exile and migration depends on the concepts that we relate to it. Politics means relationality, and consequently it is always politics of some relational complexity. Key Words: Politics, concept, milieu, context, culture, identity, memory, language and art. ***** 1. The Concept and Its Milieu Flight, referring to the act of fleeing from one place to the other, is the starting concept of this chapter but, as is always the case with every concept, this concept is bound to countless other concepts. It is part of a family, as Ludwig Wittgenstein points out in his Philosophical Investigations.1 However, although families seem to be all familiar, they are also known for their secrets, misunderstandings and complexities. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari also point out the complexities and nevertheless the importance of reflection on concepts. 2 According to them, every concept that has been created is bound to a ‘conceptual’ milieu, wherein different other concepts are born or old concepts are deconstructed and reconstructed. They argue that the design of such a milieu is the main drive of philosophy, and the creation of concepts the foremost task of a philosopher. So in a sense, my investigation does not intend to clarify the definition of the concept of flight, but rather to search the relationality of this concept to familiar themes. It is an attempt to visualise the lines between this concept and other concepts. What is the milieu

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__________________________________________________________________ of the concept of flight? Furthermore does this milieu of flight always relate and organize its concepts in the same way? I call the milieu to which the concept of flight is connected to other concepts politics of flight. Politics of flight as a milieu has an incongruous character; on the one hand it gives birth to complex and multiple questions, and on the other hand it is a milieu upon which the formation of a subject is often driven by a desire for answers and a crave for certainties. This milieu is alive due to a double loss: loss of a connection and loss of certainty; a politics asking the questions without expecting them to be answered. In this milieu the subject is undecided, not on the reality of loss, but on the manner in which this loss is defined. Is loss of an identity defined through components such as mother tongue and fatherland, an opportunity or a lack? The inherent uncertainty of this politics brings common doubt to the surface. What if we have become, or rather realise that we have always been, creatures without a definitive context, without a totalizing reference? What if the Hegelian and Nietzschean question was not ‘what if God is dead’ but rather ‘what if the God of hegemony and exclusion was never born?’ What if it was never there, this essential point of reference? What is the meaning of (a form of) life3 that refers to such an Essence in one way or another? What are the effects of a politics of clear contexts in an undecided milieu? However, we could also reverse the argumentation and wonder paradoxically: what is the significance of a life without unambiguous signification within the politics of a lucid Signifier? What is the politics of something that we are not able to grasp or understand, a life that is related to different contexts rather than being caught within one singular context? What is the form of expression of such a life and what is the implication of this exclusive form of politics for such a life or any other life for that matter? Politics of flight contains concepts such as refuge, context, culture, identity, history, and thus through the relevance of expression to mediality, language and finally art. What is the effect of art and artworks, their expression value, their commonality? What is the political significance of these forms of expression? Within the tension between art and politics, artists could be driven by ideology and at the same time refuse to become propagandistic puppets. Art can become the political act par excellence and at the same time politics can be practised as a creative act of connecting life events and their subjects.4 Politics has multiple meanings, but here my emphasis lies on politics’ ability to create communities. However the question remains whether this community is based on a demand of sameness or the realization of multiplicity. Politics and expression are in the case of the act of refuge bound to the subject called refugee and the desire to survive. This subject has the urge to stay alive despite the cost.5 What is the cost? Is the act of refuge an act per se, or is it rather a passive move? Is it a disconnecting act and is art the milieu in which the concept of connection is looked at distinctively? Can we distinguish the concept of refuge as an active process that deterritorialises the territory of belonging for all the subjects

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__________________________________________________________________ that it may concern, and art as a potentiality wherein life can become reterritorialised differently in temporary subjects? Art becomes political and in this way, art and politics are so forms of thought that immediately become connected to a basic concept: life. Life refers here to humans as living beings and politics as the way of connecting life to its modification in living beings and the types of relationality between these different forms of segmentation. The event of the modification and the event of its relationality are simultaneous events. Art is not only an ambiguous and temporary reterritorializing act, but also an act that connects the subject to the unknowable fact of life, to the unformed life. Art forms segmentation in order to permanently undermine its segmentary certainties. Life is then an enduring affect within art. The connection between life and politics however has a different nature. In contemporary politics the complexity of life is reduced. It is defined as a function of living beings, beings that are penetrated by lines of subjectification and identities. Our modern societies and sciences are determined to manage life in every aspect. We want to tame its unpredictability, not only to cure diseases but also to domesticate its potentiality. Consequently, I want to claim that the conceptual complexity of politics of flight as a milieu does not only refer to refugees, exiled or migrants, but to the relationality between life and politics for every subject. It is the tension between the undefined movement of life and its appropriation by a subject. Each concept within politics of flight, occurs within this tension, presenting on the one hand the curious ways of appropriation of a process that can not be appropriated which is called life and on the other hand the deterritorializing act of life through the temporary organism called human being. 2. Politics of Context A complex concept such as exile is bound to a milieu. In connection to philosophy Deleuze and Guattari speak of a plane, plane of consistency, plane of immanence. A plane is like a sieve holding concepts, a cut in the chaos. It is a riddled slice in permanent awareness of its unrealistic existence in connection to the anarchy that surrounds it. Politics of flight could then be approached as a milieu that binds different concepts, not only within time and space, but also through different disciplines such as philosophy, political sciences, anthropology and many more. It is a plane that is in immediate relation to other planes. Consequently we could speak of a multilingual plane, not minimally because of its multicultural setting, but even more so due to its interdisciplinary and inter-plane characteristics. This also implies that the concepts of this plane are not exclusive, they also exist within other planes, though they are classified differently. The first concept that I would like to discuss is the concept of context. Politics is always reflected upon and also often defined throughout a context. On the one hand, context unconsciously gives rise to the ways in which politics is defined. On the other hand, however, context can become a multi-usable instrument in order to

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__________________________________________________________________ justify a certain political agenda, consequently defending the idea that there is a ‘given’ context, which can be isolated and defined and bring about political and social decisions. For example, in the case of discrimination, one assumes that individuals from a different context than the majority are incapable of functioning within the context of majority, as some think is the case with Muslim citizens within the Western Judeo-Christian society. Two isolated contexts and the dominant one presupposes its incommensurability. However on the other hand, also within the framework of positive discrimination, one creates opportunities for specific forms of context, for example the context of being a female within the academic setting. To understand context is to understand that we are contextualised. However, to understand the immense effect of contextualisation one must dismantle the incoherent presuppositions of the politics of context. First: the minority is not more contextualised than the majority, nor is it more determined by its contextualization. Each individual is moved and blocked by the context that defines its individuality and commonality. There is no more or less contextualisation, like a gradual line starting with a free white man and ending with a repressed lesbian disabled black girl. Second: we cannot simply define and reduce a context into binary oppositions, or count different forms of it, hoping to be able to manage their course. A context is, like any other concept, too complex to be analysed into clear schemes. Context as an abstract concept has a fragile and transforming character. It changes its face in time and space. The context of a labourer now is not the same as the context of a labourer in 1818, and being a labourer in Germany is not the same as being a labourer in Singapore. Off course, different forms of labour-context are related but this relationality does not naturally implicate that they simply can be equalised. Third: there is not one particular context, verbal or social, 6 that defines a subject. Lines of subjectification are bound to complex interactions and conflicts between different contexts. For example: that some persons originate from the same country does not necessarily implicate that these people consequently share the exact same strata of contextuality. Finally, due to the complexity of the concept, understanding of a context and contextuality does not always comfort us with clarities but also creates confusions and paradoxes. 3. Politics of Culture The concept of context refers also to another problematic concept: culture. What is the politics of culture? In the political, social, psychological and artistic arena we speak of cultural diversity and cultural background. We even demand this diversity to be present in the projects that we finance, as is the case with positive discrimination. However, do we really understand what we mean by the concept culture? Culture refers often to the social relations between humans, but nowadays scientists discover more and more that animals are also bound to cultures and even creative in changing its elements. An elephant is an extreme social living being, it

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__________________________________________________________________ is attached to its milieu, but in the You Tube film Match made in Africa7 an orphan baby elephant seems to behave differently in an alternative milieu. He becomes the infant of a sheep, against all odds and together they create a different form of community. So binding culture and even language to merely humans is an oldfashioned modernistic idea. However, even in the human world, the concept of culture refers to multiple components such as the cultivation of land but also urban life as in urban-culture, pop-culture, and urban architecture. It is also linked to concepts such as art, especially in addition to art in public space. It is implicitly and explicitly present in abstract notions such as communication, ethics, morality, religion, gestures, tradition, history, rituals, science, war, hopes and fears, shortly almost every aspect of human action. The term even presupposes different oppositions, as is the case between culture and religion or culture and nature, but also culture on a personal level versus culture on a collective level, and finally, main culture as the dominating discourse versus subcultures as an event that breaks through the main cultural strata and the experience of such an event. Culture has its effect on our political interactions and our forms of expression, but are we capable of understanding this effect? With other words, to what extend could we comprehend and analyse its meaning and to what extent could we draw conclusions on the nature of its effect and relevance? Will this not lead to political conclusions that are based on the presumption of a clear understanding of culture, as is indicated by the term culturalism of Willem Schinkel8? Due to the complexity and the extent of the concept we could then wonder why the combination of a Libyan, an Indian and a Spaniard is more culturally diverse than a combination of two British people. Here I do not want to argue or plea for the insignificance of culture but rather point out that its significance may have been misplaced and misunderstood. Culture is significant, there is no question about it, but is it significant in order to name a collective or rather to recognise an unavoidable diversity? How does culture differentiate or integrate, becomes a question with permanent relevancy. 4. Politics of Identity Concepts such as context and culture refer to another concept, namely identity as well as the politics that is based on identities and moved by mechanisms of identification. Politics of identity is a complex milieu within the sciences. There are many thoughts on and thus many forms of identity, different structures and disorders that flow out of a certain perspective on identity. The history of philosophy is also filled with reflections on this concept. Reflections on identities refer to oppositions such as body and mind, coherency and incoherency, consciousness and unconsciousness, continuity and discontinuity, and the relation between sameness of the body and sameness of a man (human being). 9 Naming a collective, whether through recognition or for the sake of rejection, often belongs to a certain form of politics of identity, a politics that is drawn by defining

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__________________________________________________________________ identities such as Dutch cheese-head and Muslim-fundamentalist, but also sensitive female and macho man. In these cases identity is often a fed cliché, the politics of kitsch, used by politicians to increase their vote rates; by comedians for the sake of laughter; and by the one upon whom the identity is forced as an instrument of resistance and differentiation. Here, the link between identity and recognition is crucial. Is recognition always in need of identity or can it manage to be flexible in its act of connecting subjects to others and to themselves? In ‘From Affirmation to Contestation: On the Politics of Recognition’ Renante Pilapil10 in a sense argues that the act of recognition between men is of importance due to the disability of an identity to become or to be permanent. Through various thinkers, Pilapil shows the necessity of the acknowledgement of misrecognition within the concept of recognition. It is not the binary relation that divides the two concepts, but rather the lack of a clear recognition that visualises the complexity and the plurality of the concept of recognition itself. Reflection on the politics of identity and the need of recognition is also a concern for the Iranian visual artist Atousa Ghiasabadi Bandeh. In her drawings and writings she wonders: what is universal and what is wrongfully generalised.11 She has experienced how politics on all levels has forced her to be a certain image and additionally has obliged her to produce this image. How can one defy such a force? At first she does this by refusing all the characteristics of such an identity, like refusing to be a woman in order not to become a suppressed Middle East woman. During the process of becoming an artist, Atousa, however, changes her mode of resistance by refusing to be a negation. Her paintings do not deny the exotic image, but in some sense seem to exaggerate the cliché image in such an extent that it shames the viewer to think in such identities. The eyes look back, forcing the supposed hegemony to be reconsidered. Her images play with the oriental clichés and at the same time transcend them. The force of being identified is felt by all, and eventually embraced and rejected from all sides, by the migrants as well as by the inhabitants of the host countries. Identity affects them in many ways, creating an antagonistic feeling of shame, arrogance and insecurity all at once. While the concept of exclusion often refers to the experience of being a migrant, the inhabitants experience other forms of exclusion. The concept of identity is a complex concept due to its permanent reference to its own modification, virtuosity to define itself, but also to its real effect in its virtuality.12 In the end, however, although, there is no materiality in an identity, no concrete body referring immediately to its characteristics, there is nevertheless a reality of the effects and affects of politics of identity. There is often a reality of exclusion within the experience of identity that has been endured by many men and women in time and space.

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__________________________________________________________________ 5. Politics of History What is the relation between having an identity and the experience of individuality? Are these two phenomena one and the same; or rather is identity merely possible within a group? Is the experience of displacement and loneliness a personal experience that has been shared by different individuals or rather a part of a process of identification? What is memory, a part of a historical and cultural perspective or rather a personal modification of an event? What is the role of memory within the tension between on the one hand the politics of flight as a mechanism of disturbance of coherent historical remembrance and on the other hand the personal tales of one’s past in order to form a ‘continual’ identity? Politics has often been opposed to the private realm. However, at least in the case of migrants and refugees, one could wonder whether the private experience and misty memory of flight can be placed outside politics. What we relentlessly call private is affected by politics or rather what we call the public. Vice versa the private mutually affects politics. An experience of self-awareness is not an isolated act but an act of differentiating and at the same time an act of connecting to other forms of subjectivity. It is the creative act of a politics of difference and at the same time an acknowledgement that human beings experience themselves as a subject with certain memories and a sense of history, a history that must not be defined as the ultimate story, but rather as a nomadology. 13 Here the nomads lifelines do not per se run though the dominant lines, for example family-lines or nation-lines. The nomad resists such a dominant linearity and the hierarchy of it. A nomadic life is each time revisited from the point of view of another line of intensity. Memories shift in their meaning and even familiar images could become exotic. Although memory is meaningful only in the web that it subtracts its meaning from, this web never remains the same. 6. Politics of Mediality Memory is then not a solid object but a form of expression, conscious and unconscious, in one’s mind or through conversation with others. Remembering could be seen as an affect, a trigger visualizing memory lines. Memory how private it may be is always a form of communicability. It could be enunciated within language or visualized in image, but synchronically it is the engine wherein language is formed and images are shaped: expressed through a medium and expressed as a medium. It is the politics of the medium - or more precisely put, this does not necessary refers to the politics of media but rather to the politics of mediality. However, language and image are not one and the same. Different forms of mediality mean different forms of political relationality. Moreover, each medium is multiple in itself but also connected by each user differently. The performance of an artist through cinematic images has different effects than the images of politicians. Nevertheless, different media are not isolated objects. Artists often play

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__________________________________________________________________ with multiple layers of a medium and its relation to other kinds of media. Due to their affection for media they are also often aware that every medium and every socalled actor is mediated. The artist is not a subject isolated or independent of its art. There are no actors, but rather media. Mediality is more than an object that mediates. The politics of mediality means that our perception of concepts such as context and culture is mediated, as well as those concepts being mediating themselves. Henk Oosterling speaks of Radical Mediocrity.14 To understand mediality is to comprehend that it is not only the content of a statement that has a political implication, but even more so the act of expression itself is of political significance. Mediation means that whatever happens, happens in the middle, meaning everything is always bound in endless connections. It is never at the end or the beginning. Mediality indicates that everything transforms, that nothing originates but everything is in stage of permanent modification. Everything is in translation.15 7. Politics of Language What do we mean by translation? An echo like: anne (Turkish) = moeder (Dutch) = mother (English)? Or is translation rather the only possible act within language? Does the experience of alienation spring out of a lack of language and inability to translate or rather is the lack of coherent translation within and between languages ubiquitous? In ‘Global Tribe in the Local Practice: Lapses in the Celebration of Brazilian’s Rave Scene’ Carolina de Camargo Abreu16 shows the absurdity of simplistic thought on translation. By visualizing the cultural and linguistic complication of words such as negro and negritar she elaborates on the complication and relational tendencies of words within different context. Words and sentences are never static but always alive in-between other words and sentences. Translation shows that a text has never been ours. Alienation does not occur in translation, but becomes visible within it. The difficulty of translating of poetry attests to it. Translation is the politics of language, an open language, in which even a mother tongue could become fragile. The politics of language must then be distinguished from the politics of Sense as correct meaning. In the second form of politics, migration often equals a sense of displacement, referring to something or someone being in a wrong place at a wrong time. Even after years and many generations, men could feel this affect of Unheimlichkeit. Displacement is also felt by inhabitants through time, referring to a past, a history that has perished and a space that is unrecognisably modified. Displacement, thus, does not penetrate the nation state in the form of an outsider, migrant or refugee. It already defines the I of the loyal citizen. Setsuko Adachhi’s distinction between empathy and sympathy in her ‘Undermined Empathy, Undermined Coexistence: Japanese Discursive Formations Related to Empathy’17 is helpful in the visualization of the contradictory character of

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__________________________________________________________________ citizenship and its relation to language. In a sense, we could argue that a citizen can only define itself in the symbolic order of a nation-state and is only capable of a sense of sympathy. It refers to itself as a collective identity, and opposite itself to the non-citizen. A citizen is thus ought to be loyal in Adachi’s terms and should only feel an internal sympathy. However, the non-citizen that needs the externality of empathy is not outside the citizen, but inside the concept of citizenship. The non-citizen is an internal battle that externalizes itself within the symbolic order. Adachhi gives an excellent example, which is the contradictory character of English lessons for the Japanese youth. While the English language is a foreign language, the content of the lessons is focused on something familiar, the Japanese history. Although it seems that this only strengthens their sense of nationality, I would like to argue that the Japanese youth who hear about their history through English, do not become more Japanese, but rather non-Japanese. Since their internal Japanesness is immediately expressed through the foreign language, the expression and translation visualize the exteriority of this identity. What seems to be internal is immediately translated and contexualized within a different milieu. Therefore, the ultimate act of nationalism could become the decisive act of deterritorialization of its goal. The politics of language becomes the politics of transformation. It is an act of shifting of definitions and neologisms. Within the openness of language one is never displaced but rather as the artist Atousa suggests replaced. Displacement becomes negation itself by being experienced as a new event instead of a feeling of a lack. She is a nomad, aware of the possibility of loss, but nevertheless resisting to define this loss as a lack or even a blind optimistic opportunity. Her language is neither a play toy to define herself as a new loyal happy citizen, nor an instrument to disapprove of a life. Language is never given or clear, words have multiple meanings. In a sense, language is sensing (experiencing) without Sense (fixed meaning). Writing is an act of love, for the sake of words and not their purpose. When language loses its functionality as a mere transmitter of information, when language loses its slave-like attitude towards data, when language begins to be for the sake of its own immanent urge to express, only then does it become poetry, wherein empathy and sympathy, within and without, can relate with no exclusion. Poetry aestheticizes the fragility and the uncertainty of language. It is an act in which language politicizes its own permanent transformation in its resistance to become instrumentalized. Only when language becomes expression for the sake of expression itself it becomes art. What is the meaning of art, do we wonder. Only to know that art is meaningless, not because it is worthless but on the contrary because it is not enslaved by an ideology and hegemony that guarantees a meaning. What does art mean? Beauty? Madness? Does art have a universal value? Maybe art is universal without universality.18

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__________________________________________________________________ 8. Politics of Art Art is the event of connecting unfamiliars and at the same time the experience of unknown connections. It is the politics of connection and therefore it is universal. It is the act of an unexpected connection that is not bound to territories or nationalities. But it is without universality because it is not defined by a specific form of morality or ideology that rules the planet. It has a common ground without a common goal. Art is becoming other. The experience of art is the experience of otherness, wherein a well-known object becomes unusual, becomes singular; an otherness that is not feared. We do not have to overcome this otherness. It is a commonality that normally will have remained unnoticed. Art is also the act of creating commonality not due to the common or harmony but rather owed to otherness. In ‘Multicultural Belongings on the Contemporary Stage: Krishen Jit’s Theatre of Identity in Malaysia’ Charlene Rajendran19 shows the ways in which theatre can become a milieu of difference and in which a dialogue with the immanent other can be enunciated. This otherness is not merely an expression within a multicultural setting of different cultures and different people, but rather a diversity that is inherent. A woman is a man and an Indian is an Englishman. The others’ immanency breaks through the monologue of a unified I. The performer is not an actor that pretends to be someone else, but a visualization of its own internal plurality, a plurality that is real in its virtuality but cannot become actual in the contemporary mode of politics of clarity. It has only meaning in the plane of politics that has the principal of change at its core and breaths in the permanent transformation of creating new concepts. So in the end, what is the politics of art? What is the politics of creating nonexclusive communities? It is more than a resisting act, more than the negative of mainstream. It is the rejection of the idea of the existence of a mainstream way of thought. Art is not even an act of resistance; it is not the opposition as an antagonist negating the will of a protagonist. It is the rejection of binary distinctions as such. We are all at the margins in a sense. The politics of art is a politics of shifting in thought and space. Art is the experience of difference and the comprehension that this difference has always been our commonality.

Notes 1

L Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Willey-Blackwell, 4th edition, 2009. G Deleuze and F Guattari, What is Philosophy?, Columbia University Press, New York, 1994, pp. 15-34. Deleuze and Guattari seem to have a problematic relationship or sometimes even a nonexistent relationship with Wittgenstein. However, Bruce MacClure argues against this presumption. According to him, they rather problematise the followers of Wittgenstein instead of Wittgenstein himself. Third chapter: ‘Schizoanalytic Investigations: Deleuze-Guattari and

2

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__________________________________________________________________ Wittgenstein’, in B MacClure, Between the Seen and the Said, Deleuze-Guattari’s Pragmatics of the Order-Word, last viewed at 23 September 2011, http://www.cinestatic.com/trans-mat/McClure/chapter3.htm. 3 Giorgio Agamben gives an extraordinary analysis of the political significance of the concepts ‘life’, ‘form of life’ and ‘form-of-life’. See, for example the first chapter of: G Agamben, Means without End, Notes on Politics, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis/London, 2000. 4 The term action and concept of acting is complex in the context of philosophy, especially in relation to the concept of subjectivity and hence to related concepts such as freedom and choice. The tension between the concepts of action and subject is also tangible in this chapter. Does action define the subject, or is the subject consciously choosing to act in a certain way? I rather argue that the two concepts come to life simultaneously. 5 For a reflection on the concept of survival see: G Agamben, Remnants of Auschwitz, The Witness and the Archive, Zone Books, New York, 1999. 6 Verbal context refers to an assumption of understanding of a certain coherency within a specific language and social context refers to the assumption of a coherency and its understanding within the boundaries of a certain identity. 7 Match Made in Africa, National Geographic, last viewed at 23 September 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnXYiSY99yw, last viewed at 23 September 2011. 8 Political conclusions that are based on the presumption of a clear understanding of culture, is also indicated in W Schinkel, ‘Virtualization of Citizenship’. Critical Sociology, vol. 36, no. 2, Sage, March 2010, pp. 265-283. 9 John Locke and Sigmund Freud are some of the many authors and thinkers that have reflected on this topic. 10 R Pilapil, ‘From Affirmation to Contestation: On the Politics of Recognition’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 11 See: Various writers, Sideways, Reflections on Changing Contexts in Art, Atousa Ghiasabadi Bandeh/ Fonds BKVB/Ideabook, Amsterdam, 2010. 12 The concept ‘virtual’ has been introduced by Deleuze and Guattari as the counterpart of the concept ‘actual’ instead of the concept ‘real’. ‘‘Potential’ and ‘virtual’ are not at all in opposition to ‘real’; on the contrary, the reality of the creative, or the placing-in-continuous variation of variables, is in opposition only to the actual determination of their constant relations.’ G Deleuze & F Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, Capitalism and Schizophrenia, The Athlone Press, London, 1988, p. 99. See also: G Agamben, Potentiality, Collected Essays in Philosophy, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1999, pp. 177-184. 13 For a reflection on the concept of nomadology see: Deleuze & Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, pp. 351-423.

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__________________________________________________________________ 14

H Oosterling, ‘Interest and Excess of Modern Man's Radical Mediocrity. Rescaling Sloterdijk's Grandiose Aesthetic Strategy’. Cultural Politics, Special issue: Peter Sloterdijk, vol. 3, issue 3, Nov. 2007, Berg, pp. 357-380. See also: H Oosterling, Radical Medi@crity, Berlin, 2005, last viewed at 23 September 2011. http://www.henkoosterling.nl/pdfs/lect_transmediale_2005.pdf. 15 An interview with Jacques Derrida has inspired me on this theme. See: C McDonald, The Ear of the Other, Otobiography, Transference, Translation, Texts and Discussions with Jacques Derrida, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and Londen, 1985, p. 125. 16 Carolina de Camargo Abreu, ‘Global Tribe in the Local Practice: Lapses in the Celebration of Brazilian’s Rave Scene’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 17 S Adachhi, ‘Undermined Empathy, Undermined Coexistence: Japanese Discursive Formations Related to Empathy’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 18 This has been the content of thought of the authors, including myself, in Various writers, Sideways, Reflections on Changing Contexts in Art. 19 C Rajendran, ‘Multicultural Belongings on the Contemporary Stage: Krishen Jit’s Theatre of Identity in Malaysia’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012.

Bibliography Adachhi, S., ‘Undermined Empathy, Undermined Coexistence: Japanese Discursive Formations Related to Empathy’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Agamben, G., Remnants of Auschwitz, The Witness and the Archive. Zone Books, New York, 1999. ———, Potentiality, Collected Essays in Philosophy. Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1999. ———, Means without End, Notes on Politics. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis/London, 2000. Camargo Abreu, C. de, ‘Global Tribe in the Local Practice: Lapses in the Celebration of Brazilian’s Rave Scene’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012.

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__________________________________________________________________ Deleuze, G., & F. Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, Capitalism and Schizophrenia. The Athlone Press, London, 1988. -, and -, What is Philosophy?. Columbia University Press, New York, 1994. MacClure, B., Between the Seen and the Said, Deleuze-Guattari’s Pragmatics of the Order-Word. Last viewed at 23 September 2011. http://www.cinestatic.com/trans-mat/McClure/chapter3.htm. Match Made in Africa. National Geographic. Last viewed at 23 September 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnXYiSY99yw. McDonald, C., The Ear of the Other, Otobiography, Transference, Translation, Texts and Discussions with Jacques Derrida. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and Londen, 1985. Oosterling, H., Radical Medi@crity. Berlin, 2005. Last viewed at 23 September 2011. http://www.henkoosterling.nl/pdfs/lect_transmediale_2005.pdf. ———, ‘Interest and Excess of Modern Man's Radical Mediocrity. Rescaling Sloterdijk's Grandiose Aesthetic Strategy’. Cultural Politics, Special issue: Peter Sloterdijk, vol. 3, issue 3, Nov. 2007, Berg, pp. 357-380. Pilapil, R., ‘From Affirmation to Contestation: On the Politics of Recognition’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Rajendran, C., ‘Multicultural Belongings on the Contemporary Stage: Krishen Jit’s Theatre of Identity in Malaysia’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Schinkel, W., ‘Vitualization of Citizenship’. Critical Sociology, vol. 36, no. 2, Sage, March 2010, pp. 265-283. Various writers, Sideways, Reflections on Changing Contexts in Art. Atousa Ghiasabadi Bandeh/ Fonds BKVB/Ideabook, Amsterdam, 2010. Wittgenstein, L., Philosophical Investigations, Willey-Blackwell, 4th edition, 2009.

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__________________________________________________________________ Tina Rahimy is a government (NWO) awarded researcher, employed as a PhD at the Faculty of Philosophy of Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Her research investigates the political-philosophical relevance of artistic expressions and refugee subjectivity.

Part Two Myths, Arts and Re-Appropriations

Writing New Identities: South Asian Women, North America and Three Asian-American Novels Madhubanti Bhattacharyya Abstract Traditionally, communities have been based on markers such as ethnicity and religion – which proffer recognisable homogeneity. But in today’s rapidly changing world hybrid identities such as the ethnically South Asian American citizens who are the protagonists of the novels I am looking at - Hindi-Bindi Club, Queen of Dreams and Desirable Daughters - are increasingly common. At first sight, these novels appear to celebrate the kind of chaotic plurality that is the much-eulogised face of the modern world, or in the case of my particular inquiry, of changing America. However, the common question that each of the characters in these novels - the creations of authors who have themselves charted versions of the same trajectory - faces routinely, is ‘Where are you from?’ They are still ‘visible’ potentially ‘out of place’, suggesting links between place and identity that the discourse of ‘routes not roots’ has failed to erase. This disconnect between claiming internal belonging and external acceptance of that affiliation in that space takes on literally life-threatening dimensions at moments of crisis – in two of the novels, the aftermath of 9/11, and in another, terrorist bombings. Yet even as their beliefs about ‘belonging’ are shaken, the characters continue to identify themselves as ‘American.’ Simultaneously, their coping stratagems both refer to and reject visions of ‘Indianness’. So who are these people, and where are their identities located? Where do their selves belong, and who are their ‘Others’? This chapter proposes to follow the protagonists through their differing journeys in an attempt to fashion some conclusions as to the ‘new’ nature of identities, and whether it is in the end possible to ‘belong’ in spaces that one chose rather than inherited. Key Words: Space, identity, diaspora, Asian-American, Indian, Bharati Mukherjee, Chitra Banerji Divakaruni, Monica Pradhan. ***** Identity is how we make sense of ourselves, and geographers, anthropologists and sociologists, among others, have argued that the meanings given to a place may be so strong that they become a central part of the identity of the people experiencing them.1 Whether it is a lone sari fluttering in the breeze in an otherwise unremarkable American suburb, or a whiff of spices in mustard oil making itself known amongst less pungent culinary odours in a similar neighbourhood elsewhere, these elements

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Writing New Identities

__________________________________________________________________ of unremarkable everyday living within the geographical boundaries of India take on variegated, and contested, meanings outside of them. From those same houses however, issue people who go to work, and to participate in non-domestic activities, with what Rakhi in Chitra Banerji Divakaruni’s Queen of Dreams calls an ‘identical, hurried, American gait’,2 identical that is, to anyone else in the country. It is important to point out here that whilst I have limited myself, for reasons of space, to the context of women of Indian ethnic origin inhabiting North America, and some of these negotiations are specific to the intersections of those specific people-place histories, versions of these simultaneous experiences are reflected repeatedly elsewhere, in other combinations. Cheryl Sim, for example, speaks in this book of the different but related role to the sari that the cheongsam plays in the ways in which Chinese-Canadian women articulate their identities.3 These issues of balancing ‘ownership’ of one culture whilst simultaneously participating in a variant mainstream, as articulated through ‘ethnic’ dress are both variations on the expression of what Krishen Jit, the subject of an essay by Charlene Rajendran in this particular section, has called ‘multiculturalism in one body.’4 These contradictory yet parallel images, mundane yet symbolically fertile, embody the ways in which the act of physical migration (in the context of this chapter, from India to North America) precludes for them the possibility of ascribing one meaning to the spaces they inhabit, as well as to their identities, whether it has been undertaken by the inhabitants of these houses, or by their parents. There exists a substantial body of thinking on travel as transformative space,5 where differing, sometimes contradictory histories co-exist. What is useful for me in this context is the hugely transformative nature of travel (or migration) – both for the people who have travelled, and the places they have travelled to (or settled in). If, as James Clifford has suggested, ‘cultural centers, discrete regions and territories, do not exist prior to contacts, but are sustained through them, appropriating and disciplining the restless movements of people and things’6 it can be argued that through this intermingling of identities, spaces and place-histories, new ways of being and belonging are created. For example, is a house in a suburb of Washington DC, inhabited by a family who migrated from India, an American house or an Indian house, especially once the family acquires American citizenship? Can a puff pastry baked in an American oven, even if it is triangularshaped, and filled with Indian stuffings go by the name of the Indian deep-fried delicacy, the samosa, or does it become yet another American fried good? Do ‘Indian’ behavioural patterns continue to be the norm, or does following the ‘American Dream’ mean aspiring to an ideal where one jettisons all that and turns oneself into a tabula rasa to be written on by the surrounding spaces? Even as these interactions draw on existing ways therefore, they are visibly distinct – not ‘where you are or what you have, but where you come from, where you are going and the rate at which you are getting there.’7 Doreen Massey suggests that it is in

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__________________________________________________________________ these spaces, and in the ‘negotiation of relations within multiplicities’, that ‘the social is constructed.’8 Yet, as I argue in this chapter, this hybridity is neither merely celebratory, nor easy to achieve, and in these novels – Bharati Mukherjee’s Desirable Daughters (DD), Chitra Banerji Divakaruni’s Queen of Dreams (QOD), and Monica Pradhan’s Hindi-Bindi Club (HBC) - the agency of the (immigrant) individuals are engaged in conflict with questions of belonging and affiliation in spaces that they come from and now inhabit. Tim Cresswell argues that ‘geographers and philosophers have sought to show how place is a way-of-being.’9 Following him, it is possible to rephrase my argument in spatial terms – the characters’ trajectories, physical and mental, are to do with looking, and being ‘in place’. I focus specifically on the protagonists’ interactions with, and journeys through the domestic spaces of the kitchen and the bedroom, as well as on their interactions with some non-domestic spaces, in an attempt to fashion some conclusions as to the ‘new’ nature of identities, and whether it is in the end possible to ‘belong’ in spaces that one chooses rather than inherits. Gender is the (perhaps obvious, but nonetheless relevant) other ingredient here. The protagonists of the novels in this chapter as well as their creators are all women. As Massey suggests, ‘Space and place, spaces and places, and our senses of them (and such related things as our degrees of mobility) are gendered through and through’. Also, according to her, ‘this gendering of space and place both reflects, and has effects back on the ways in which gender is constructed and understood in the societies in which we live.’10 When attempting to bridge noticeably different cultures, whilst simultaneously keeping in mind that ‘culture’ itself is an ever-changing, nebulous construct,11 value judgements become employed as coping mechanisms, with particular consequences for women. And so, Shamita Das Dasgupta, argues, ‘contradictions and intricacies that emerge in a lived culture, as in South Asia, are obliterated deliberately in the United States in the name of unity, coherence, and formal presentation to the dominant mainstream.’12 These have had two kinds of less-than-ideal consequences for the Indian diaspora in North America, the most visible faces of the South Asian diaspora. They have either been subjected to pigeonholing by the majority community or entrapped into fossilised and unreal norms by their own ethnic group. The resultant burdens have been, and continue to be, especially heavy for immigrant women who exchange their roles as symbols of the postcolonial national cultural imagination for the equally if not more onerous task of being the carriers and propagators of a mythic, pure and crucially, unchanging (anachronistic?) tradition.13 India and America (and the Indian woman, and the American immigrant) stand in particular kinds of oppositions to each other in these visions. The centrality of the concept of ‘home’ to the human imagination means it is one of the first to be refigured through a dual refashioning. Meenal, a resident of

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__________________________________________________________________ the U.S. for forty years, tabulates a mental list in Monica Pradhan’s The HindiBindi Club: Things I prefer in India...Real men ask for directions. Spirituality. Hospitality. Community. Respect for elders. Cultural diversity. Multiple languages. Traditions and celebrations. Family values. Family values. Family values. Things I prefer in America... Cleanliness. Relatively low corruption. Safety. Education. Efficiency. Use of please and thank you. Infrastructure. Conveniences. Work ethic. Respect for manual laborers and subordinates. Cultural diversity. Accurate detailed maps.14 She, (who considers herself both Indian and American), calls both places ‘home’, calling on an amorphous set of emotions that extend the meaning of the word beyond individual domestic structures to entire neighbourhoods and continents. At the same time however, for her, as well as for the other characters in these novels, particular places act as metonyms for India - Calcutta for a vast majority of the characters, Lahore, or the ‘Punjab’ for some of the others. It is possible to argue that distance and memory together combine to (re)create a remembered version that perhaps never existed, but those conceptions continue to affect the ways identities are constructed and spaces are inhabited post-migration, even for generations born in America. However, even as migrant women battle the reluctance to stop stereotyping them in terms that deny them development outside a very constricted space, there is a definite desire to retain some elements of the traditions they came from. In these changing spaces, some of the important markers of ‘back home’ are centred on food (and women’s cooking abilities), marriage (and by extension, sexuality and the continuation of the community’s line). As food historians have posited, migration engenders complex changes in the deep structures of peoples’ everyday lives [...] Choices made by [Asian-Americans] about different meals of the day thus are a finely choreographed reflection of their multifaceted self.15 Mirroring the regional frameworks of memory, even in representation, Bengali characters cook what Monica Pradhan calls mustard fish, while Punjabi characters cook, in Pradhan’s translation, cottage cheese with peas and maize griddle bread. Tara (DD) attempts to win back her estranged husband Bish with a ‘Bengali feast’ complete with ‘shrimp in coconut milk, turmeric rubbed and deep-fried eggplant slices, small puffy luchi, flaky parathas and steamed-just-right basmati rice topped with hot ghee.’16 Even as she demands ravioli for lunch as a child, adult Rakhi


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__________________________________________________________________ (QOD) makes a note to herself to ask her mother what to do with ‘moong beans that have already sprouted’ – beans she had soaked in a ‘virtuous resolution’17 to make dal. Rakhi’s anxiety about these lentils, a staple of Bengali as well as of panIndian cuisine, is mirrored by Geeta Kothari in her essay ‘If you are what you eat, then who am I?’ There she makes explicit the link between food and identity. She says, Indians eat lentils. I understand this as absolute, a decree from an unidentifiable authority that watches and judges me. So what does it mean that I cannot replicate my mother's dal? [...] Now I worry that this antipathy towards dal signals something deeper, that somehow I am not my parents' daughter, not Indian, and because I cannot bear the touch and smell of raw meat, [...] I am not American either.18 Mita Banerji posits, ‘It is [by] this equation in which India is its spices’ that eventually a ‘degree of blendability’, or non-threatening ‘Otherness’ is achieved.’ If spices (and unfamiliar sharp tastes) set spaces apart, sweets (most commonly, apple pie) provide a vision of belonging. Kiran (HBC) tries to evoke this wishedfor uncomplicated hybridity by telling the reader that her family’s kitchen smells of ‘apple pie and chocolate chip cookies’ as often as ‘curry.’19 With all these associations working simultaneously, it is not surprising that in these books, kitchens are not just sites where food is prepared and served and where the family congregates but spaces for (anxious) performances of cultural identities, as well as spaces where the work (outside) environment makes an appearance, albeit under controlled conditions. In the kitchens of these women, whether it is Saroj (HBC) making huge batches of Punjabi chicken curry as a simultaneous gesture of diasporic solidarity as well as nostalgia, or Rakhi (QOD) serving ‘Delhi Dietbusters’ to a mixed-race group, they are all performing balancing acts whereby ‘chutney’, or particular versions of (culinary) Indianness ‘can be juxtaposed with a (now mainstreamed) pizza or a common sandwich’20 to create what Bharati Mukherjee calls an extension of the mainstream. 21 Like the private-public cross-overs in the kitchens, the ways in which the women deploy their sexualities are represented as being more than personal, intimate interactions, but active and conscious articulations of the identities they affect in their daily lives. For the second-generation Americans, Kiran, Preity and Rani (HBC), infidelity in the bedroom is akin to the marriage being rendered worthless. But for their parents’ generation, the original immigrants, this is a viewpoint that is disrespectful to the institutions of marriage and family, arising as the former’s viewpoints do, from senses of individual entitlement. For the latter, the only logical reason to destroy a marriage would be physical violence, and the former’s viewpoints are deemed ‘American’ (individualistic) ways. Very different

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__________________________________________________________________ routes – a long-term affair (HBC), sexual promiscuity (DD and HBC), and seducing ex-husbands (DD and QOD) – are all claimed as decisions taken by ‘American’ women who have taken the opportunities that their chosen land has given them - most notably in the bedroom. These women are united only by their striking desires to be different from traditional Indian women. It is ironic to realise in this context, that what they interpret as positive formulations of identity, are actually merely oppositional – their emancipated selves are incomplete without reference to negative visions of Indian womanhood that are almost entirely hypothetical. By pigeonholing what they define themselves against, paradoxically, their freedoms end up restricted. Interestingly, despite such negative notions of Indian womanhood, the pragmatic, sexually liberated ‘American’ selves of the second generation IndianAmericans affect – Kiran (HBC) and Rakhi (QOD) are structured around ‘a mishmash’ of Indian norms. They appear utterly blind to the double-bind that is thus set up. Their rejection of the country’s inhabitants is evidently not enough reason to stop dabbling in selective notions of precisely that tradition they believe causes unmitigated victimhood. Rakhi divorces her husband when he fails to ‘take care of her’22 – he is too ‘American’ to understand her needs, whilst Kiran after her disastrous first marriage to an American-Italian wants a ‘family of her own’ before it’s too late, and chooses to go down the route of an arranged Indian marriage for it. Tara (DD) acknowledges a double bind when she says her ‘American’ desire for freedom had made her choose sexual promiscuity as a way of getting away from her background, but it had only made her lonelier, whilst that ‘loneliness had made me wanton.’23 It is perhaps possible to read divorce as having a tropological significance – it signifies a break with older traditions, even as it fails to provide a convincing alternative space. Some of the tensions inherent in reconciling the various facets of the characters’ complex selves thus find their ways into the bedrooms. But they are simultaneously freed and trapped by their desires for satisfaction and fulfilment, the search for which has the potential to leave them lonely and unhappy, fighting versions of stereotypical expectations not so different from those fielded by earlier generations of women. Whilst expectations from family and society exert pulls on women’s sexualities in India, Asian-American women have expectations from both the majority community as well as their own community to deal with. As ‘ethnic’ women, they are caught ‘in a dual metaphor as both asexual and hypersexual: [....] exotic - associated with primal sexual energy, and alien, and ugly: associated with chastity, sexual repression and hyperintellectualism.’24 The fear of dating that consumes many South Asian families is primarily a fear of women dating: Although many parents may worry about interracial marriage for what it might imply for them in old age, there is little attempt to control men's sexuality. [....] Thus any move toward independent


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__________________________________________________________________ sexual choices, by young women, is labeled ‘Americanization’ and is posed as synonymous with unprincipled and immoral behaviour.25 Therefore, as the characters discover through their efforts as they follow their very different trajectories, even these, their domestic spaces are never merely familial or private, and they continue to consciously perform to, and against, particular versions of ‘Americanness’ and ‘Indianness’ respectively. The wider concept of ‘home’ radiates outward from the physical houses into neighbourhoods and entire cities which are in turn metonyms for an entire nation - the personal becomes political. The urgency with which both ‘India’ and ‘America’ are continuously referenced within the novels, and the desperation with which change, especially to the concept of India is rejected, most often by the older protagonists, attests to a polarity between the imagined spaces and the reality of the experiences, which if acknowledged would tantamount to self-annihilation. It can thus be seen that for the diasporic characters, straddling their Indo-American selves in American houses, survival is predicated on realising that: ‘being home’ refers to the place where one lives within familiar, safe, protected boundaries; ‘not being home’ is a matter of realizing that home was an illusion of coherence and safety based on the exclusion of specific histories [...] the repression of differences even within oneself. 26 So far, however the discussion has centred on domestic spaces, which are still controlled (and controllable) environments. Non-domestic sites are far more volatile, and the characters are reminded of their greater vulnerability. Whether it is Tara (DD) defensively placing herself as just one of the many ‘ethnically ambiguous’ people in her neighbourhood of San Francisco (and ultimately failing in the aftermath of a terrorist bombing), or caterer Saroj and doctor Kiran (HBC) buying ‘mainstream’ ingredients like Gouda cheese and grapes, or refusing to speak Marathi in public for fear of being seen as tourists and out-of-place in the aftermath of 9/11, they are each faced, under a veneer of material plenty, by stark choices between conformity or being marked as dangerously different. Rakhi (QOD) faces the repercussions of unacceptable difference in the starkest terms when her painstakingly put-together store International Kurma House is destroyed by a group of white ‘patriots’ for being the meeting place of (brown-skinned, alternative-language-speaking) ‘terrorists’. Within such narrow, and dangerous notions of who can belong where, it becomes inconceivable and untenable that those sharing the skin colour of the perpetrators of such atrocities could possibly have gathered to mourn the events of 9/11. Rakhi barely escapes with her life, still identifying herself as an American, and it is unclear whether she is more

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__________________________________________________________________ traumatised afterwards by kindly meant, but misguided attempts to make her ‘welcome’ in the country she has been born into. Rakhi’s experience of the discrepancy between her own assertions (she is the most vehement of the characters about being American), and acceptance by the mainstream is a kind of metaphor for the ways ‘ethnic’ experience amidst the ‘mainstream’ can go horribly wrong. Violent hostility – towards the visible, easily identifiable targets they make from the ‘host’ nation at times of national crisis (tellingly attesting to the strains in these ‘new’ Americans’ acknowledged right to belong to the nation) is an extreme scenario. It is a reflection of a nation’s panic. But in much smaller ways, this is contained in the frequency with which this particular situation arises. ‘Out of the blue, having said no other words to me, he feels that it is okay for him, a white man, to ask me where I am from. The only context for this question is my skin colour, and his need to classify me. [...] I look different, therefore it's assumed that I must be from somewhere, somewhere that isn't here, America.’27 This question is asked in the very same words in the opening pages of The Hindi Bindi Club. The uncertainty behind the answer that Geeta Kothari’s father insisted she give in real life: ‘I am an American citizen, born and raised’ which sound like the words of an immigrant, believing that if she says them often enough, she will become one’ and the answers she chooses to give at different times – ‘India’, ‘New York’ is also mirrored in the novel. Kiran says: I am never certain what information the person seeks. To cover the bases I supply all three. I figure the desired answer’s somewhere in here. My parents emigrated from India in the 1960s. [....] I was born in Cambridge, grew up outside of Washington DC, my husband’s last name is Italian.28 Tara (DD) too attempts to claim her Americanness in her own way – she spends the entire novel emphatically attempting to erase all traces of her connection with what she facetiously calls her ‘Homo Bengalensis, subspecies, Hindu Calcuttan [...] Brahmin’ background. But it is Rakhi (QOD) whose ‘balancing act’ leads to the arguably most upbeat ending, which takes place, aptly in a space that has itself transformed in order to take on its form as the Kurma House: They have decided to transform the Chai House into an Indian snack shop, a chaer dokan, as it would be called in Calcutta. They’re going to model it after the shop the father worked in so many years ago, with a few American sanitary touches thrown in. He’ll teach Belle and her to brew tea and coffee the right way and he’ll cook the snacks himself. He lists them on a sheet of


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__________________________________________________________________ paper: pakora, singara, sandesh, jilebi, beguni, nimki, mihidana. The daughter stares at the list in fascinated misgiving. She doesn’t recognise half the names, has tasted the others only occasionally. Can her father really transform herself into a chef extraordinaire and turn out these items from the mundaneness of flour and sugar syrup, chilli, eggplants, peanut oil? 29 Even when the shop is razed by ‘patriots’, the miraculously surviving kitchen is where they, and the community of other immigrants they have gathered around them, huddle on the night of September 11 when the face of America changed forever. In this public yet oddly domestic space, ‘one of the old men begins a slow chant, a drawn-out mourning song, or maybe a prayer. The rest bend their heads. Perhaps they’re remembering other tragedies.’30 They comfort each other without words – ‘giving thanks is not a common practice in India.’31 Indian practices, or (remembered) Indian norms of inhabiting space, imbued with the memories of ‘past tragedies’ appear to proffer some norms of behaviour even as the heart of the Indian home – the kitchen – transforms into an American shop. Rakhi wonders if this is what her mother meant by ‘authentic’; the capacity to bring people closer together by providing a site of community nostalgia, even as she plays the role of an American career woman, the proprietress of the shop. However, her ‘assimilation’ goes beyond her own community. Despite the climate of distrust and hatred, new kinds of bonds continue to form. Amidst the burnt out shell of the building, ‘our customers help us take stock.’32 They pool resources, and skills, and ‘the results are not five-star, but they’re serviceable and done with affection.’33 In the face of disaster, they managed to create a family, and transform the Kurma House into something ‘more than just a place to pick up something to eat. Maybe because they helped rebuild it, they feel it’s theirs. They don’t want to lose it. So they’re doing their bit to ensure we stay in business.’34 Even non-Indians join in, creating an unexpected oasis of plurality - there are a few South Asians, but the new arrivals there are mostly a mix of various races, 35 providing a glimpse of the possibilities that America contains despite all the grimness. The dissimilar claims therefore, range from ‘I am one of you now’,36 to ‘Throughout our childhood [...] India was known as ‘home’. Not any particular place there, just the whole country: home. We were always on the brink of returning there permanently,’37 and attest to the conflicting pressures. The trouble perhaps lies with attempting to be (or not be) as the case may be, facsimiles of imagined (somehow static, and complete) versions of ‘Indian’ or ‘American’. After all, assimilation is not a straight line, and ‘each generation faces a distinctive set of issues in its relationship to the larger society and ethnic group’,38 amongst whom, each individual makes his or her own choices, with greater or lesser success.

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__________________________________________________________________ ‘Where I'm from in the end, is none of his business. He only needs to know that I'm here.’39

Notes 1

G Rose, ‘Place and Identity: A Sense of Place’, in A Place in the World? D Massey and P Jess (ed), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995, p. 88. 2 C Banerjee Divakaruni, Queen of Dreams, Random House, New York, 2004, p. 268. 3 Cheryl Sim, ‘The Cheongsam: A Site of Wonder and Contestation for Canadian Women of Chinese Heritage’, in this volume, A Wagener and T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 4 I take Krishen Jit’s comment from C Rajendran, ‘The Theatre of Krishen Jit: The Politics of Staging Difference in Multicultural Malaysia.’ TDR: The Drama Review, Vol. 51, Issue. 2, 2007, p. 11. Also, C Rajendran, ‘Multicultural Belongings on the Contemporary Stage, Krishen Jit’s Theatre of Identity in Malaysia’, in this volume, A Wagener and T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 5 See for example, J Clifford, ‘Prologue’, in Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1997, pp. 3 – 18. 6 J Clifford, ‘Prologue’, in Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1997, p. 3. 7 Ibid., p. 17. 8 D Massey, For Space, Sage, London, 2005, p. 13. 9 T Cresswell, Place: A Short Introduction, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, 2004, pp. 15-16. 10 D Massey, Space, Place and Gender, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1994, p. 187. 11 For a discussion of the deliberate (and forcible) methods employed in the creation of a unified, desirable culture, see: S Das Dasgupta, ‘Introduction’, in A Patchwork Shawl: Chronicles of South Asian Women in America, S Das Dasgupta (ed), Rutgers University Press,New Brunswick, NJ and London, 1998b, pp. 5-8. 12 Ibid., p. 5. 13 See: E Jackson, Feminism and Contemporary Indian Women’s Writing, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2010, pp 18-20 & Dasgupta, ‘Introduction’. 14 M Pradhan, The Hindi-Bindi Club, Bloomsbury, London, 2007, p. 274. 15 R Krishnendu, ‘Meals, Migration, and Modernity: Domestic Cooking and Bengali Indian Ethnicity in the United States’, AMERASIA JOURNAL, Vol. 24, Issue. 1, 1998, p. 109. 16 B Mukherjee, Desirable Daughters, Theia, New York, 2002, p. 264. 17 Divakaruni, Queen of Dreams, p. 18.


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G Kothari, ‘If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?’, Kenyon Review, Vol. 21, Issue. 1, 1999, p. 14. 19 Pradhan, The Hindi-Bindi Club, p. 50. 20 M Banerjee, ‘Postcolonialism and Postmodernism’, The Chutneyfication of History: Salman Rushdie, Michael Ondaatje, Bharati Mukherjee and the Postcolonial Debate, C. Winter, Heidelberg, 2002, pp. 32 – 33. 21 B Mukherjee, ‘Immigrant Writing: Give Us Your Maximalists!’. New York Review of Books, 28/08/1988, p. 28. 22 Divakaruni, Queen of Dreams, p. 82. 23 Mukherjee, Desirable Daughters, p. 263. 24 Dasgupta Sayantani and Shamita Das Dasgupta Dasgupta, ‘Sex, Lies and Women’s Lives’, in A Patchwork Shawl: Chronicles of South Asian Women in North America, Shamita Das Dasgupta (ed), Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ and London,1998a, p. 122. 25 Ibid., p. 113. 26 Biddy Martin and Chandra Talpade Mohanty as quoted in R Marangoly George, The Politics of Home: Postcolonial Relocations and Twentieth Century Fiction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 1996, p. 196. 27 G Kothari, ‘Where Are You From?’, in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (ed), Multitude: Cross-Cultural Readings for Writers, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1993, p. 153. 28 Pradhan, The Hindi-Bindi Club, p. 2. 29 Divakaruni, Queen of Dreams, p. 186. 30 Ibid., p. 295. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid., p. 265. 33 Ibid., p. 267. 34 Ibid., p. 270. 35 Ibid., p. 219. 36 Mukherjee, ‘Immigrant Writing: Give Us Your Maximalists!’, p. 28. 37 Kothari, ‘Where Are You From?’, p. 154. 38 R Alba and V Nee, ‘Rethinking Assimilation Theory for a New Era of Immigration’. International Migration Review, Vol.31, Issue.4, 1997, p. 833. 39 Kothari, ‘Where Are You From?’, p. 176.

Bibliography Banerjee, M., ‘Postcolonialism and Postmodernism’, in The Chutneyfication of History: Salman Rushdie, Michael Ondaatje, Bharati Mukherjee and the Postcolonial Debate. C. Winter, Heidelberg, 2002, pp. 23-42.

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__________________________________________________________________ Bose, B., ‘A Question of Identity: Where Gender, Race and Identity Meet in Bharati Mukherjee’, in Bharati Mukherjee: Critical Perspectives. E. S. Nelson (ed), Garland Publishing Inc, New York and London, 1993, pp. 47-54. Clifford, J., ‘Prologue,’ in Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1997, pp. 1-13. Cresswell, T., Place: A Short Introduction. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, 2004. Dasgupta, S., & S. Das Dasgupta, ‘Sex, Lies and Women’s Lives’, in A Patchwork Shawl: Chronicles of South Asian Women in North America. S. Das Dasgupta (ed), Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ and London, 1998, pp. 111-28. Dasgupta, S. Das. ‘Introduction’, in A Patchwork Shawl: Chronicles of South Asian Women in America. S. Das Dasgupta, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ and London, 1998, pp. 1-20. Divakaruni, C. B., Queen of Dreams. Random House, New York, 2004. George, R. M., The Politics of Home: Postcolonial Relocations and Twentieth Century Fiction. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 1996. Jackson, E., Feminism and Contemporary Indian Women’s Writing. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2010. Kothari, G., ‘If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?’. Kenyon Review, Vol. 21, Issue. 1, 1999, pp. 6-14. -, ‘Where Are You From?’, Multitude: Cross-Cultural Readings for Writers. C. B. Divakaruni (ed), McGraw-Hill, New York, 1993. pp 153 - 76. Kuortti, J., Writing Imagined Diasporas: South Asian Women Reshaping North American Identity. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle, 2007. Massey, D., For Space. Sage, London, 2005. ———, ‘Place and Identity’, in Space Place and Gender. D. Massey, Blackwell, Oxford, 1994, pp. 115-74. ———, Space, Place and Gender. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1994.


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__________________________________________________________________ Mukherjee, B., Desirable Daughters. Theia, New York, 2002. ———, ‘Immigrant Writing: Give Us Your Maximalists!’. New York Review of Books, 28/08/1988, pp 28-29. Nee, V., & R. Alba, ‘Rethinking Assimilation Theory for a New Era of Immigration.’ International Migration Review, Vol. 31, Issue.4,1997, pp. 826-74. Pradhan, M., The Hindi-Bindi Club. Bloomsbury, London, 2007. Rajendran, C.,’Multicultural Belongings on the Contemporary Stage, Krishen Jit’s Theatre of Identity in Malaysia’, in this volume. A. Wagener and T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Ray, K., ‘Meals, Migration, and Modernity: Domestic Cooking and Bengali Indian Ethnicity in the United States’. AMERASIA JOURNAL, Vol. 24, Issue 1, 1998, pp. 105-27. Sim, C., ‘The Cheongsam: A Site of Wonder and Contestation for Canadian Women of Chinese Heritage’, in this volume. A. Wagener and T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Tapping, C., ‘South Asia/North America: New Dwellings and the Past’, Reworlding: The Literature of the Indian Diaspora. Nelson, E. S. (ed), Greenwood Press, London, 1992, pp. 35-49. Madhubanti Bhattacharyya is a PhD student and Associate Tutor at the University of East Anglia. Whilst her academic background is primarily in English literature and creative writing, her thesis inhabits the interdisciplinary interface of postcolonial literature, women’s studies and cultural geography, which also make up her primary research interests.

Global Tribe in the Local Practice: Lapses in the Celebration of Brazilian’s Rave Scene Carolina de Camargo Abreu Abstract Through the last 15 years in Brazilian’s rave parties, people from two different generations have been celebrating a ‘Global Tribe’. This Global Tribe is also called the Trance Community, a group of a transnational culture, assembled during the meetings of electronic music parties around the world and through an intensive exchange on the Internet. At the Earth Dance party, which happens every two years since the mid-90s in more than 30 different countries simultaneously, it is possible to listen to a kind of a prayer that is a hymn of this community: ‘We are the Rainbow Tribe, all colours, all races, United as One’. Through the very special social dynamic of the party, utopias, hopes and tensions emerge. Reading eight years of ethnographic notes about rave parties, this chapter focuses on the lapses of the fantastic universe created by the celebration, where some unresolved questions of everyday life come to light. Following Walter Benjamin’s suggestion, regarding the task of the historical materialist to brush history against the grain, this work interprets the presence of indigenous people of Brazil in different rave parties. Interactions between ravers and indigenous people in these situations reveal some interesting myths about our society and some open wounds left by the historical process that have not yet healed. Key Words: Global tribe, trance culture, anthropology of performance, anthropology of experience, rave, celebration, Brazilian’s indigenous, electronic music. ***** 1. Introduction This chapter starts from residual fragments of notes of my fieldwork carried out in Brazilian rave parties between 2002 and 2003. These notes have disturbed me and four years ago led to a doctoral research entitled ‘Trance experience of the rave: between the spectacle and the ritual’ in order to reflect upon the experience of the rave and to explore its contact points with anthropology, performing arts and the Walter Benjamin’s thought. It is important to mention that since the mid-90s, it became popular among young groups that live in or around Brazilian’s big cities to celebrate parties in open air and remote areas, far away from the centre of the city, for more than 14 hours in a row, to the sound of electronic music and under the effect of drugs mainly ecstasy and LSD. Those parties, also known as raves, are held in specific places selected and prepared for the construction and fortification of a particular

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Global Tribe in the Local Practice

__________________________________________________________________ sociability, under which engagements, interchanges, loyalties and disputes are experienced; articulating regional social networks and also international networks. The research question is about establishment of an absolute and ‘parallel’ reality of this kind of parties; it deals with its own fragility and incompleteness. It proposes to attend the experience of the rave focusing on the disturbance, noise, unresolved and forgotten elements of the performance, which define this form of festivity. Following the works of John Dawsey and Michael Taussig it looks for the tensions between the elements within the trance of rave gatherings. It starts with three diverse participations of Brazilian indigenous in raves and points out an apparent contradiction between the figure of native Indians and the celebration of the rave, which makes an extensive use of industrial technologies: production of electronic music, cinematic projections, drugs such as ‘ecstasy’, fluorescent colours, etc. These events occur in festivals, raves of trance music that happen during 3 to 7 uninterrupted days. The trance rave parties in Brazil characteristically take place in wild nature scenarios, idyllic beaches, falls and forests and territories far from the day-by-day activities of urban life. Those places are very close to the image of heaven shared by many people, where another oneiric image emerges: the Global Tribe. 2. Celebra Brasil Set to begin upon the first viewing of a star at dusk on Thursday of Easter holidays in 2002, and to end on Sunday, the festival Celebra Brasil has begun not with electronic music, as the traditional musical landscape of the raves, but with a peculiar spectacle: on a squared stage built with two meters of height, indigenous children come in singing and dancing. About twenty kids, between the ages of six and thirteen were on stage, and disposed in two groups of girls and boys. All facing the audience, in ascending order of height, the girls set themselves on the right side of the stage, while the boys were on the left side. They wore a kind of special uniform: the girls wore skirts and blue tops, while the boys wore yellow pants; all had white ribbons tied around their heads. The image created had a certain symmetry, which seemed to have been organized to fit a squared stage. The dancing and singing also had a symmetrical order: sentences repeated and chanted with a constant cadence and accompanied by small sideway steps that set the timing for the music. The children’s chant was smooth, almost timid, and was effective due to the size of the group. Some indigenous adults followed the show from the back of the stage, almost as if they were not taking part in the action; they wore common clothes (shorts, tshirts, slippers) and behaved in a non-ceremonial way. The audience behaved respectfully, silent and very attentive, a few exchanged glimpses and smiled, they were happy and surprised by the ‘show’. The audience’s enthusiasm was clear, with claps and warm screams of approval at the end of the presentation.

Carolina de Camargo Abreu

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__________________________________________________________________ A capoeira presentation followed, on the same stage, with the same musicality and typical props. But capoeira did not affect me as much, as I felt upset and angry with the indigenous show; the Indians presented a ‘show’ made by the children ‘for the people of the city to see’. They had not contextualized their original ritualistic functions. It seemed formatted as a cultural product for the interest of tourists, and the rave audience applauded as if they had had the privilege to be in contact with a ‘legitimate’ indigenous event; the specificity of the group did not seem to matter – which was not announced, neither was the name of the ethnicity of the group asked, nor the village;1 the presence of those people with a phenotype of redden skin, slightly narrower almond shaped eyes and those ‘costume dresses’ seemed sufficient to amuse the crowd. My irritation and my issues were much more related to my expectations as an anthropologist, to the workings of imagination and to my views regarding ‘legitimacy’ of the presentation of an indigenous group in such circumstances, than to my perceptions of what others might be thinking, as both ‘Indians’ and ravers seemed happy and pleased with contact. The capoeira presentation ended with the last sunlight, and then electronic music started. The audience transformed into a dance floor, and it only stopped three days later with the coming of the first Sunday star. During the course of the party there was no capoeira anymore, nor was there any Indian among the ravers, even though much of the public was dressed up in that way: necklaces and earrings made of feathers, skirts in loin-cloth, body painting with synthetic fluorescent colours. 3. Trancendence The second episode took place at the rave Trancendence, which occurs since the year 2000 at a few farms in the Alto Paraíso de Goiás - central region of Brazil - in July. The party of the year 2002 congregated about 4000 people from all over the country (generally from the urban centres of São Paulo, Brasília, Porto Alegre, Curitiba), many Latin Americans (Argentineans, Chileans, Mexicans and Bolivians) and many Europeans (Englishmen, Frenchmen, Swiss, Portuguese, e.g.) as well as Australians and Israelites. Three young Indians caught my attention. They were spending the first three days of the party practically quiet besides their mat where they exposed bowls and spoons made out of wood, a few necklaces, earrings and bracelets that were on sale. What struck me was, among other people who had also brought their handicraft (jewellery, psychedelic t-shirts, candles, Malabar), their products where the least sought and bought, while in this trance rave the taste for indigenous handicraft seemed common; the girls dressed up with belts made of pink feathers, necklaces made of coloured seeds and some people even wore headdresses on the dance floor, where much was said about the stories of indigenous people, stories

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__________________________________________________________________ from very different origins, as the Mayas or the filter of the dreams from people of North America. The young Indians stood in the same place, which seemed to be apart from the party, almost still, sometimes talking in an indigenous language. I approached them in the second day and found that they were not from the same village and ethnicity: one of them was a Pataxó Hâhãhãe resident in the south of Bahia, the other two were from Pernambuco.2 They did not speak the same language and as I asked them how they communicated, one of them just smiled. I asked, then, how they had met for the party and they answered that they met up by chance, on the way to the party. In the afternoon of the fourth day of the party, two of them showed up with a few body paintings done with urucum [colour extracted from a Brazilian plant] and one girl approached them to ask for the same paint. One of the Indians from Pernambuco said that he did not think he would sell it, he prepared more paint and, while he painted the arms and chest of the girl, other people approached. Soon enough there was a queue for the Indian to make a legitimate painting for four ‘reals’ - Brazilian currency. Did people not wish to buy the indigenous bowls, but rather wanted to ‘turn into’ Indians? Which powers were being evoked, as they turned mimetic with the indigenous bodies? What kind of experience is this? After this episode, I saw, for the first time, the young Indians on the dance floor being just observant, but mingling with other people present. 4. Earth Dance The third episode occurred at the Earth Dance in October 2002, which gathered about three thousand people, camped in Cachoeira Alta, countryside of Minas Gerais, also central part of Brazil. This is a party which happens simultaneously in different places and countries since the mid-90s, over thirty countries, organized by local staffs. The invitation flyer and the website of the party in Brazil announced in advance a few instructions for a ‘ritual’, which was foreseen to take place on the dance floor at 7 o’clock on the second day: the orientation concerned directions for breathing exercises and collective ‘metallization’, in order to connect to ‘Mother Earth’. It was the first time that a rave, a kind of party much denominated as a ritual by its goers, proposed another ritual: it was then a ritual within a ritual. On the set date and hour, around an enormous bonfire, more than two thousand people gathered. A middle-aged Indian then appeared with a pipe, painted and dressed ceremonially: a straw loin-cloth skirt, an exuberant headdress, with arm and leg adornments, his face all covered in paint. He sought, disastrously at first, to organize the spatial disposition of those who were present, but the crowd did not respond to his directions. As if giving up, he seemed pleased, at least, to have become the focus of attention. Looking at the fire, the Indian, announced a few words or chants that couldn’t be heard by most of the people, he made a few


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__________________________________________________________________ gestures and started to dance around the bonfire. The great majority followed the movement and created a certain tumult, since the rays of the bonfire seemed small for a coordinated dance by so many. The sounds of indigenous percussions – such as djembês, bongos and other drums – joined the sound of electronic music which was, at this state, lower than it had been in other moments of the party. For about half an hour, the people kept dancing around the bonfire settling into the crowded circle. The end of the participation of the indigenous man was suggested by the rise of the electronic music’s volume, which, as a calling, seemed to conduct the present people to a parallel arena: the dance floor. In the following day, I met the Indian alone at a dinner table at the party and decided to talk to him. Thini-á, representative of the Fulni-ô tribe, said to be wrathful and frustrated, for he was neither heard, nor given the space that he expected. I found it curious, since he had had so much success the night before. Thini-á wanted the music to be turned off at the dance floor so that he could speak about his work and his political proposals, however I knew that turning off the electronic music at a rave was basically an unacceptable request. To turn off the electronic music would mean to kill the party, since the music is like an electric chain which propels the heart of the rave: the dance floor. The dance floor ‘rocks’, it produces and emanates an energy that sustains the entire party. The words have a well-placed room in this way of partying; they are at the borders, within the circle of friends who walk around the dance floor, as it seems to be the core of the rave, the arena par excellence of another way of communicating: collective dancing. Words are not so serious, but uncommitted as good memories, little funny or curious stories about the people of the group of friends or the group itself. The furthest away from the dance floor, the more serious the topics seem to be, but always praising the party, the encounters and the fun. For example, at the riverside and at the waterfalls that surrounded the dance floor at the Transcendence of 2002, people would speak of the wild competition, the anxiety and the lack of sense of everyday life in the city in order to praise the experience of living in ‘community’ at the rave. They would speak of the rush and solitude of the everyday life, of work during the week, and emphasize the pleasure of speaking of God, elves, forgotten mysteries, curiosities of other worlds – some of the things were labelled as ‘really important’. At the rave, the word is marginal but it is at the same time a very special place due to the conversations that are shared among friends. This opportunity of being ‘in leisure’ at the rave is a well-valued characteristic of the gathering, especially in contrast to the idea that in the rush of everyday life, people do not talk much. The word is marginal at the rave, since dance, praised as the universal language, the way of communicating, acting and producing privileged sense. Motivated by the electric impulses of the music and sustained by the chemical incentive of psychoactive substances, it is the collective dance of the dance floor, which ‘rocks’

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__________________________________________________________________ - bursts and propagates - energy towards the transcendence of universal parallels. Transcendence and Universo Paralello are names of Brazilian raves. At the side of Earthdance, at dinners, the character that was so successful and popular the night before finds himself alone, wanting to speak and tell stories of his name Thini-á, but without an audience. In the rave’s plot, the person of Thini-á appears as an allegory; his presence emerges only as an apparition, an allusion of the Indian. If the party is an important arena for encounters, on the other hand, as Renante D. Pilapil’s discussion points out - chapter ‘From Affirmation to Contestation: On the Politics of Recognition’3 - the dynamics of what goes on in the struggle for recognition should not be eclipsed in favor of the consequence of misrecognized suffering. The possibility of misrecognition of the other despite good intentions would take many different forms; the difficulty in hearing the name of someone by your side can be one of them. Despite good intentions it is terrifying to realize that in the Brazilian’s raves the Indians person appear as like a carnival animated allegory without voice. According to the email one month later received from Thini-á: Thini-á (‘star’, in Yathê) has been working since 1992 with projects concerning the young audience, carried out in primary and secondary schools and universities, public and private ones, wanting to publicize, starting from an inner vision, the richness and weights of the indigenous cultures of our country. A special attention is given to the environmental issue, to the problems related to the deforestation, pollution and other problems which deeply affect the indigenous people of the tropical forests, but also the ones at the coast and cerrado.4 Even if Indigenous movement across the world are far from homogeneous, Thini-á’s discourse, like the Indigenous poetries analysed by Antonio CuadradoFernandez in the chapter ‘Globalisation, Transculturalism and Enviroment: Sharing and Understanding Indigenous Perspective through Poetry’,5 emerges as a critique of techno-industrial modernity and its devastating impact on indigenous land. The Brazilian Indian Thini-á, in the sense Cuadrado-Fernandez notes with other examples, also defines his indigeneity as the perception of sentience in the environment, which born of a profound connection of the land. Under the Fulni-ô customs the indigenous mother gives a name to the children according to what is happening at the moment of birth. Some night when a little Indian has been born, his mother looked to the sky and saw a lot of stars. For that reason she called her son Thini-á, which means star. Thini-á was born in the


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__________________________________________________________________ Ipanema River’s bank, a tributary of São Francisco’s River, on the Fulni-ô’s land, Pernambuco’s State.6 About the enlacing of indigenous in discourse of trance parties, the Brazilian journalist and raver Lívia Paupério wrote an article titled ‘The culture behind the music’: In shamanic rituals, grave accelerated rhythms and the use of hallucinogenic plants provoke the effects of trance that is necessary to align the body, the mind and the soul, in order to get a supposed indigenous communication with their Gods. In trance and in other spiritual levels, the indigenous obtain knowledge through their experience, always in contact with nature. In trance, the beat of shamanism becomes electronic with a hypnotic musical feature, and drugs are, generally, synthetic. In both environments (shamanic tribal ritual and trance’s electronic ritual), the dance represents the search for a state of collective transcendence. We can compare the spiritual heads of shaman to the DJs. Both of them control the rhythm, the frequency and the speed of psychedelic music; guiding others to the trance state. The Psychedelic Trance restores the tribal and transcendental meaning of dance. Raves are like religious indigenous ceremonials, as the Americans Pow-wow’s [North American Group] rites, or the nocturne sings of the Truká indigenous people [Brazilian Group] that uses repetitive music and Jurema drug to connect to a parallel universe.7 The rave juxtaposition of ‘the shamanic tribal ritual’ and ‘the trance electronic ritual’ operates both the evocation of power and magic, as the eruption of some fractures and lapses. 5. Tribe Trance is a genre of electronic music that is very popular in raves; it also allows diverse subgenres - Goa, Psychedelic, Full On, Hard Trance etc. - and an emblematic reference to a dynamic construction of identities in transnational grouping. It means much more than music, it is about sharing interests, discussions, aesthetics, practices and hopes of what’s called Trance Community. Also known as Global Tribe, this community is constituted outside national borders in electronic music parties, that take place around the world and through an intense flow of information exchanged over the Internet.

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__________________________________________________________________ Every year, since the end of 90s, many ravers around the world have chanted a kind of anthem in the Earth Dance party that happens in more than 30 countries at the same time. We are the Rainbow Tribe, all colours, all races, United as One We Dance for peace and the healing of our Mother Earth Peace for Tibet, Peace for all Nations and Peace within ourselves As we gather now let us join as One All dance floors across the world, brothers and sisters united Let us connect heart to heart Awakening, uniting, breathing as One Our love is the power to transform our world Let us send it out now. In Brazil, for example, the Earth Dance is simultaneous organized by two different crews of rave parties in two different places. It does not matter where in the world you are dancing; every participant of the party is dancing in the same real time and chants the anthem simultaneously. The language of this tribe and of these multicultural sites is English. Tribe is the name of one of the most popular Brazilian trance rave parties. Of course it is possible to translate ‘tribe’ as tribo in Portuguese, but despite the fact that this party takes place in South America, many rave’s words, concepts and names are still mainly in English. The unwillingness to translate reveals a desire of belonging and constituting an international collective. The unwillingness to translate seems to reveal a sympathy process rather than the effort to an empathy exercise of ‘coexistence between differences’ in terms defined by Setsuko Adachi in the chapter ‘Undermined Empathy, Undermined Coexistence: Japanese Discursive Formations Related to Empathy’.8 As she points out the differences (un)articulated between empathy and sympathy invoke specific relations with the otherness, both a set and a lack of possibilities. In this sense, the presence of indigenous people in the rave constitutes a powerful image to an emotional union but not a recognized different subjectivity. The Trance Community of ravers is an ephemeral community of the weekend, which dissolves itself at the end of each party, but still pulses alive on websites, blogs, social networks - Orkut, Facebook, etc. - and is also latent in certain places in the cities: vegetarian restaurants, pubs, clubs, parks, etc. - a circuit very known by interested people. Born at the end of the 20th century, the Trance Community uses the Internet as a space to be connected and electronic and digital technologies to do the technological reproducibility of our age 9 as a globalized language. The production and reproduction of images (videos and photos) by ravers is prolific: many people take photos and make videos in rave parties - almost everyone does it with mobile phones. On Internet sites, we can find hundreds of visual archives for


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__________________________________________________________________ each trance party. Some festivals have more than five hundred photos published online. The analysis of photos points out constant frames and perspectives: images of crowds, a person smiling, a DJ playing, the wonderful natural ambient, some details of the party scenario, groups of friends and more groups embracing. The reproduction and the proliferation of these images compose a narrative. This narrative constitutes audiovisual texts that tell them about themselves;10 it is a discourse that also realizes the existence of the Trance Community. The intense activity on cybernetic environments enforces the imagery of the community, although the performance of the trance tribe, dancing in the party, encounters in the raves and festivals actually connect people from different origins in the same ideological purpose and shared experience. 6. Xxxperience A rave is not just another event of electronic music, like the ones happening every week in the clubs of the big cities around the world, that sound more like a presentation of a DJ to stimulate the audience, or in this case, and when its successful, to stimulate the dance floor. Raves in Brazil and trance festivals around the world need at least to have a setting of an uninhabited beach. It creates ‘installation’ in spaces not occupied by regular urban activities. Some people travel far away to go to a rave. Other people who live nearby also need to get out of the city and make a journey through unsuspected routes generally by night and in groups. People go in ‘caravans’ to a rave. A rave does not simply occupy unexpected spaces; it also builds up a setting designing these spaces. The rave, as a party, creates an absolute place, an island, a parallel universe. The rave, like an ‘installation’, creates isolation in space and time that tries to maintain in an autonomous zone. The form of ‘installation’ - a modern art modality - is a technology that synthesizes experiences of feelings and meanings. Through the focus of attention in one limited field of stimulus, it is possible to achieve a flow experience that Victor Tuner considers typical of liminal events.11 ‘Consciousness must be narrowed, intensified, beamed in on a limited focus of attention. ‘Past and future must be given up’- only now matters. (…) Intensification is the name of the game.’12 The festival Boom that has taken place in Portugal, announced for 2010s edition, that ‘the idea behind the Boom is to create a space in this time continuum where people from all over the world can live an alternative reality’.13 The rave creates an installation of a fantastic universe of ‘magic’, ‘adrenalin’, ‘music’, ‘feelings’ and ‘the best of life - promises on the flyer of Xxxperience in 2009, a Brazilian rave party that puts together more than fifteen thousand people. This Xxxperience seems a kind of artificial heaven of synthetic experiences.

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__________________________________________________________________ Thank God for the prime and unique experience I had this weekend. What happens when people really focus on going to the dream world??? (…) A cosmic energy came from Shiva’s image spread on me, my body just did not feel any pain or weariness after dancing too hard before and I started to shout MY GOD! Each turn mixed with moments of ECSTASY and CRYING. I looked to the sky and prayed to the good force that gives me these unique moments in my life. It was like the music scratches my brain. I shared the moment with other people by my side who were feeling the same magic sensation.14 It was the anonymous testimony in a chat room on the Zuvuya internet site about the last rave he (or she) had enjoyed during the weekend in 2005. ‘Experience the dream world’ has been the advertising power behind the rave Xxxperience since 2008. To elaborate the ‘dream world’, the celebration of rave combines diverse technologies that alter the cognitive state to transcend the ordinary life. Chemical, mechanical, electronic, visual, cinematic, computer technologies are combined in the celebration of the trance rave party. These typical technologies at the turn of the century give intensity to the techniques used in the archaic trance – the repetitive music and the exhaustive dance. Besides electronic music and the ecstasy drug, we witness in a trance rave celebration the use of LSD, joints, energy drinks, fractals, fluorescent colours, purple lights, strobes and projections of VJ’s (video jockeys) on the large screen around the dance floor, which create an imagery that resembles an delirium or a dream, narratives of the unconscious mind. Crashing through the doors of perception, the electronic trance celebration goes into Wonderland, Neverneverland and The Secret Garden,15 opening a ‘dimensional portal to intergalactic connection’16 and transforms the participant into a powerful being. In the rave we become a powerful being: enchanted, beautiful, sensual and illuminated. There is no doubt in the rave, we are there to be happy, and to do everything. There are no doubts, pain or suspicion, just confidence in our choices. In the rave we are as potent as the society we are part of. If the rave party celebrates something it is the potency of the technological society. In the rave, people acquire the powers of the technological society, mostly – perhaps - the power to create and to experience fantasies, dreaming wide awake. In the wonderland of rave, people experience the possibility of being a fairy, a hippie, an Indian, a guru, a cyber. The subjunctive form in the rave is not like the process of an actor, but it is near the mimetic play experienced by children. Such as Michael Taussig17 underlined it, the mimetic faculty carries out its play ‘suturing nature to artifice and bringing sensuousness to sense by means of what


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__________________________________________________________________ was once called sympathetic magic, granting the copy the character and power of the original, the representation the power of the represented’.18 The mimesis invokes the power of sympathy rather than the empathic exercise of coexistence. Otherwise, many powerful beings in this kind of party are objects or characters of the childhood of the rave generation, in the 70s and 80s. They used to be characters on television, in cinema, magazines and books: fairy tales, animated characters, astronauts, aliens, etc. Could it be a desire to recapture the lost world of infancy? Maybe, but the answer does not alter the strength of the desire of the fantasies or the power of the characters. Walter Benjamin suggests that modernity with its new social conditions and new techniques of reproduction such as cinema and mass production of imagery ushers a recharged and retooled mimetic faculty to become the other.19 Despite the imagery of indigenous, Hindu Gods, and the wild nature, the rave celebration refers itself directly to the capitalistic experience of urban life, unified by the mass media and through the promises of new industrial technologies. Techtribe is the name of another Brazilian rave. Like a reflection of society, ravers call themselves a Global Tribe which is ambivalent, because they want to restore another face of this society, not the capitalistic movement of globalization but a common human generic link moments of communitas20 experienced through the celebration make up ephemeral moments and leave a profound effect. As a tribe that wants to be global, ravers inherit the history of humanity, feeding a unity (mythic unity) that swallows and devours without masticating the differences, the contradictions, and the lack of proportion of groups. Through the party, ravers dramatize the myth of origin of Western society: the tribal community. Many ravers immerse themselves naked in waterfalls and in beaches during the party, an action that could be pure, primordial, ‘natural’ if it did not refer to the images created by the German Romanticism and restored by hippies, if it was not only practiced by the people with the most sculptured bodies as fashion magazines, would define and could as well publish them. 7. Universo Paralello In an interview in a magazine, Pitty (25 years old) defines herself as ‘double faced’ in order to point out the duality of her image, dressed in a blouse, slacks, and high heels during her professional duties in a computer company’s marketing department, and her colourful outfits of light fabric for her outings, almost every weekend, to dance in rave parties. This is where she can feel part of ‘another universe, imaginative and idealized’. In the rave Pitty lets her Ganesh tattoo show, which almost covers her entire back; she loves cold waterfall showers, butterflies, and believes in fairies and elves. ‘The possibility of staying barefoot purifies my soul’, says Pitty.21

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__________________________________________________________________ The conflict between plans emerges between strict everyday living and the freedom of weekends in parties. This kind of montage operated by rave discourses and practices can be observed in many directions from a methodological perspective. Although, it is worth mentioning that the proposal of this research is to especially pay attention to the gaps and lapses of the montages, which arise in undetermined moments - a sincere compliment, a brief comment or an odd silence -, moments that make you ponder over the eruptions of the extraordinary that we experience in the event of the ordinary as John Dawsey22 understands it. This was the case noted in my field notes, about the Trancendence festival (June of 2002), when a colleague and I were on a river’s bank and a young couple approached us and sat to talk to us. They were in their twenties and had been together for some time. She was dancing around the rocks, imagining she was a fairy and asked for a flowered tiara, which was gently offered by her partner. She asked for a joint, and he provided one, without a reply. Soon after, she ran up to a young man who was playing a flute just a little further up from where we were and returned contently, commenting to her boyfriend how she knew the flutist. She was talkative and lively; he simply laughed, as her ways entertained him. The mood was calm, and he attended to her and all of her wishes, until two young ladies skinny-dipping in the river caught her attention, bathing and swimming nude is common in trance raves, as commented before, and she affirmed that she would like to do the same. He promptly raised his tone and very assertively said ‘No, not naked!’ She passively said, ‘But it’s alright, here, no one cares, look at the other people...’ He looked at her and rebutted, ‘Do you really think that no one would care?’ and she simply let it go. On that river’s margin, there was a tension between the romanticism of pure and free willed nudity, and malicious ‘reality’ (as her boyfriend stated, ‘really’) transpired by undressing and the sight of nudity. What is actually undressed, in this case, is the fragility in sustaining ‘another universe, imaginative and idealized’. The possible extraordinary experience of rave electronic trance emerges not exactly from an acquisition or an immersion into an fantastic world but from the instability of living that experience, the movement and the crossing between the sense of fantasy - the establishment of ‘parallel universes’ - and the sense of reality which lacks enchantment, such as a simple recreational weekend of fun. For a short time, one has the certainty of a fantastic existence, and later moments of mistrust of that marvellous world which would not simply represent the effect of drugs; therefore, looking around, one regains the certainty that this is reality and not only hallucinations. A nonstop game of misplacements and elevations which suspends long-lasting certainties, an endless movement between the construction of ‘dimensional portals to intergalactic connection’23 and a simple recreational weekend; between experiencing direct and pure human connection with those present (known as the ‘vibe’ of the party) and the chemical effect of the ecstasy. In this movement, it’s


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__________________________________________________________________ difficult, if not impossible, to decide between one position or another, since coinciding both is true, yet neither could be true on its own. This alternating movement between the positions – this constant coming and going of flashes and interruptions – is the process that Michael Taussig refers to as montage.24 Montage: alterations, cracks, displacements, and swerves all evening long - the sudden interruptions, always interruptions to what at first appears the order of ritual and then later on takes on little more than an excuse of order, and then dissolves in battering of wave after wave of interruptedness into illusory order, mocked order, colonial order in the looking glass. Interruptions for shitting, for vomiting, for a cloth to wipe one’s face, (…) and in the cracks and swerves, a universe opens out.25 If we consider that the numbness of psychoactive substances leans towards the ‘trip’ to ‘a dream world’, during this trip, one does not lose the possibility of a parallel comprehension, with a sober view of the world. Within this alternating movement between this constant coming and going of flashes and interruptions, a new consciousness reveals itself, like a profane illumination, such as W. Benjamin suggested this concept.26 Montage: flashing back and forth from self to group; not simply self-absorption broken-up and scrambled by participation in the group or with one or two members of it, but also through such flashing back and forth from self to group and group to self a sort of playground and testing-ground is set up for comparing hallucinations with the social field from which they spring. Hence the very grounds of representation itself are raked over. 27 In the way Taussig traces this, also inspired by Benjamin, I doubt that it fully reaches the symbolized concept, in favour of the fragmentation of the montage, non-white, non-homogeneous, but as consequence of the inability with which it settles, ends up fracturing itself, since the way to celebrate a rave gravitates more towards an unstable allegoric composition than a symbolic synopsis. Thus, the possible ‘experience’ at a rave bursts with the effect of its montage juxtaposing the heightening sense of fantasy with another ‘reality’, as Taussig point out ‘thereby encouraging among the participants speculation into the whys and wherefores of representation itself’.28

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Notes 1

There are statements that the Indians were from a village resident in Paraty Mirim (RJ), the first place indicated to welcome the rave. Only a few days before the event – tickets already released and sold-out – the City Hall of Paraty cancelled the license previously given. The party transferred to a rented field in front a desert beach, close to the original place but in another municipal district. 2 Later research of the event indicated that they came from the Funi-ô group. 3 R. D. Pilapil, ‘From Affirmation to Contestation: On the Politics of Recognition’, in this volume. 4 My free translation from Portuguese language. 5 A. Cuadrado-Fernandez, ‘Globalisation, Transculturalism and Environment: Sharing and Understanding Indigenous Perspectives through Poetry’, in this volume. 6 Viewed on 15 April 2011, Information available at http://thiniafulnio.com.br/1/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&It emid=32. My free translation from Portuguese language. 7 Accessed online 5 May at, http://www.zuvuya.net/cad_galeria_materia_ver_E.asp?cod_capa=991&site=E&pa sta=Tonny1. My free translation from Portuguese language. 8 S. Adachi, ‘Undermined Empathy, Undermined Coexistence: Japanese Discursive Formations Related to Empathy’. 9 W. Benjamin, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility: Third Version’, in Selected Writings Volume 4, 1938-1940, H. Eiland and M. Jennings (eds.), The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, and London, 2006, pp. 251-283. 10 See C. Geertz ‘Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight’. Daedalus, 101, 1972, pp. 1-37. 11 V. Turner, From Ritual to Theatre: the Human Seriousness of Play. PAJ Publications, New York, 1982. 12 Ibid., p. 56. 13 Accessed online 6 April 2010 at http://www.4ideas.com.br/. 14 Chat accessed online 10 September 2005 at http://www.zuvuya.net. Personal translation from Portuguese language. 15 Wonderland, Neverneverland and Secret Garden are names or were themes of some rave parties in Brazil and Europe. 16 The rave party sometimes is called a special opportunity to open ‘dimensional portals to intergalactic connection’, especially trance festivals since I recorded in the field notes at Brazilian’s celebrations. 17 M. Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses, Routledge, New York, 1993. 18 Ibid., p. xviii.


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W. Benjamin, ‘On the Mimetic Faculty’, in Reflection: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings, P. Demetz (ed.), Schocken Books, New York, 1986, pp. 333- 336. See also W. Benjamin, ‘The Work of Art’, pp. 251-283. 20 V. Turner, From Ritual to Theatre, p. 51. 21 A magazine report published in Beatz, nº 6, São Paulo, 2003, pp. 15-16. 22 J. Dawsey, ‘O lugar olhado (e ouvido) das coisas’, in Tempo e Performance, M. B. de Medeiros, M. Monteiro and R. Matsumoto (eds.), Editora da Pós-Graduação em Arte da Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, 2007, pp. 33-46. 23 As it was cited before, the rave party are generally called a special opportunity to open ‘dimensional portals to intergalactic connection’. 24 M. Taussig, ‘Montage’, in Shamanism, a Study in Colonialism, and Terror and the Wild Man, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1987, pp. 441-445. 25 Ibid., p. 441. 26 W. Benjamin, ‘Hashish in Marseilles’ and ‘Surrealism: The Last Snapshot of the European Intelligentsia’, in Reflection, pp. 137-145 and 177-192. 27 M. Taussig, ‘Montage’, p. 441. 28 Ibid., p. 445.

Bibliography Benjamin, W., ‘Hashish in Marseilles’, in Reflection: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings. P. Demetz (ed.), Schocken Books, New York, 1986, pp. 137-145. ———, ‘Surrealism: The Last Snapshot of the European Intelligentsia’, in Reflection: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings. P. Demetz (ed.), Schocken Books, New York, 1986, pp. 177-192. ———, ‘On the Mimetic Faculty’, in Reflection: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings. P. Demetz (ed.), Schocken Books, New York, 1986, pp. 333- 336. ———, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility: Second Version’, in Selected Writings Volume 3, 1935-1938. M. Jennings (ed), The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, 2006, pp. 101-133.

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__________________________________________________________________ ———, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility: Third Version’, in Selected Writings Volume 4, 1938-1940. H. Eiland & M. W. Jennings (ed), The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, 2006, pp. 251-283. ———, ‘On The Concept of History’, in Selected Writings Volume 4, 1938-1940. M. Jennings (ed), The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, 2006, pp. 389- 400. ———, ‘Paralipomena to ‘On The Concept of History’, in Selected Writings Volume 4, 1938-1940. H. Eiland and M. Jennings (eds), The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, 2006, pp. 401411. Bruner, E., ‘Experience and Its Expressions’, in The Anthropology of Experience. V. Turner and E. Bruner (eds), The University of Chicago Press, Urbana and Chicago, 1986, pp. 3-30. Cuadrado-Fernandez, A., ‘Globalisation, Transculturalism and Environment: Sharing and Understanding Indigenous Perspectives through Poetry’, in this volume. A. Wagener and T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Dawsey, J. C., ‘Victor Turner e Antropologia da Experiência’. Cadernos de Campo - revista dos alunos de pós-graduação em antropologia social da USP, vol. 13, 2005, pp. 163-176. ———, ‘O lugar olhado (e ouvido) das coisas’, in Tempo e Performance. M. B. de Medeiros, M. Monteiro and R. Matsumoto (eds), Editora da Pós-Graduação em Arte da Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, 2007, pp. 33-46. Geertz, C., ‘Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight’. Daedalus, 101, 1972, pp.1-37. ———, ‘Making Experience, Authoring Selves’, in The Anthropology of Experience. V. Turner and E. Bruner (eds), The University of Chicago Press, Urbana and Chicago, 1986, pp. 373-380. Gerard, M., ‘Selecting Ritual: DJs, Dancers and Liminality in Underground Dance Music’, in Rave Culture and Religion. Graham St John (ed). Routledge, New York, 2004, pp. 167- 184.


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__________________________________________________________________ Huxley, A., The Doors of Perception & Heaven and Hell. Hunt Branard, Great Britain, 1969. Jackson, P., Inside Clubbing: Sensual Experiments in the Art of Being Human. Berg, Oxford, 2005. Pilapil, R. D., ‘From Affirmation to Contestation: On the Politics of Recognition’, in this volume. A. Wagener and T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Taussig, M., Shamanism, a Study in Colonialism, and Terror and the Wild Man. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1987. ———, Mimesis and Alterity: a Particular History of the Senses. Routledge, Nova York, 1993. Turner, V., From Ritual to Theatre: the Human Seriousness of Play. PAJ Publications, New York, 1982. ———, ‘Dewey, Dilthey, and Drama; An Essay in the Anthropology of Experience’, in The Anthropology of Experience. V. Turner and E. Bruner (eds), The University of Chicago Press, Urbana and Chicago, 1986, pp. 33-44. Carolina de Camargo Abreu is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of São Paulo - USP. She has fellowship of the State of São Paulo Research Foundation – FAPESP and is a member of the Center of Anthropology, Performance and Drama of USP (known as NAPEDRA - for Núcleo de Antropologia, Performance e Drama). Her research is instigated by the perspectives open for the Anthropology of Experience and the Anthropology of Performance. Walter Benjamin’s writings have sparked special interest.

Globalisation, Transculturalism and Environment: Sharing and Understanding Indigenous Perspectives through Poetry Antonio Cuadrado-Fernandez Abstract One of the most relevant and interesting aspects of contemporary Indigenous Anglophone poetry written in South Africa, Palestine and Indigenous Australia is the presence of environmental imagery. In this poetry, an intimate sense of oneness with the land seems to construe a critique of industrial modernity and its contemporary counterpart, global capitalism, to denounce environmental damage on Indigenous lands. Focusing on the cross-cultural possibilities of environmental values, this chapter draws on recent developments in cognitive linguistics and poetics and in cultural geography (which share a conception of mind, body and environment as interrelated) in order to create a more precise textual analysis of Indigenous perspectives. In this way, readers (from the same or other cultures) will be able to access the culturally distinctive imagery of the poems from that which is common and shared, the body and the mind, helping thus create transcultural networks of resistance. Key Words: cognitive, indigenous, poetry, body, mind, senses, modernity, environment. ***** 1. Defining Indigeneity This chapter focuses on the contemporary Anglophone poetry of Sharif Elmusa, Mzi Mahola and Romaine Moreton (from Palestine, South Africa and Indigenous Australia respectively). This poetry exposes readers to intense geographical experiences of oneness with the land; from their distinctive geographical and cultural contexts, their poetry shares an intimate concern with and profound knowledge of the land. But this knowledge and concern reveal something more profound: a critique of techno-industrial modernity and its devastating impact on indigenous land since colonialism through to the present stage of corporate capitalism. The writers’ worldviews are inscribed in ancestral cultures that emerge in their written texts as metaphors of oneness with the land. However, before moving on to the poetry itself and its rootedness in the land, it is necessary to define and clarify the use of the term indigeneity from a local, global and intercultural perspective. A frequent question asked at conferences after presenting a paper on Indigenous writing is: ‘aren’t you appropriating indigeneity?;’ This question has, in some way or another, haunted us since the beginning of our research on Indigenous Anglophone poetry. As westerner scholars, who are we to talk or address issues of

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__________________________________________________________________ indigeneity? Who are we to talk about, to or for them? For instance, I am a Spanish scholar, born and grown up in Spain, which is considered as a western country. Thus, as a westerner, apparently I carry the crux of involuntarily reproducing all the stereotypes about indigeneity that plague our so-called western society. But scratching on the surface of artificial categories and rethinking my own origins gave me a different perspective on our own relationship to indigenous communities. My parents are Andalusian but immigrated to Catalonia (a region in the north-east of Spain) fifty years ago. Andalusia is the southern region of Spain, with a rich Arab cultural inheritance. When my father speaks about his upbringing in the fertile yet poverty-stricken lands of Andalusia, olive trees appear to have a prominent role: tactile, taste and smell sensations abound in his description; also, descriptions of the tough work and life of peasants seem to evoke an intimate relationship and knowledge with the land. When I read Anglophone Palestinian poets, some of their descriptions of olive trees and fellaheen’s life evoke a very similar imagery to that of my father’s remembrances. Thus, despite the obvious cultural differences between Palestine and Spain, I believe that such cultural difference could be at least (only partially) resolved if my father and a Palestinian of the inner hilly lands shared their experiences of olive trees. So, my father would have much more in common than he thought with a people with whom he had never thought he could have any sort of connection. In a world where cultures seem to have been constructed as containers isolated from each other, and identities seem to be composed as collages of multiple fragments (which in many cases has led to ethnic and racial strife), the challenge would be to articulate differences and commonalities, and to articulate these apparently disconnected fragments on which identities seem to be constructed. Whilst postmodernity quite rightly celebrated fragmentation (the existence of multiple cultures and identities) and how positive it was for the visibility of previously marginalised communities, it may be time to rethink whether multiplicity per se can successfully respond to one of the most crucial challenges of globalisation in the 21st century, that is, the careful management of biodiversity in a globalised world. Across the poetry of the Anglophone, Palestinian, South African and Indigenous Australian writers, an intimate knowledge and experience of the land can be perceived, and these experiences manifest in culturally distinctive ways. Both commonalities and differences belong to the same complex reality; leaving one of them out implies a reduced perspective on reality. In other words, indigeneity is defined as the perception of sentience in the environment, which emerges from continuous occupation and from a profound knowledge of the land. This is why the poem analysis aims at helping readers to have a more precise understanding of indigenous perspectives through that which is common: perception and the senses; body and mind. After all, both indigenous and nonindigenous communities have suffered, in one way or another (although indigenous peoples have suffered genocide and extreme levels of oppression due to colonial

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__________________________________________________________________ and neo-colonial practices) the consequences of massive industrialisation at an unprecedented scale: global warming, pollution, massive deforestation, etc. Establishing cross-cultural connections is thus crucial to create more environmentally responsible societies because fighting global-scale problems such as global warming concerns everyone and transcends cultural, ethnic or religious barriers: it is simply not possible nor acceptable not to feel concerned by a proper management of the environment for this and future generations to come. This goes beyond the stereotype of the indigenous as the noble savage or the eco-friendly creature of the forest. Whilst attachment to land is a crucial element in Indigenous perspectives, it is no less true that Indigenous movements across the world are far from homogeneous despite western reductive and stereotypical representations. In this sense, Albin Wagener’s chapter, ‘Representations and Defence Processes in Cross-Cultural Conflicts: France and the Case of its ‘National Identity’’, illustrates how stereotypical representations of French national identity (like reductionist representations of indigeneity) can function as instruments of power and control: 1 as Indigenous communities have been excluded from definitions of modernity through misrepresentation, so remain ethnic minorities in France (and in the rest of Europe as well) now excluded from the historical and cultural narrative of a nation, France, often perceived and described as an homogeneous container of purity. This connection is not mere coincidence as colonial powers. Both France and Great Britain could exercise their overseas domination through a colonial discourse that constructed the nations of the European metropolis in terms of racial and cultural supremacy or purity over colonised peoples deemed as inferior. Similarly, Madhubanti Bhattacharyya, in her chapter titled ‘Writing new identities: South Asian women, North America and three Asian-American Novels,’ points to the difficulties of South Asian women in North America, who are expected to ‘adapt’ and ‘adopt’2 (using Wagener’s words) to the new space and who have, in Madhubanti’s words, ‘either been subjected to pigeonholing by the majority community or entrapped into fossilised and unreal norms by their own ethnic group.’3 Mutual enrichment will arise if Indigenous perspectives and worldviews are respected and included in a broader cross-cultural dialogue about the management of biodiversity as well as the articulation of trans-cultural identities. Indigenous communities have occupied their lands for thousands of years, accumulating an enormous biological knowledge of the land, which has been regarded as primitive by western logic and, paradoxically, seems nowadays crucial for the survival of humanity. This is why I believe in the importance of providing a more precise understanding of Indigenous worldviews as these emerge in the poetry. As I argue in this chapter, western perspectives (phenomenology, cognitive poetics and linguistics, complex systems, cultural geography) share with indigenous perspectives the idea that body, mind and world are interconnected, and it is precisely from this perspective that the textual poem analysis will be pursued.

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__________________________________________________________________ But before analysing how cognitive linguistics and poetics can help readers understand what happens in the reader’s mind and body when reading such Indigenous poetry (opening thus a space of interaction between reader and text), it is necessary to understand how Indigenous communities were represented in the European colonial mentality, which is deeply rooted in a dualistic conception of modernity. 2. Conflicting Worldviews Europe became the universal scriptor/descriptor4 of the world when a series of technological transformations in agriculture in England during the Middle Ages culminated in the discovery of Ptolemy’s map on which the world was represented as a gridded extension, ‘a wider world that had somehow to be absorbed and represented.’5 Both of these developments must be understood as part of a larger transformation ‘of views of space and time in the Western world’6 by which a conception of the universe as a machine, a mathematically divisible entity, radically substituted the Aristotelian conception of a closed, spherical universe, which Marxist critic Fredric Jameson succinctly describes as the space of ‘classical or market capitalism (…) a space of infinite equivalence and extension.’7 The segmentation of the world in parallel lines cutting across territories enacted a perceptual shift whose consequences are still felt today; if one could visualise the mental processes of European merchants in the Renaissance, we may in all likelihood see the metonymic process of homogenisation and standardisation of landscapes. A part stands for the whole, a territory stands for all territories, a tree stands for all trees, a tribe stands for all tribes. This transformation comes as no surprise if one takes into account the importance of technological improvements not only in the production of better crops but also in Galileo’s use of the telescope to bring down Aristotle’s conception of a closed universe. Thus, technological transformation elicits a practical material understanding of the environment, an ‘intensified urge to control and exploit and control the natural world’ and ‘the application of systematic reasoning in this aspiration’8 on which the belief in scientific knowledge as a universal regulator of the world would be cemented. Ptolemy’s map would endorse this conception of the world as a knowable, conquerable totality. In terms of tropes, the machine as a metaphor of reality and Europe as a synecdoche of the world would become the most important features of a geometrically conceived world that rendered irrational both animism and anthropomorphism. In an increasingly mechanised world, Aristotle’s secondary qualities were deemed unnecessary to understand the world: reality was reduced to quantifiable elements (quantity, extension) and the causes of movements seemed to be sufficient. It was on these premises that Descartes justified the splitting of mind and body, self and world: only through reason can the mathematical intelligibility of nature


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__________________________________________________________________ be ascertained, stripping nature of its symbolic uniqueness by standardising all matter as objective substance: [B]y a body I understand whatever has a determinable shape and a definable location and can occupy a space in such a way as to exclude any other body; […] There is a great difference between the mind and the body, inasmuch as the body is by its very nature always divisible, while the mind is utterly indivisible.9 Similarly, an analysis of a passage of Descartes’ Discourse on Method illustrates the consequences of his perception of nature in consolidating a progressive process of logical appropriation and subjugation of nature: Through this philosophy [physics] we could know the power and action of fire, water, air, the stars, the heavens and all the other bodies in our environment as distinctly as we know the various crafts of our artisans; and we could use this knowledge – as the artisans use theirs – for all the purposes for which it is appropriate, and thus make ourselves, as it were, the lords and masters of nature.10 Descartes’ words might exemplify the culmination of a series of developments in relation to spatial thinking whose consequences would extend well into the twentieth century. He understood physics as a universal, regulative method that governed human and non-human affairs like clockwork, which is clear from his assumption that both nature and artisans can be explained within the reductive framework of pre-determined physical laws. Newtonian physics contributed significantly to the shaping of an atomistic cosmology whose universalistic pretensions were very clear; as Freya Matthews puts it: ‘[t]he scope of the theory was cosmological: its application extended to the universe as a whole.’11 Thus, soon, Newtonian physics permeated the social and religious strata to legitimise an atomistic worldview based on the principles ‘of a free market economy in which individuals would pursue their own material interests subject only to minimal legal constraints.’12 This mindset (present among some European economic elites) travelled to the colonies, conditioned attitudes to the environment and forged notions of presumed land neglect on behalf of the indigenous populations.13 Perhaps the formation of European historical and cultural narratives as isolated and homogeneous pure entities, only marginally related to each other (as Wagener explains in his chapter) has something to do with an atomistic cosmology; from this perspective, it is easier to understand the questionnaire shown by Wagener as a marker of exclusive space that can

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__________________________________________________________________ potentially be ‘contaminated’ and must therefore be protected from ‘foreign’ influences. As we will observe, Palestinian, South African and indigenous Australian precapitalist worldviews manifest a strong awareness of the physical environment (as survival depended on successful adaptation to the environment) in which animism play an important role. In general terms, animism can be described as a mode of relating to the world. This form of relatedness consists in the attribution of being to elements of the non-human world like forests, trees, water, forces of nature or plants; in other words, animism is a form of communication with the non-human world, thus privileging notions of organic interconnectedness. The idea of organic interconnectedness with the environment stands in sharp contrast to the mindworld Cartesian split. It is also important to mention that the close link to the environment felt by aboriginal cultures14 was both physical as spiritual: [T]heir auditory geography had both listening and voice; that is, it was inclusive of great attentiveness to the sounds of the environment and an effective ability to communicate with that environment (animate and inanimate) by oral mimicry.15 But a European mentality favoured attitudes to the environment that privileged intense exploitation in the service of economic profit, as Nancy J. Jacobs suggests: [E]uropean imperialism over the world resulted in massive land alienation and was supported by an ideology that superior rights accrued to those who practiced a ‘higher’ use: Europeans justified their right to claim territory on other continents through a belief that more intensive use represented a higher and better exploitation of the environment.16 I will now define particular indigenous worldviews (found by colonisers in Australia, Palestine and South Africa) and also explain how the discourse of modernisation rendered those worldviews as showing a developmental or civilisational ‘deficit’17 and also how indigenous worldviews were marginalised. 3. Recent Developments in Embodiment Theory and Indigenous Perspectives Inspired by neuroscience, disciplines of cognitive linguistics conceive language as a bodily affair through which our relationship with the world is mediated. Indigenous perspectives emphasise the importance of considering the concept of indigeneity as a profound bodily interaction with knowledge and experience of the physical environment, as indigenous Australian poet Romaine Moreton puts it: ‘[i]n Indigenous society, place was made known to the body through bodily interaction with the physical environment or earth space.’18 Hence, cognitive and


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__________________________________________________________________ indigenous worldviews share an epistemological affinity and thus can help us having a better understanding of indigenous perspectives in written texts and suggest pathways for a renewed modernity through the reading of literature. Particularly, advances in cognitive poetics suggest that the experience of reading literature depends on the body’s engagement with the world and with its historical and socio-cultural circumstances. In other words, cognitive poetics takes into account the experience of reading ‘as if a threshold is crossed and readers can project their minds into the other world, find their way around there, and fill out the rich detail between the words of the text on the basis of real life experience and knowledge.’19 In this spatial orientation, readers cross the different mental spaces of the text (time, space and domain spaces), which are structured by deictic markers (perceptual, spatial, temporal and relational deixis). 20 The concept of cognitive deixis refers thus to the expressions that help readers to understand how the poems’ rich context can be recreated as they find orientation in the text. These concepts are all conceived as rooted in patterns derived from the embodied perception of the world and are thus able to provide spatial distinctions in the text. Also, blends (name given to metaphors in cognitive linguistics) are structured by mental spaces and deictic pronouns. The proponents of Blending Theory conceive of metaphor as a four-space model that consists of a cross-space mapping, a generic space, a blend and a resulting emergent structure. 21 The crossspace mapping consists of two (or even more) input spaces drawn from domain spaces. In this phase of blending, there is mapping of counterparts between input spaces. In the generic space, the conceptual structure shared by the two inputs is mapped. In a blend, input spaces are partially projected, which gives rise to a new, emergent structure. This new emergent structure contains elements of both inputs but it is neither one nor the other. Rather, the new emergent structure ‘makes new relations available that did not exist in the separate inputs.’22 4. Poem Analysis The following conceptual blend in Romaine Moreton’s ‘Blak beauty’23 represents a uniquely indigenous Australian knowledge of the land. As the title suggests, the poem is a beautiful reclamation of indigenous Australian culture which begins with an image that fuses the writer’s body with ancestral indigenous culture: ‘this has been held on my lips / since time / immemorial.’ This is followed by an affirmation of ‘blakness’ as a testimony to indigenous knowledge of the land, when she claims that ‘there is blakness / beneath these nails.’ Intimate knowledge of the land is linked to the body’s interaction with a sentient environment, as shown in the following blend:

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__________________________________________________________________ for I know this earth and wear her well she has been strapped around my waist woven into my scalp tied ‘round my breast poised in my hair First of all, the use of the deictic personal pronoun ‘I’ establishes the deictic centre in the poetic persona. The reader can thus see the world from the poet’s perspective and enter the epistemic world of the poem, as the use of the verb ‘know’ indicates. The reader is now in the mind of the poet and knows what she knows. The deictic centre in ‘I’ helps readers understand that ‘this earth’ is indigenous Australia. The use of the demonstrative pronoun in ‘this earth’ brings the ‘earth’ of indigenous Australia closer to the reader’s mind. Perceptual deixis thus situates readers in the present time-space of the poet. At this point, two mental spaces are established: the poetic persona (‘I’) and the earth. Deixis is crucial both for the construction and effect of these conceptual blends: mappings between mental spaces of the human body and the earth become possible through the use of deixis. In the first place, the pronouns ‘her’ and ‘she’ in ‘I wear her well / she has been’ conceptualised the land as a feminine entity in accordance with indigenous perspectives.24 This is a remarkable technique, because readers have a direct access to the indigenous worldview before the conceptual blend explicitly refers to it. A number of trans-spatial operators structure the conceptual blend of human body and land. These trans-spatial operators are the verbs ‘wear’ and ‘she has been strapped around,’ ‘woven into,’ ‘tied’ ‘round’ and ‘poised in.’ Blending Theory accounts for this conceptual blend in four stages: 1. Input Space 1: - the body. - physical organic constitution (mass of interconnected tissue). - shape (‘waist,’ ‘breast’). - surface (‘scalp,’ ‘hair’). 2. Input Space 2: - the earth. - physical / organic constitution (soil, dirt, plants). - surface. - shape. 3. Input Space 3: - cloth. - made of fibre. - woven or knotted. 4. Generic Space: - the indigenous body has close relationship with the earth.


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__________________________________________________________________ - the earth provides sustenance and welfare to the indigenous body. - cloths are formed by interweaving threads. 5. Blended Space: - the indigenous body and the land have a close, interweaving relationship. In this blend, the earth has inherited parts of the structure of clothing. Clothes are formed by a web of interconnected woven knots as the earth is formed by the interconnection of all forms of life (according to indigenous worldviews). The indigenous body, thus, inherits the interwoven earth as a second skin. The indigenous body is part of the network insofar as it ‘wears’ (as a second skin) the earth he/she consumes, touches, smells and feels. The prepositions ‘around’, ‘into’ and ‘in’ are crucial in the construction of the conceptual blend. These prepositions evoke the shape of the body and how the earth-as-clothing blends with the body. The preposition ‘around’ implies the shape of the waist. Similarly, the preposition ‘into’, as in woven into, seems to suggest movement from the earth into the body. These prepositions help construe the image of the earth as clothing. Clothing is usually perceived as a necessarily comfortable garment adapted to the shape of the body and the idea of comfort involves a soft texture. If the earth is conceived as tissue-clothing, the earth is seen as a potentially flexible entity to which the indigenous body is fully adapted because both the body and the earth are perceived as having the same shape. The idea of comfort is reinforced by the parts-of-bodies metonymies ‘waist’, ‘scalp’, ‘breast’ and ‘hair’ that constitutes this blend. What all these metonymies have in common is the skin. The skin usually feels soft.25 The criterion to define the relationship between clothing and body tends to be the feeling of comfort, which is based on the softness of the tissue. Thus, if we read this blend as the interrelation of the sensuous ingredients of both body and clothing, the perceived effect is one of pleasurable affinity between humans and land. The separation between body and environment seems to disappear as the distinction between body and land becomes difficult to discern. In other words, self and environment merge into a hybrid entity where body and environment are ecologically and multidimensionally connected, unlike the all-governing visual gaze of industrial modernity. If readers know that a hunter-gatherer’s way of life requires a perceptual attuning to the shapes of the physical world, it is easier for them to understand the conceptualisation of earth and body as clothing. The interpretation of these blends as sensuous is vital to understand their perceived effects and the construal of the unique indigenous worldview that these conceptual blends project. This poetic fragment exemplifies that, as W.E.H. Stanner claims, ‘the Black Australian sense of oneness with the soil – which is the essence of the lands right campaign – is a relationship which requires a poetic understanding.’26 Another example of the environment as source of blend is Sharif Elmusa’s ‘In Balance’.27 This piece forms parts of a brief autobiographical poem about the

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__________________________________________________________________ writer’s relationship with his father. The generational distance between father and son (e.g. in ‘I was powerless against you then- / you noticed only my violations.’) turns into warm appreciation with the passing of time: ‘Now we stand in balance / in the brass pans of the scale.’ It is interesting to notice how reconciliation and appreciation come through the discovery of the father’s strong bond with the land. Thus, the fellaheen’s ancestral relationship with the land is crucial to the writer’s coming to terms with the past in exile: and how from the good earth the earth you made good, your heart grew tender as the hands rough. The personal pronoun ‘you’ and the possessive ‘your’ indicate that the poem is addressed to the writer’s father. Also, the use of the past tense in ‘grew’ and ‘made’ takes readers to a past time. This deictic shift reinforces the emotional overtones of the poem. These emotional overtones refer not only to the writer’s emotional bond with his father but also to the loss of the fellaheen’s cultural worldview. Thus, the use of the past reinforces the emotion of sadness by directing the reader’s attention to the fellaheen’s absence. References to the body (‘heart’ and ‘hand’), the earth and the use of the past tense help situate the poem in the epistemic world of the Palestinian fellaheen. As mentioned in the Introduction, the Palestinian fellaheen or peasant has uninterruptedly occupied Palestine for more than 2000 years. The fellaheen have thus a profound knowledge of and relationship with the land. These deictic references construe two mental spaces, the body and the land. In this context, it is possible to assume that continuous habitation of landscape leads to the formation of certain conceptualisations derived from such a relationship. Particularly, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson explain human conceptualisations of the world in terms of ‘gestalts that have emerged directly from interaction with and in our environment.’28 Thus, it is possible to understand the following blend as emerging from the fellaheen’s centuries-old habitation and occupation of the Middle East. The fellaheen’s mode of life and worldview were based on the cultivation of the land. The economic sustenance of the fellaheen consisted mainly in the exportation of ‘high quality agricultural products (mainly grains, olive oil, soap, sesame and citrus fruit).’29 In this case, the conceptual blend that constitutes the whole piece centres around the verb ‘grow’. This verb reveals the fellaheen’s agricultural relationship with the land. It is thus possible to understand that this relationship generates culture-specific knowledge through the conceptual blend. This culture-specific knowledge can be understood in a better way if Blending Theory is applied as follows:


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__________________________________________________________________ 1. Input Space 1: - the body. - the body is physical, organic. - Palestinian peasants use the body to work the land. 2. Input Space 2: - the earth. - the earth is physical, organic. 3. Generic Space: - body and earth grow. - cultivation and fertility. 4. Blended Space: - the Palestinian fellaheen is rooted in the land; his body is rough like earth and tender like vegetables. The earth is gentle and good and stimulates production. In this blend, both the ‘earth’ and the fellaheen become part of each other because they have a symbiotic relationship: the fellaheen and the land interact physically and influence each other mutually. For instance, the reader’s background knowledge of peasants can help them assume that peasants make the earth good by ploughing it. This goodness is acquired by the earth. If the earth were not made ‘good’ it would not be productive and hence, its existence would make no sense. Similarly, the fellaheen grew ‘tender’ and ‘rough’ from the earth. Thus, these qualities must be ascribed primarily to the earth. But these ‘earth’ features are acquired by the fellaheen because his heart ‘grew’ from the earth. The verb ‘grow’ could be interpreted as having the same meaning as ‘become’. But even in the case of readers making this decision, it is difficult not to assume that the fellaheen’s heart has been influenced by their interaction with the land. Similarly, a slower, sensuous reading complements and supports the blend’s projection of oneness with the land. For instance, vegetables can be perceived as tender or can be made tender by cooking. This is also one of the reasons vegetables are edible. Eating vegetables is healthy and, thus, good for the heart. The fellaheen’s diet was based on products grown from the earth. In other words, the heart acquired the qualities of the vegetables. As fellaheens worked in consonance with the land, it is easier to assume that these physical qualities acquire human significance. Tenderness is primarily a touch experience. Fellaheen had a highly developed sense of touch as it was crucial to work on the land, collect and assess the quality of the produce. Fellaheen thus used their hands to render the earth good. The fellaheen daily, hard and physical interaction with the land allowed goodness to emerge. This sensuous reading of the blend takes the fellaheen’s sensuous relationship with the land into account and ascribes it to their culture-specific worldview. The fellaheen’s worldview has allowed them to maintain a balanced relationship with a harsh environment for centuries. As seen in the analysis of the blend, peasant and land merge as a blend in which the distinction between self and world is diluted. Thus, the fellaheen’s narrative is worth considering in the construction of an alternative modernity that incorporates indigenous perspectives

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__________________________________________________________________ that differ from potentially disruptive capitalist conceptualisations of the environment as a commodifiable object. This worldview continues until the end of the poem as seen in the writer’s evocation of a sentient apricot tree and a grapevine. The writer connects to the land of Palestine and the fellaheen’s communal worldview through a land presented as a participatory entity in tune with the fellaheen’s sentiment: ‘Father, this apricot tree so lush, / climbing madly toward the sky, / yet bears no apricots. / She must be infatuated with herself.’ Another interesting example is found in Mzi Mahola’s ‘Time to Go’. 30 In this poem, Mahola recreates a rural landscape full of sensory evocations. This poem illustrates a fundamental impulse in Mahola’s poetry, namely, the ‘search for a common morality in the different perspectives of rural and urban, strange and familiar, traditional and political.’31 After the segregating policies of apartheid (which confined a majority of the black population to the poorest and most infertile lands), this poem traces a common morality in the ancient rural environments where alternative modes of relationship to the environment (as opposed to modernrational values underpinning apartheid) wait to be unearthed. This longed-for relationship with the environment is evoked with multiple (acoustic) sensory evocations, as in ‘I miss the chorus of weaverbirds / Crocheting from lazy willow trees / Over laughing currents’ or olfactory, as in the following lines: I even miss the fragrance Of orchards in spring Cuddled in tender rays of the sun. How I’d love to sow and observe New life sprouting from farm fields. This fragment is particularly interesting not only because of its sensory dimension but also because of the blend in which the fragrance of orchards seems to fuse with the tender rays of the sun in the manner of an embrace. Thus, this fragment aligns human and nature through the body, the senses and cognition: Mahola is not positioned above nature and does not wish to master or control the land either. Rather, the image is one of sensory attuning. In this fragment, readers enter the space of the text through the poetic persona, as shown in the use of the ‘I’ personal pronoun. The poet thus becomes the experience as he situates himself as the location of the poem’s emotion (which is the emotion of missing the traditional ways of life). In other words, it is through the poetic persona as experience that readers enter geographical and time spaces projected onto the text. The geographical space of rural South Africa is deictically framed by locative expressions like ‘the fragrance of orchards’ and ‘tender rays of the sun’. The time space is framed by the time expression ‘spring’ and verbs like ‘miss’, that locate the deictic centre in the present and intensify the reader’s perception of longing. By


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__________________________________________________________________ using the present tense, the writer highlights the presentness of his emotion: readers perceive this feeling as occurring now, at the moment of reading. But the piece tells the reader more about the experiencer’s point of view. Words, like ‘fragrance,’ ‘tender’ and ‘cuddled’ indicate the writer’s attitude towards the world in which he grew up. If relational deixis is defined by Stockwell as ‘expressions that encode the social viewpoint and relative situation of authors, narrators, characters (…),’32 it could be argued that words like ‘fragrance’, ‘tender’ and ‘cuddled’ informs the reader about the writer’s profound knowledge of the social relevance of the earth in rural communities. As readers progress into the conceptual blend, the word ‘cuddled’ plays a crucial role: it is the trans-spatial operator between the two geographical expressions, namely, the ‘orchards in spring’ and the ‘tender rays of the sun’. Blending Theory accounts for this particular conceptual blend as follows: 1. Input Space 1: - the orchard. - fruit, vegetables. - cultivation. 2. Input Space 2: - the rays of the sun. - beam of light. - warm energy. 3. Input space 3: - cuddling. - arms. - warmth and affection. 4. Generic Space: - orchards need the rays of the sun for growing. - the rays of the sun are warm and provide energy for growing. 5. Blended Space: - the rays of the sun tenderly caress the fruit and vegetables of the orchard; the fruit and vegetables receive the energy of the sun. The new emergent structure presents readers with an image in which the rays of the sun are arms that illuminate and caress the orchard. This image reflects the local epistemology of the South African peasant: perceiving the rays of the sun as a tender and caressing energy reveals the writer’s fondness for the hard yet pleasant life of peasants. Sensory information thus plays a crucial role in the reader’s interaction with the writer’s worldviews. In a delayed-categorisation type of reading, this diffuse and sensory information can be perceived and elaborated. If, according to Rodaway, ‘[o]lfaction plays an important part in remembering in general and the association of current and past place experiences’,33 it is possible to argue that the ‘fragrance of the orchards in spring’ reveals a strong feeling of attachment to place. The sense of spatial relationships and engagement with the

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__________________________________________________________________ land given by the fragrance involves the seasonal rhythm of the land and the varied smells emanating from the dry land, the fruit and the vegetables. The piece is also rich in haptic34 sensory information. The ‘tender’ rays of the sun cuddling the orchard evoke a pleasant scene. Particularly, the verb ‘cuddle’ refers to the affection and tenderness with which the fruit and vegetables of the orchard receive the light of the sun. Warmth thus has both physical and emotional dimensions: the warmth of sunlight provides the amount of necessary energy for the orchard to be fertile. Fertility is thus tenderness and tenderness is both physical and emotional as well: it is the tenderness of edible fruit and vegetables and the tenderness that links peasants emotionally to the land that provides sustenance. This sensory description is crucial to understand the intimate knowledge of the land experienced by indigenous South Africans. This analysis of conceptual and sensory information shows the interrelation between body, mind and environment, which is a crucial element in the notion of indigenous perspectives. The idea of interrelation between mind, body and environment echoes James Lovelock’s Gaia theory, which ‘supposed that the atmosphere, the oceans, the climate, and the crust of the Earth are regulated at a state comfortable for life by and for the biota.’35 The writer’s evocation of a sensory landscape is thus not only the mere recreation of a nostalgic trip towards a pre-colonial past. Through the text’s conceptual and sensory information it is possible to argue that the poet longs for something more profound and significant: the recovery of the equilibrium granted by the peasants’ stable and sustainable relationship with the land, which is the basis of a stable and coherent sense of being in the world. This links with the brutal disarray and alienation caused by policies of dispossession and segregation that disrupted the fragile yet nurturing and balanced way of life enjoyed across communities in Indigenous communities. Also, the textual analysis allows readers to have a closer understanding of how Indigenous perspectives emerge as reading proceeds, which is fundamental to promote a more inclusive view of culture. If a cross-cultural audience can have a better understanding of Indigenous sense of oneness with the land and its beauty, then it may be possible to establish alternative ‘spatialities of solidarity’36 through which ‘[d]ifferences are to be respected, but commonalities discovered,’37 which is crucial to resist and challenge the predatory approaches of corporate and industrial capitalism. In the same line, the method of reading exposed in this chapter benefits from the conceptual framework developed by Michael Kearney and Setsuko Adachi in their chapter ‘An Identity Matrixing Model for Transculturality’ and more recently by Kearney in ‘Designing Identity: an Attempt to Manufacture Singaporeans’, where Kearney articulates the notion of ‘Identity Matrixing Model’38 in order to create transcultural identities. My argument represents an effort in the same direction: to bring readers closer to the Indigenous perspectives


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Notes 1

A Wagener, ‘Representations and Defence Processes in Cross-Cultural Conflicts: France and the Case of its ‘National Identity’’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 2 Ibid. 3 M Bhattacharyya, ‘Writing New Identities: South Asian Women, North America and three Asian-American Novels’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 4 These two Latin words refer to the Eurocentric role of Europe during colonialism: Europe both ‘wrote’ and ‘described’ the world from the presumed intellectual and technological superiority of its knowledge. 5 David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity. An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change, Blackwell, Oxford, 1990, p. 244. 6 Ibid., p. 242. 7 Fredric Jameson, ‘Cognitive Mapping’, in Poetics/Politics: Radical Aesthetics for the Classroom, Amitava Kumar (ed), St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1999, p. 157. 8 Chris Fitter, Poetry, Space, Landscape: Toward a New Theory, CUP, Cambridge, 1995, p. 161. 9 John Cottingham (ed), Western Philosophy: An Anthology, Blackwell, Oxford, 1996, p. 147, 151. 10 Ibid., pp. 313-314. 11 Freya Matthews, The Ecological Self, Routledge, London, 1991, p. 14. 12 Ibid., p. 24. 13 It is necessary to mention that Cartesian and Newtonian worldviews were not necessarily representative of European society as a whole. European modes of thinking during the age of colonialism were varied and contradictory. For instance, a large peasant population in countries like Spain and France did not necessarily have to hold Cartesian views of the environment. Rather, considering the large oral traditions and folk poetry in rural Spain or in Serbia and other countries, it is possible to find European worldviews more in tune with the environment. The notion of Cartesian and Newtonian worldviews refers to the mindset of a European elite of powerful traders for whom Descartes and Newton provided legitimacy. 14 Following Paul Rodaway, the term ‘aboriginal’ is used here to refer to huntergatherers, herders and agro-pastoralists. See Paul Rodaway’s Sensuous Geographies: Body, Sense and Place, Routledge, London and New York, 1994, p. 109. 15 Ibid.

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Nancy J. Jacobs, Environment, Power and Injustice: A South African History, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003, p. 86. 17 See Marcia Langton, ‘The ‘wild’, the market and the native: Indigenous People Face New forms of Global Colonization’, in Decolonizing Nature: Strategies for Conservation in a Post-colonial Era, William M Adams & Martin Mulligan (eds), Earthscan, London, 2003, p. 82. 18 Romaine Moreton, The Right to Dream, PhD. diss. University of Western Sydney, 2006, p. 340. 19 Peter Stockwell, Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction, Routledge, London, 2002, p. 41. 20 Ibid., p. 45. 21 Gilles Fauconnier, Mappings in Thought and Language, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997, p. 159. 22 Ibid., p. 150. 23 Romaine Moreton, ‘Blak beauty’, in her Post me to the Prime Minister, Jukurrpa Books, Alice Springs, 2004, pp. 93-98. 24 It is common among hunter-gatherer cultures to consider the earth as a feminised entity because it is easy to identify the common ground of fertility in both motherhood and land. 25 The use of the possessive adjective ‘my’ might be interpreted as referring to the poet herself. Romaine Moreton is relatively young. Thus, we might argue the writer’s skin feels soft. 26 W.E.H. Stanner is quoted by Adam Shoemaker in Black Words, White Page: Aboriginal Literature 1929-1988, ANU E Press, Canberra, 2004, 180. 27 Sharif Elmusa, ‘In Balance’, in Flawed Landscape: A Palestinian Journey, p. 25. Book kindly ceded by Sharif Elmusa previous to its publication. 28 George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 2003, p. 230. 29 Rosemary Sayigh, The Palestinians: from Peasants to Revolutionaries, Zed Books, London and New York, 2007, p. 22. 30 Mzi Mahola, ‘Time To Go’, in her Dancing in the Rain: A Collection of Poetry, University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, Scotsville, 2006, p. 35. 31 Information available at http://southafrica.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php ?obj_id=5383, last updated: March 21, 2010, viewed on May 2 nd 2007. 32 Stockwell, Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction, p. 46. 33 Rodaway, Sensuous Geographies: Body, Sense and Place, p. 64. 34 The term ‘haptic’ refers to the sense of touch. 35 James Lovelock, The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of our Living Earth, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995, p. 19.


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Slater, D., Geopolitics and the Post-colonial: Rethinking North-South Relations, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, 2004, p. 219. 37 Ibid., p. 221. 38 Michael Kearney, ‘Designing Identity: an Attempt to Manufacture Singaporeans’, in A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), this volume, Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012.

Bibliography Bhattacharyya, M., ‘Writing new identities: South Asian women, North America and three Asian-American novels’, In this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Beck, U., Anthony Giddens and Scott Lash, Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1994. Cottingham, J., (ed), Western Philosophy: An Anthology. Blackwell, Oxford, 1996. Elmusa, S., ‘In Balance’. Flawed Landscape: A Palestinian Journey, p. 25. Book kindly ceded by Sharif Elmusa previous to its publication. Fauconnier, G., Mappings in Thought and Language. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997. Fitter, C., Poetry, Space, Landscape: Toward a New Theory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995. Harvey, D., The Condition of Postmodernity. An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Blackwell, Oxford, 1990. Jacobs, N. J., Environment, Power and Injustice: A South African History. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003. Jameson, F., ‘Cognitive Mapping’. Poetics/Politics: Radical Aesthetics for the Classroom. A. Kumar (ed), St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1999, p. 157. Kearney, M. ‘Designing Identity: an Attempt to Manufacture Singaporeans’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012.

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__________________________________________________________________ Kearney, M. & S. Adachi, ‘Mapping Hybrid Identities: A Matrixing Model for Transculturality’, in From Conflict to Recognition: Moving Multiculturalism Forward. M. Kearney, Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Langton, M., ‘The ‘wild’, the market and the native: Indigenous People Face New forms of Global Colonization’, Decolonizing Nature: Strategies for Conservation in a Post-colonial Era. W. M. Adams & M. Mulligan (eds), Earthscan, London, 2003, p. 82. Lakoff, G., and M., Johnson, Metaphors We Live By. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 2003. Lovelock, J., The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of our Living Earth. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995. Mahola, M., in South Africa – Poetry International Web. Viewed on 2 May 2007. http://southafrica.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php ?obj_id=5383. ———, ‘Time To Go’, Dancing in the Rain: A Collection of Poetry. University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, Scotsville, 2006, p. 35. Matthews, F., The Ecological Self. Routledge, London, 1991. Moreton, R., The Right to Dream. Phd. diss. University of Western Sydney, 2006. ———, Post me to the Prime Minister. Jukurrpa Books, Alice Springs, 2004, pp. 93-98. Shoemaker, A., Black Words, White Page: Aboriginal Literature 1929-1988. University of Queensland Press, Queensland, 1989. Slater, D., Geopolitics and the Post-colonial: Rethinking North-South Relations. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, 2004. Stockwell, P., Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction. Routledge, London, 2002. Wagener, A., ‘Representations and Defence Processes in Cross-Cultural Conflicts: France and the Case of its ‘National Identity’’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012.


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__________________________________________________________________ Wheeler, W., A New Modernity: Change in Science, Literature and Modernity. Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1999. Antonio Cuadrado-Fernandez is a Spanish/Catalan scholar affiliated to the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK, where he has taught Literary Theory and Catalan language and is currently working in the Ecopoetry Project.

The Image of Dance and the Narrative of Secular Culture in Edward Said’s After the Last Sky Rachid Belghiti Abstract After the Last Sky, which brings together Jean Mohr’s photographs and Edward Said’s prose, presents dance not as a cultural practice but as an image that describes how Palestinians blend with their history of struggle and survival. This chapter argues that the image of dance in After the Last Sky informs Said’s narrative of the Palestinian secular culture and history in three ways: First, it invites us to reflect how Palestinians construct their history through their daily motion which choreographs a counter narrative of mainstream historiography about them. Secondly, the image of dance provides a de-centred space through which Said re-reads the Palestinian experience of resistance through his secular conception of intertwined histories which debunks the binary between Self and Other. Thirdly, dance informs Said’s fragmented narrative which moves across various genres, texts, and traditions, in the same way Palestinians in exile move across various cultural spaces. This chapter thus explores how the image of dance in After the Last Sky emerges as an epistemology, or a mode of knowledge, through which we can imagine survival and reconciliation in the conflict laden space of Palestine. Key Words: Body, choreography, dance, secular space, history, narrative. ***** 1. Introduction After the Last Sky is a collaborative work with Jean Mohr’s photographs and Edward Said’s prose. Analytical, autobiographical, contesting, and nostalgic in tone, After the Last Sky visually and textually presents Palestinians through both deprivation and joy in Palestine and estrangement in exile. the knowledge and responsibility we require of ourselves and of others are those […] where we and our history blend as do dancer and dance, by which we can see ourselves not as disembodied presences of sorrow and homelessness but […] embodied in the fullness of our experience, as the result of our history of struggle and failure-plus something more.1 Unlike Orientalism, which addresses literal dance through the colonial discourse of power, After the Last Sky uses dance as an empowering image which symbolically describes the ways through which Palestinians construct their history

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__________________________________________________________________ of struggle and failure. Said borrows the above image of dance from W.B Yeats’ poem ‘Among School Children’ so as to show how Palestinians blend with their history of resistance and loss in the same way a dancer and a dance blend together. 2 As a space of embodiment and irresolution that also pertains to Said’s hybrid cultural background, dance informs Said’s description of the ‘fully embodied’ Palestinian experience which remains unresolved as it merges both failure and struggle.3 Critics point out that unlike Said’s trilogy, Orientalism, Covering Islam, and The Question of Palestine, which describes the Orient, Islam, and Palestinians respectively through colonial discourse, After the Last Sky presents Palestinians as they construct their subjectivity and history by way of endurance and defeat. Ana Dopico notices that After the Last Sky represents Said’s secular project at work since it is ‘recapitulation by a people of its own history.’4 Barbara Harlow also indicates that Said’s book elaborates ‘through an unrelenting critical process a secular version of popular struggle [that] becomes illustrative and informing for the work of theory and theoretical inquiry.’5 Nubar Hovespian, who worked with Said in the United Nations during the 1980s, equally notes that Said in this book ‘wants to remove [his] discourse from the confines of the colonial legacy’ that recurs in his trilogy.6 Nevertheless, it is the image of dance in After the Last Sky that informs Said’s secular reading of Palestinian culture and history. More specifically, dance evokes an unresolved space through which Said invites us to rethink the politics of representing the Palestinian subjectivity. Thus, this chapter examines how Said integrates dance symbolically in his prose to convey that the philosophy of dance, as a space of both rupture and blending, is central to his secularity which is primarily contingent on human movement in history as a condition for this history to take place. In order to develop this argument, I examine how Said’s image of dance visualizes his secular reading of Palestinian culture in terms of three patterns of movement: the bodily movement of Palestinians in their everyday lives, the movement of Palestinian history across various histories of struggle and survival, and the movement of the book’s narrative across various genres, texts, and traditions. 2. After the Last Sky: Secular Cultural Space and the Choreography of A Counter-Narrative of History Before I examine how Said’s image of dance feeds his secular reading of Palestinian culture, I first pinpoint that Said formulates his secular theory of culture initially to unsettle the colonial construction of binary oppositions between the ‘civilised’ Western Self and the ‘barbaric’ Eastern Other. [W]e should begin our acknowledgement of a world map without divinely or dogmatically sanctioned spaces, essences, or

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__________________________________________________________________ privileges. It is necessary therefore to speak of our element as secular space and humanly constructed and interdependent histories that are fundamentally knowable but not through grand theory or systematic totalization.7 Said argues that secular space is a humanly constructed space in which cultures and histories overlap and intertwine rather than emerge through such essentializing categories and stereotypes as ‘cold blooded Northerners’, ‘lustful Southerners’, ‘Enlightened Westerners’, and ‘Exotic Easterners.’ Secular space, as Said defines it, questions the discourse of authenticity of these categories by illustrating that they are not true in themselves but are invented, venerated, and worshipped by the human mind, just like the idea of God.8 Said draws his secular reading of culture from the eighteenth century Italian philosopher Giambatista Vico who describes the world as the product of the human mind.9 [M]en had a terrible fear of the gods that they had themselves created. The world of civil society has certainly been made by men [too] ... it is true that men have made this world of nations ... it was not fate, they did it by choice, not chance. 10 According to Vico, both the physical world of civil societies and the metaphysical idea of God are productions of the human mind and fantasy. Said’s above definition of the humanly constructed secular space is clearly grounded in Vico’s philosophy. The latter sharpens Said’s postcolonial critical insight and allows him to infer that the categories of East and West, like the idea of God according to Vico, are mere inventions of the Western project of colonial amnesia. Said interrogates this reductive project in After the Last Sky through the image of dance which opens the possibility to integrate daily movement as a component in the discourse about Palestinian identity and culture. Said’s image of dance in After the Last Sky occurs in chapter six ‘Past and Future’ which focuses on the material actualities through which Palestinians produce their society and culture in the above mentioned secular terms. [W]e [i.e. Palestinians] are presented addressing our world as a secular place without nostalgia for a lost transcendence. Here are people doing their utmost to address the everyday material world with purpose and grit.11 Palestinians’ movement and indomitable will in After the Last Sky unravel Said’s secular conception of culture because they emanate from their endeavour rather than nostalgia for ‘Great Tradition’ or ‘legendary past.’ Said refutes the

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__________________________________________________________________ discourses of nostalgia and transcendence in his secular conception of Palestinian culture, just as Vico rejects the idea of fate in his secular philosophy of the world. Said alternatively focuses on the materiality of labour and productivity through which Palestinians construct their history and culture and consequently see themselves ‘not as disembodied presences of sorrow and homelessness but embodied in the fullness of our experience’ of resistance and failure.12 The above image of dance is therefore a category of analysis that allows us to see how Palestinians ‘choreograph’ their secular history and culture through their bodily motion in labouring, handcrafting, doing sport other activities which unfold visually in Mohr’s photographs. I borrow the concept of ‘choreographing history’ from the American dancer, dance critic and literary theorist Susan Leigh Foster. Foster argues that ‘to choreograph history is to grant that history is made of bodies conspiring together and being conspired against.’ 13 Despite drawing from a different cultural context, Foster’s statement still helps us reflect how the bodies of Palestinians in After the Last Sky conspire and initiate a counter narrative that resists the colonial power conspiring against them; this means that the bodies of the photographed Palestinians choreograph, or write through their motion in space, a corporeal narrative of their history that is predicated upon normalcy, productivity, and agency. When Said claims that his book lays out ‘the Palestinian statement, the state of Palestinian life, the people’, he implies that the book visually presents the ways in which Palestinian people state, or tell, their history of both struggle and failure performatively as they walk, dive, farm, and craft. 14 Instead of being entrapped in a perpetual present with no sense of history, photographed bodily movements in After the Last Sky acquire a sense of history, geography, and memory through the categories of dress, pictures on walls, handcraft, mosaic, rivers, and the land that unfold as visual markers of cultural identity and belonging. Clothing more particularly emerges as a category that culturally frames the gendered body of the Palestinian subject in various spaces. Cheryl Sim reminds us in ‘The Cheongsam: A Site of Wonder and Contestation for Canadian Women of Chinese Heritage,’ that clothing emerges as ‘a site of wonder and contestation’ through which the movement is culturally framed 15 . Despite drawing from a context that is historically and genealogically different, Sim’s reading of clothes as a space of contestation opens the possibility for me to see how dress is a marker that allows Palestinians to resist recurrent interpretations which reduce their bodies to images of ‘essentialising paradigms of permanent homelessness and terror’.16 That is why Said’s narrative and Mohr’s photographs in After the Last Sky focus on what Susan Foster calls ‘bodily writing’ that inscribes Palestinian history as a counter-narrative in which the truth of daily motion speaks to the power of reductive discourses about them. 17 Yet, although Mohr’s photographs in After the Last Sky provide Said with a visual means to choreograph the denied history of Palestinians, these photographs are not immune to the tensions and pitfalls involved in the act of photographing.

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__________________________________________________________________ Even if the photographs in After the Last Sky do not come out in the same year, they are all part of Mohr’s work for international humanitarian organisations which began in 1949 when Mohr was ‘sent to the Middle East’ as a Red Cross delegate among ‘a team acting on behalf of Palestinian refugees’. 18 More than hundred photographs, among the book’s 120 photographs that belong to Mohr’s UN sponsored humanitarian work, illustrate the daily motion of Palestinians under siege. The emphasis of the camera’s eye remains focused on the living and working Palestinian body, portraying people in an unobtrusive way, as they are handcrafting, repairing vehicles, diving, re-constructing demolished houses, and strolling across tension-filled streets. Yet, although Mohr’s photographs provide visual proof about Palestinian normalcy that disrupts mainstream stereotypes about them, these photographs also emphasize the UN humanitarian role as an international agent speaking for the oppressed people of the world. Mohr’s encounter with the Palestinians thus recalls the effect of photography according to which Palestinian ‘actual reality’, to borrow the words of Walter Benjamin, ‘has slipped into the functional [reality of photography]’ where the latter is ‘a commodity […] a technique or reproduction for the [UN] market and its demand.’19 Nevertheless, Benjamin’s reading of photography does not entirely apply to Mohr’s photographs of Palestinians since the last photograph in After the Last Sky, where the two Palestinian children photograph their photographer, illustrates that Mohr is indeed aware of the power politics involved in photography. Whether planned or spontaneous, genuine or contrived, the children’s act of photographing Mohr back is politically charged since it implies a reversal of agency. This photographic moment is also meaningful for Said’s engagement with the politics of representation in the book. When Said refers to ‘the fate of every Palestinian, which is both there and yet not to be accounted for politically,’ he means that Palestinians are denied self-representation through the process of being represented by others, including Mohr.20 Said is thus aware that Palestinians are not accounted for politically since they cannot represent themselves as people claiming their rights to exist. Yet, instead of merely analysing the modes of representation that construct Palestinians as reductive stereotypes, Said states in his comment to Mohr’s last photograph that his critical project in After the Last Sky is to dispel the myth of these reductions. I would like to think, though, that such a book not only tells the reader about us, but in some way also reads the reader. I would like to think that we are not just the people seen or looked at in these photographs: We are also looking at our observers. We Palestinians sometimes forget that-as in country after country, the surveillance, confinement, and study of Palestinians is part of the political process of reducing our status and preventing

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__________________________________________________________________ our national fulfillment except as the Other who is opposite an unequal, always on the defensive-we Palestinians too are looking, we too are scrutinizing, assessing, judging. We are more than somebody’s object. We do more than stand passively in front of whoever, for whatever reason, has wanted to look at us. If you cannot finally see this about us, we will not allow ourselves to believe that the failure has been entirely ours. Not any more.21 While this statement concludes and/or finishes Said’s narrative in After the Last Sky, it begins a critical reflection on Palestinians as agents rather than mere objects of mainstream exclusive narratives. Said’s statement is not only a comment on the photograph of the children photographing their photographer; it is also a moment of rethinking the politics of representation that maps Palestinian subjectivity through the ethnocentric reductive gaze. In my opinion, the last sentence fragment of Said’s narrative, ‘not anymore’ responds not only to the dominant politics of representation but also to his own analysis of Oriental subjectivity in Orientalism.22 Said here asserts that far from being static objects of the photographic gaze, the unnamed and undocumented Palestinian people in motion in After the Last Sky inscribe a reversal of agency and position themselves as the choreographers of their own history, emphatically countering the UN’s prohibition to narrate and its imperative of political amnesia. Nevertheless, Said’s image of dance does not romanticise Palestinian resistance since it depicts this resistance neither through the discourse of triumph nor lamentation. Instead, dance describes how Palestinians blend with their history that includes both struggle and failure. This description illustrates the recurrent crisis and violence that haunt Palestinian lives, inscribe their bodies, and fuel their resistance and sense of survival. Palestinians in After the Last Sky embody what Walter Benjamin calls the ‘tradition of the oppressed which teaches us that the state of emergency is not the exception but the rule’.23 That is, the Palestinians’ day-to-day activities, or instances of ‘bodily writing’, take place within a perpetual state of crisis and emergency through which Palestinians ceaselessly reproduce their longing to belong to their dispossessed land, just like other dispossessed communities in various parts of the world. 3. After the Last Sky: The Image of Dance and the De-centred Motion of History Being a site of de-centred meaning about the body and space, dance emerges as a paradigm of analysis that symbolically informs Said’s decentred method of reading Palestinian culture and history across other histories of resistance. Contemporary theorists of performance maintain that dance movement is so

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__________________________________________________________________ subversive that it de-centres totalising resolutions about space. Karmen McKendrick makes this idea clearly. [D]ance does not often occupy a place, remain in place. It is almost definitionally mobile, and so we must consider not just array in places but movement across distances. Dance delights by treating distance non-teleologically; it does not present itself as to-be-crossed so as to have done with it, but in the manner of that which . . . draws us precisely by refusing closure . . . by refusing a teleological spatiality.24 Departing from Derrida’s philosophy of the trace which frames most contemporary theories of dance, McKendrick explains that dance produces meaning from the standpoint of its unresolved mobility and movement in space. McKendrick maintains that dance generates delight for the viewer not because it resolves the meaning of spaces by determining distances between them but because it delays any resolutions about any spaces which the body crosses in dance. Dance for McKendrick refuses closure of meaning since it allows us to read places only through the way in which they overlap and open to other spaces along the process of bodily movement. McKendrick’s analysis indeed illustrates that dance is a site through which we rethink the transcendental and/or teleological terms of sacredness or profanity which we use to define spaces. Yet, while McKendrick describes dance as a space that resists ideological closure of meaning, she simultaneously encloses the meaning of dance metaphorically through the above image of delight. Nevertheless, McKendrick still allows us to discern how the idea of mobility in dance can be a useful paradigm in our reading of Said’s secular conception of intertwined histories in After the Last Sky. The image of dance in Said’s narrative offers an epistemology or a mode of knowing Palestinian resistance not in monolithic terms that define Palestinian experience in itself but through a mobile mode of describing and reflecting how this experience intertwines and overlaps with other experiences and histories of resistance. Palestinian national experience belongs with that of the Armenians, the Jews, the Irish, the Cypriots, the American blacks, the Poles, the American Indians at those terrifying frontiers where the existence and disappearance of peoples fade into each other, where resistance is a necessity, but where there is also sometimes a growing realization of the need for an unusual and ... unprecedented knowledge.25

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__________________________________________________________________ Here, Said describes how the Palestinian experience of resistance overlaps with the experiences of other communities which have equally suffered the fate of survival. Said suggests that the histories of these communities ought to be read not in isolation from but in conjunction with one another since their ‘existence and disappearance fade into each other,’ that is blend together. By ‘disappearance,’ Said means the experience of genocide that marks the histories of these communities without erasing their will to survive. Like ‘dance which lives, becomes public, and transcends its process of dying and erasure’, these communities exist and persist not to vanish while being haunted by the possibility of vanishing. 26 These communities’ sense of existence fades into their sense of disappearance in the same way spaces in a dance movement both emerge and vanish through other spaces which the body crosses as it dances. I would argue that dance illustrates what Said calls ‘the unprecedented [mode of] knowledge’ or epistemology of survival of the above communities which constantly reminds us that the narrative of history is unfinished rather than resolved in Eurocentric terms. I argue that Said uses dance not only as an image of how Palestinians blend with their history but also a de-centred epistemology according to which the Palestinian construction of history unfolds only through the experience of other communities and histories of resistance. The irreducibility of dance, which McKendrick describes, symbolically reflects Said’s secular irreducibility of intertwined histories and his critique of the assumption ‘that one can have history on one’s own terms exclusively’. 27 Said’s image of dance indeed opens the possibility of reflecting how, in the words of the American dance critic and sociologist Randy Martin, ‘movement informs critical consciousness’.28 Dance in After the Last Sky emerges as an epistemological space that informs Said’s critical consciousness of how reductive meanings about the Palestinian body and space are as suspended and delayed as meaning in dance, according to contemporary dance philosophy. Still, unlike the contemporary theories of dance that rely heavily on Derrida’s deconstructionist philosophy of language, Said’s image of dance is predicated upon the experience of exile which is also a de-centred space, in which meaning is constructed through movement and mobility rather than fixation and permanence. Yet, although Derrida’s method of deconstruction and the experience of exile are both de-centred spaces, they are still different on the grounds that the former is linguistic while the latter is human. While the lack of centrality in Derrida’s method of deconstruction describes the constant play of linguistic signs as a condition for the construction of meaning, lack of centrality in exile results from the historically grounded experiences of human dispossession and displacement. Despite that, After the Last Sky uses the above image of dance as a way to open the possibility for us to explore the irresolution of Palestinian ‘transience and impermanence’ in terms of the impermanence and transience of meaning in dance.29 I read Said’s image of dance as being instrumental in his critical account of exile in which recurrent departures and impermanence overwhelm the bodies of

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__________________________________________________________________ Palestinians who ‘perch on chairs uncertain whether to address or evade our interlocutor ... seemed unsettled, poised for departure.’30 Viewed in terms of dance, these movements of perching and crossing choreograph the epistemology of exile through which Said defines his de-centred conception of Palestinian history. This is why dance in After the Last Sky opens the possibility of resisting hegemonic discourses of culture, history, and identity from the vantage point of movement which equally unfolds at the level of the narrative structure of the book. 4. After the Last Sky: The Image of Dance and the Fragmented Narrative of Palestinian Culture The image of dance symbolically unfolds through Said’s narrative which moves across genres, texts, and traditions, in the same way displaced and dispossessed Palestinians move across nations and cultures in a dancer’s like motion. After the Last Sky does not present dance as a physical pattern of movement that unifies the Palestinian community around ritual of a wedding or festivity for instance. Instead, the book uses dance as a de-centred image from which it symbolically draws its fragmented narrative form. Said’s literary imagination draws from this space in order to describe not only the political uncertainty of Palestinians but also his own mode of telling the story of this uncertainty and/or dislocation. Said is actually aware of the difficulty of telling the history of Palestinian dislocation. [T]he whole point of this book is to engage this difficulty, to deny the simple, even harmful representations of Palestinians, and to replace them with something more capable of capturing the complex reality of their experience. Its style and method – the interplay of texts and photos, the mixture of genres, modes, and styles - do not tell a consecutive story, nor do they constitute a political essay. Since the main features of our present existence are dispossession, dispersion, and yet also a kind of power incommensurate with our stateless exile, I believe that essentially unconventional, hybrid, and fragmentary forms of expression should be used to represent us.31 Said narrativizes or presents a narrative account of Palestinian lives through a fragmentary narrative form that reflects the Palestinian dispersal. This narrative form also interrupts the linear and permanent discourses about them. Said’s disruptive mode of telling allows him to put the coherence of dominant historiography of Palestine into crisis as a way of unlearning its truth claims through dance. Said conceptually blends his historiography of Palestinians and the untranslatability of dance as two similarly disruptive discourses that perpetually postpone any totality of meaning, be it about the dancer’s body as it blends with

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__________________________________________________________________ the dance or the Palestinian’s body as it blends with its history of struggle and failure. Departing symbolically from his notion of dance, Said employs a fragmentary narrative form to delay the colonial narrative about Palestinians in the same way dance delays totalising meanings about the body. He maintains that ‘we [i.e. Palestinians] live in a protracted not – yet’, which explains his use of the similarity between the Palestinian construction of history and dance where resolution of meaning is always yet-to come.32 Palestinians’ choreography of their history thus becomes ‘a way of thinking about the relationship of aesthetics to politics ... as a performative, choreography [in Said’s narrative] cannot be simply identified with the aesthetic and set in opposition to the category of the political.’33 Furthermore, the parallel between the movement of Palestinians through various physical spaces and the movement of Said’s narrative through different textual spaces is significant in terms of contemporary theories of dance. Said’s narrative form anticipates the concern of contemporary dance studies about ‘how to transpose the moved in the direction of the written. Describing the bodies’ movements, the writing itself must move. It must put into play figures of speech and forms of phrase and sentence construction that evoke . . . bodies in motion.’34 Although it does not describe the motion of literal dancing bodies, Said’s narrative actually reflects the experience of dispersal that marks the bodies of Palestinian subjects. The movement of the narrative across various texts, genres, modes, and tones reflects the recurrent movements of Palestinians along the choreography of their exile. Said uses the de-centred site of dance not only to conceptualise the decentred choreography of Palestinian resistance at home and in exile but also to implement this de-centredness in the form of the narrative structure of his prose. 5. Concluding Remarks As it informs Said’s secular narrative of Palestinian culture in After the Last Sky, the above image of dance actually evokes his humanistic reflection about the project of coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis from the perspective of motion. My chapter has tried to argue that dance as a site of de-centred motion symbolically feeds our reflection about multiculturalism, conflict, and belonging particularly in the culturally multi-faceted space of Palestine and Israel which are two spaces whose meanings unfold entirely through each other rather than in separation from each other. Said’s idea of blending addresses what Tina Rahimy calls in her chapter in this volume ‘Politics means relationlity, and consequently it is always politics of some relational complexity’35. Said’s image of dance indeed paves the way for a constructive reflection about multiculturalism in which difference resists denial and suppression. Said maintains that ‘the paramount thing is that the struggle for equality in Palestine/Israel should be directed toward a humane goal, that is, co-existence, and not further suppression and denial.’ 36 The image of dance, I would conclude, serves this ‘human goal’ of rethinking one’s culture and identity not in conclusive terms but through a choreography of history

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__________________________________________________________________ that is constantly in the process of being made rather than resolved or finished in stereotypes. Said’s image of dance indeed symbolically articulates his idea of culture that is yet- to-come along the tormenting reality of conflict and the haunting spectrality of belonging.

Notes 1

E W Said, After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives, Photographs by Jean Mohr, Pantheon, New York, 1986, p. 164. 2 W B Yeats, ‘Among School Children’, in Introduction to literature: British, American, Canadian, R Lecker, J David and P O’Brien (eds), Harper & Row, New York, 1987, p. 562. 3 For details about dance in Said’s cultural background see E W Said, ‘Homage to a Belly Dancer: On Tahia Carioca’, in Reflections on Exile and Other Essays, E W Said, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2000, pp. 346-355. 4 A Dopico, ‘The Recourses of Necessity: Repetition, Secular Mourning, and Edward Said’s Inventories of Late Return’. Social Text, vol. 24, Summer 2006, p 114. 5 B Harlow, ‘The Palestinian Intellectual and the Liberation of the Academy’, in Edward Said: A Critical Reader, M Sprinker (ed), Blackwell, Oxford, 1992, p. 189. 6 N Hovespian, ‘Connections with Palestine’, in Edward Said: A Critical Reader, M Sprinker (ed), p. 6. 7 E W Said, ‘Figures, Configurations, Transfigurations’. Polygraph, vol. 4, Fall, p 25. 8 For more information about Said’s secularity and his critique of nationalism, see B Robbins, Secular Vocations: Intellectuals, Professionalism, Culture, Verso, London, 1993, p. 74. 9 For details about the ways in which Vico’s philosophy has shaped Said’s secular critical outlook, see E W Said, Beginnings: Intention and Method, Columbia University Press, New York, 1975, p. 357. 10 G Vico, The New Science, Penguins, London, 1999, p. 112-113. 11 Said, After the Last Sky, p. 146. 12 Ibid., p. 164. 13 S L Foster (ed), Choreographing History, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1995, p. 10. 14 W J T Mitchell, ‘The Power of the Visual: a Conversation with Edward W. Said’, in Edward Said and the Work of the Critic: Speaking Truth to Power, P A Bové (ed), Duke University Press, Durham, 2000, p. 35. 15 C Sim, ‘The Cheongsam: a Site of Wonder and Contestation for Canadian Women of Chinese Heritage’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), InterDisciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012.

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__________________________________________________________________ 16

Said, After the Last Sky, p. 162. For Foster’s definition of ‘bodily writing’ see S L Foster, (ed), Choreographing History, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1995, p. 7. 18 Said, After the Last Sky, p. 8. 19 W Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility, and Oher Writings on Media, Belknap Press, Cambridge, Mass, 2008, p. 313. 20 Said, After the Last Sky, p. 158. 21 Ibid., p. 166. 22 Said’s book Orientalism describes Oriental space and subjectivity entirely through Western discourse of knowledge which defines the East as barbaric and exotic as opposed to the West which is accordingly cultivated and civilised. 23 W Benjamin, Illuminations, Schoken Books, New York, 1969, p. 257. 24 K McKendrick. ‘Embodying Transgression’, in Of the Presence of the Body: Essays on Dance and Performance Theory, A Lepecki (ed), Wesleyan University PRESS, Middletown, Connecticut, 2004, p. 149. 25 Said, After the Last Sky, p. 159. 26 A Lepecki, ‘Dance without Distance’. Ballet International, February 2001, p. 31. 27 E W Said, The Question of Palestine, Vintage, New York, 1979, p. 165. 28 R Martin, Critical Moves: Dance Studies in Theory and Politics, Duke University Press, Durham, 1998, p. 1. 29 Said, After the Last Sky, p. 21. 30 Ibid., p. 12. 31 Ibid., p. 6. 32 Ibid., p. 165. 33 A Hewit, Social Choreography: Ideology as Performance in Dance and Everyday Movement, Duke University Press, Durham, 2005, p. 125. 34 Foster (ed), Choreographing History, p. 9. 35 T Rahimy, ‘The Battleground of a Milieu: On the Concept of Flight and its Political Milieu’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 36 E W Said, ‘Worldly Humanism v. the Empire-builders,’ CounterPunch August 4, 2003. 26-41. 17

Bibliography Benjamin, W., Illuminations. Schoken Books, New York, 1969. Dopico, A., ‘The Recourses of Necessity: Repetition, Secular Mourning, and Edward Said’s Inventories of Late Return’. Social Text, vol. 24, Summer 2006, pp. 111-123.

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__________________________________________________________________ Foster, S. L. (ed), Choreographing History. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1995. Harlow, B., ‘The Palestinian Intellectual and the Liberation of the Academy’, in Edward Said: A Critical Reader. Blackwell, Oxford, UK, pp. 173-193. Hewitt, A., Social Choreography: Ideology as Performance in Dance and Everyday Movement, Duke University Press, Durham, 2005. Hovespian, N., ‘Connections with Palestine’, in Edward Said: A Critical Reader, M Sprinker (ed), Oxford, UK, 1992 Lepecki, A., ‘Dance without Distance’. Ballet International. February 2001. ———, Of the Presence of the Body: Essays on Dance and Performance Theory. Wesleyan University PRESS, Middletown, Connecticut, 2004. Martin, R., Critical Moves: Dance Studies in Theory and Politics, Duke University Press, Durham, 1998. McKendrick, K., ‘Embodying Transgression’, in Of the Presence of the Body: Essays on Dance and Performance Theory. A Lepecki (ed), Wesleyan University PRESS, Middletown, Connecticut, 2004, p. 140 -156. Rahimy, T., ‘The Battleground of a Milieu: On the Concept of Flight and its Political Milieu’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), InterDisciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Said, E. W., After the last Sky: Palestinian Lives. Photographs by Jean Mohr. Pantheon, New York, 1986. ——— Beginnings: Intention and Method. Columbia University Press, New York, 1975. ———,‘Figures, Configurations, Transfigurations’. Polygraph, vol. 4, 1990, pp. 934. ———, Humanism and Democratic Criticism. Columbia University Press, New York, 2004. ———, Orientalism. Penguin, New York, 1978.

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__________________________________________________________________ ———, The Question of Palestine. New York: Vintage, 1979. ———, Reflections on Exile and Other Essays. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard UP, 2000. Sim, C., ‘The Cheongsam: A Site of Wonder and Contestation for Canadian Women of Chinese Heritage’, in this volume, A. Wagner & T. Rahimy, Interdisciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Yeats, W.B., ‘Among School Children’, in Introduction to literature: British, American, Canadian, R.Lecker, J. David, and P. O’Brien (eds), Harper &Row, New York, 1987. pp. 562-563. Rachid Belghiti is a Doctoral Candidate at the Department of English Studies at L’université de Montréal, Quebec. His research is concerned with theories of gender and sexuality, the body, and Orientalism. He is also interested in the role of dance in postcolonial and indigenous literatures.

The Cheongsam: A Site of Wonder and Contestation for Canadian Women of Chinese Heritage Cheryl Sim Abstract This chapter explores the results of a research project that investigates links between ethnic clothing and identity with a focus on the cheongsam or Chinese dress. A group of Canadian born women of Chinese and Chinese/mixed parentage (born in the late 1960s through to the early 1980s) were interviewed in order to gather a sampling of opinions, attitudes and wearing practices in regards to the cheongsam. An analysis of selected quotes from these interviews will demonstrate how current cheongsam wearing practices elicit six positions: pleasure, ambivalence, assertion, performance, exclusion and the precision of language. These positions in turn reveal that the cheongsam is a site of attraction and repulsion, fascination and fear. Based on a feminist and post-colonial theoretical framework and informed by my own experience as a Canadian woman of ChineseFilipino descent, these questions are tied up with the expression of one’s identity against the hegemonic force of an official policy on multiculturalism, in recognition of the dynamics of power that affect one’s representations in everyday life. Key Words: Ethnicity, clothing, dress, identity, hybridity, diaspora, heritage, mimicry, multiculturalism, tradition. ***** 1. Winding the Bobbin Originating as a combination of Han and Manchu styles of dress, and further influenced by American ‘fashion’, the cheongsam has evolved into a fitted garment most typically made from satin brocade with a high collar, side slits and intricately detailed fastenings, that has come to be recognized as an indicator of Chinese cultural identity. A few years ago I performed in a concert wearing a cheongsam that belonged to my mother. Afterwards, a Chinese journalist approached me to be a guest on her cable access television show about Chinese Montrealers. Being of mixed heritage, I was amazed to be recognized as Chinese, when all my life I had ‘passed’ as a foreigner within the Chinese community. When I asked what had led her to assume that I was Chinese, she simply said, ‘it was the dress’. While I have always been convinced of the power of clothing as a medium of communication, I had not fully understood why I had chosen to wear a dress that for me is charged with so many questions. Was it an action meant to assert my ethnic heritage or did I simply choose it on a whim? My inability to fully articulate these impulses lead me to embark on a research/creation project entitled Ode to the Cheongsam. The aim of

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__________________________________________________________________ this project was to reveal what the cheongsam means for Chinese female diaspora in Montreal, Canada, at the beginning of the 21st century. Is there a desire to re-claim or appropriate the cheongsam? Does this desire risk perpetuating stereotypes about Asian women? Does wearing the cheongsam undermine the assertion of one’s Canadian-ness? These questions are not exclusively linked with a style dilemma. They are ultimately tied up with how to express one’s identity in and amongst a dominant white culture, within a so-called multicultural society, with full recognition of the power relationships and dynamics that affect one’s movements and actions in everyday life as a woman of colour. Canada’s promotion of ‘tolerance’ through an official policy of multiculturalism adopted in 1971 was brought forth by the Canadian government under the direction of then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. This policy was instrumental in articulating power relations between immigrant as ‘other’ and a dominant Anglo-Canadian culture. In the name of nation building, Canadian born children of immigrants have been driven by Canadian institutions and hegemonic pressures to adapt and assimilate by eschewing their heritage languages, customs and traditions despite the policy’s discourses of equality and the promotion of a pluralistic Canadian identity. Almost 40 years later, with the loss of language and erasure of a meaningful connection with the communities of their ethnic heritage(s), first generation Canadians are now looking for ways to access and assert these erased or estranged aspects of their identities, a quest that finds a connection with the protagonists discussed in Madhubanti Bhattacharyya’s chapter presented in this volume.1 In the way that Bhattacharyya asks whether ‘it is in the end possible to ‘belong’ in spaces that one chose rather than inherited’, Chinese diasporic women living in Montreal find themselves grappling with how to belong to a heritage that is directly linked to a place that is now far away in terms of time and space. With a focus on the cheongsam or Chinese dress, the main research question posed by this project was whether a connection to one’s ethnic heritage could be meaningfully expressed through the wearing of clothing associated with that heritage. Culminating in a video art piece, Ode to the Cheongsam brings together interviews, poetic voiceover, clips from a Hollywood film, family photos, images from inside a cheongsam tailor’s workshop, a Mandarin pop song and the documentation of the making of a cheongsam. The intention of this chapter, however, is to share some initial findings about cheongsam wearing practices that have come out of the interview process with the five women who agreed to participate in Ode to the Cheongsam. An analysis of selected quotes from these interviews demonstrates how current cheongsam wearing practices elicit six kinds of positions: pleasure, ambivalence, assertion, performance, exclusion and the precision of language that in turn reveal how the cheongsam is a site of desire and contestation, fascination and fear.

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__________________________________________________________________ 2. Taking Measurements: Literature Review There has been a significant amount of qualitative and quantitative research around ethnic clothing wearing practices from the mid-1990s up to the present day. Margaret Maynard, Joanne B. Eicher, Sandra Niessen, Carla Jones and Ann Marie Leshkowich have undertaken seminal work as they critically explore the issue of clothing and wearing practices from the perspectives of globalization, ethnicity, political economy, gender and class. They also provide evidence of the significance of ethnic clothing to the everyday display of identity. Margaret Maynard’s book Dress and Globalization focuses on the phenomenon of ‘global’ or Western dress, comparing style and wearing practices in the West with those demonstrated in countries in Africa, Asia and South America. She posits that the globalization of clothing influenced primarily by the West often in the form of blue jeans, t-shirts and designer brands does not necessarily lead to the homogenization of dress across the globe. Rather, consumers around the world are making informed and tactical decisions about what they wear and how they wear it. While the reasoning behind their choices may vary greatly according to social, economic, class or geographical factors, the desire to use clothing ‘to define, to present, to communicate, to deceive, to play with’ is a key to understanding the ever changing meanings of dress in the course of social interaction.2 Dress and Ethnicity: Change Across Space and Time by Joanne B. Eicher makes a valuable contribution by offering to define slippery terms often used interchangeably such as ‘ethnic dress’, ‘clothing’, ‘dress’, and ‘fashion’ through an analysis of gender, history and politics. While Eicher maintains that ethnic dress and ethnicity are connected, her research sets out to show how ethnic dress is not simply a clear referent for a group with a common language, history and culture. Its meanings are mutable and have varied widely over time, challenging for instance, notions that ethnic clothing is synonymous with tradition. With this hypothesis as a central focus, Eicher takes on an in-depth and analytical investigation of the non-fixity of the meanings of ethnic clothing. Although Maynard focuses on ‘global clothing’ and Eicher deals more with ethnic dress, both of these books demonstrate how agency is exercised in the choosing and wearing of clothing around the world and how these practices are influenced by place, time and socio-economic position. Likewise, Sandra Niessen, Ann Marie Leshkowich and Carla Jones coin the useful term ‘performance practices’ to describe the agency that people exercise when choosing what to wear.3 They put forth the argument that discourses of Orientalism and globalization are re-iterated in wearing practices in Asia particularly through the binary narrative of ‘traditional, female, Orient’ and the ‘modern, male, West’. They explore how the appropriation by Western ‘fashion’ designers of certain hallmarks of Asian ‘ethnic’ clothing into couture ‘fashion’ has not only impacted the international ‘fashion’ industry but also the dressing practices of people in Asian countries demonstrating the power and influence of clothing in daily life.

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__________________________________________________________________ The most extensive quantitative studies on ethnicity and its relationship to ethnic clothing were carried out by Judith C. Forney. Her pioneering PhD dissertation An Investigation of the Relationship between Dress and Appearance and Retention of Ethnic Identity completed in 1980 employed methodological approaches based in the social sciences to investigate links between ethnic dress and the retention of ethnic identity. Her primary purpose was to explore the correlation between wearing practices or what she calls ‘the extrinsic cultural traits of dress and appearance’ and its relation to levels of assimilation into a dominant, American culture.4 Her hypothesis is that one’s desire to dress according to the modes of American culture is linked with one’s desire to assimilate into American culture. In her conclusions, Forney determines that there is a positive link between assimilation and dress and appearance, where individuals who wanted to be assimilated into dominant American society took on the dress and appearance characteristics of the dominant society. Those who did not desire assimilation held on to wearing clothing demonstrative of their ethnic identity. Furthermore, those wishing to assimilate might still wear the clothing of their ethnic heritages, but only for occasions where there would be contact with other members of that same ethnic heritage. While Forney’s study desperately needs to be undertaken with updated criteria and definitions that take into consideration more recent theoretical writings on ‘race’ and ethnicity it does put forth important, primary research findings that support the foundational hypothesis that ethnic clothing and ethnicity are linked and that ethnic clothing is worn in order to assert a connection with one’s ethnic background(s). All of these studies reveal the power dynamics and the variety of players that influence what people wear. Ethnic clothing is an area of investigation that is fraught with the anxieties and joys of living in the overlaps and interstices of multiple cultures, histories and politics. In continuous flux, ethnic clothing is further affected by dominant discourses of the representations of national and regional identities. 4. Six Positions: Analysis Interviews with the five women offers an invaluable source for gathering an understanding of how the cheongsam fits into the current lives of Chinese Canadian diasporic women living in Montreal. I use the term ‘position’ to conjure up the power of the cheongsam to affect the body and also to infer the double quest of affirming and questioning one’s identity simultaneously through the wearing of this dress. The boundaries of these positions are not fixed and at times, one or more will extend into another, creating an overlapping of positions. I chose to focus on women who share a similar background as me, women of Chinese or mixed Chinese heritage born in Canada between the late 1960s and the mid-1980s, as I contend that they are among the first critical mass of Canadianborn people of colour to become implicated in Canada’s adoption of a

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__________________________________________________________________ multiculturalism policy. Their stories of growing up in suburbs and small towns bring to light experiences of racism and Othering. Social changes and consciousness-raising due to important waves of activism around racism, identity politics and feminism during the late 1980s and into the 1990s have had an impact on a collective experience for these women, born in, and coming of age in Canada at this time. As these experiences have had a major effect on an individual sense of identity and self-representation, I feel this demographic profile to be the most abundant and rich for investigation at this point in time. Position 1: Pleasure I always liked the cheongsam. My mom had them and she always looked so good. (AM, 39) The women interviewed for this project have all worn this dress and currently own at least one cheongsam or piece of traditional Chinese clothing. They all spoke of an attraction and fondness for the formal qualities of the cheongsam, in particular, the line and cut of the dress, as well the way it can flatter the body when properly made. Prior to wearing the cheongsam, the women spoke of how they admired photos of their mothers, aunts or grandmothers wearing this dress, establishing it as something unique and beautiful. Each woman associated it with tradition and ceremony as its wearing was most often reserved for formal occasions such as weddings, community banquets or large family gatherings. It was special because it was being made for me and I was getting fitted for it and getting it made in the style that I really wanted and that’s what I loved. I felt like a woman, like a whole other person wearing it. And when you put it on, well, your whole posture, the way you carry yourself, the movements that you make have to be more conscious. When you respect the detail, the craftsmanship, the line, how it’s supposed to make you feel, the look, it makes you feel good. (LS, 35) The cheongsam is a dress praised for its versatility while remaining distinctly Chinese. Ideally, it is custom made by a tailor who has been trained in the special techniques of its fabrication. The wearer most often selects the material and decides on the final details. The commissioning and wearing of a cheongsam therefore has an exceptional impact on the wearer, offering a sense of agency and an opportunity to express various aspects of her identity. Dorinne Kondo contributes the useful term ‘politics of pleasure’, which focuses on how the enjoyment of ‘fashion’ and theatre is both a life-giving force and a political act that has the serious power to challenge and celebrate.5 The ‘politics of pleasure’

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__________________________________________________________________ underscores how wearing the cheongsam is a wonderfully ambivalent mix of pleasure and fear, which is ultimately a gesture of empowerment, experimentation and joy. For LS, having a cheongsam made for her represents a rite of passage and compels her to feel more elegant and refined. Having the opportunity to make decisions about the style elements of a dress also offers a sense of control, empowerment and a great deal of pleasure to the wearer. Specific media have also been influential in creating a desire to wear the cheongsam on a day-to-day basis, rather than for special occasions only. I really wanted to get some cotton cheongsam, because I thought it would be nice to wear as an everyday thing. You know, incorporate it into whatever I wore without making it a statement that I’m Chinese. I think one of the reasons why I really wanted to have one for everyday wearing…it must have been because of a soap drama set in the 1920’s to the 1950’s or so, where girls just used to wear these as an everyday item and I thought, they just look so pretty and cool. (KT, 33) Emulation and fantasy are both bound up in this woman’s reading of the cheongsam which fuels her desire to adopt the style of the cool, pretty girls portrayed in Chinese ‘soap’ dramas. Roland Barthes’ The Fashion System is often cited for its early theoretical contributions to the semiotics of clothing, presenting approaches to explain how clothes communicate and how representation and identity are fluid notions that can be expressed and performed through clothing. He looks closely at the power constructs of ‘fashion’ through the relationship between what he calls ‘image-clothing’ and ‘written clothing’. He posits that the ways clothing is written about in ‘fashion’ magazines for example, contributes to how clothing is read, making some garments and ways of wearing them more important than others. This theory demonstrates how images presented in the media through advertising, films, photography and television can affect and influence viewers and account for ways that the cheongsam is currently read and how women are wearing it today. Taking these ideas a step further, Elizabeth Wilson’s Adorned in Dreams looks candidly at the impact of clothing and ‘fashion’ from a feminist perspective. Wilson celebrates how clothing provides ‘possibility’ and reassures us that taking clothing seriously is not contrary to feminist concerns. Wilson also explains that clothing like art is itself a terrain of self-expression. Choosing what to wear becomes an artistic articulation, where what is disclosed and what is concealed can say a great deal about a person’s age, socio-economic background or psychological state. In this way, when KT explains that she wants to incorporate a cotton cheongsam (cotton being a more casual fabric) into her everyday dressing that would not put an emphasis on her Chinese-ness, it can be interpreted that for her a

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__________________________________________________________________ connection to her ethnicity already exists and need not be showcased by an ornate cheongsam. As a result, what is implicit in this excerpt is the woman’s readiness to display her Chinese heritage on a regular basis, rather than reserving it for special occasions. Exposure to a positive media depiction of Chinese women reinforces this attitude, encouraging this woman to seek out and take pleasure in the cheongsam’s ability to express her connection with a Chinese identity and all it represents to her. Pleasure in wearing the cheongsam also comes through a feeling of connection with family. Each woman offered stories of how wearing this dress was part of family gatherings, which would be met with positive feedback and encouragement. The wearing of this clothing would also instill a sense of continuity for these women. I would love to wear them to school and really own that history…. I wasn’t only putting on those clothes, I wasn’t only putting on those particular patterns that signify belonging to certain racial and ethnic groups, I was putting on my grandmother. I was wearing my family history. (AJ, 25) Paying homage to ancestors and carrying on tradition through wearing Chinese clothing becomes a comforting action for these women as they attempt to recover and make sense of heritages that have long been denied in the bid for assimilation. These garments therefore become conduits for remembrance and ensure that a link with one’s heritage has not been lost. Position 2:

Ambivalence

What the interviews demonstrate is that taking pleasure in wearing the cheongsam is far from simple. For the women in this project, the cheongsam produces a great deal of anxiety due to hesitation and tensions between tradition and modernity, similar to the apprehension expressed by the Quilombola people presented in this book by Tiago Assis. 6 The profound ambivalence that technology represents for the culture of the remote Quilombola finds communion with the impact that the wearing of a ‘traditional’ ethnic dress has for these women. It is complicated by issues of belonging, justification, expectations and what Kobena Mercer has termed, the ‘burden of representation’ which is concerned with how the cheongsam may impose on the wearer the responsibility to represent the Chinese community as well as its history and tradition.7 Wearing the cheongsam was always fraught with weird sort of conflicting kinds of feelings because, this is pretty I want to wear this, but then you got that whole ‘do I really want - do I want to

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__________________________________________________________________ do this? Am I ready to face the world wearing this? Is some idiot going to drop a dumb comment?’ (TL, 42) It is something that I do in spurts and in specific moments when I happen to feel safer doing it. (AJ, 25) When presented with the decision to wear the cheongsam out in public, women expressed difficulty in dealing with questions coming from the dominant culture that would have them explain and justify their heritage. Patronizing comments would also bring about the feeling of being reduced to a stereotype, or of being objectified, where expectations about what Asian women wear would have them essentialized as Other, denying any mutability or complexity of identity. A fear of inadequacy about representing their heritage was also apparent. Women who have been born and raised in Canada, who have lost or never had the use of a Chinese dialect, or who are of mixed Chinese heritage fear that they will be considered imposters when wearing the cheongsam within the Chinese community. As a result, painful consideration goes into deciding when and if to wear this dress, a deliberation that is linked with protecting oneself. And because my mother came when she was 13, she had an idealized idea of what the cheongsam was all about and for her it was a great pride to wear the cheongsam. For me it was a completely different thing. As I got older it got more comfortable, but for me as a young child it was like ‘Uggh’. Like, why do you want to underline that Chinese-ness of yourself? (TL, 42) Like TL, a few of the women expressed ambivalence about displaying their Chinese-ness, and are aware of all the nuances and complicated sub-categories that can go on forever in regards to defining what being authentically Chinese is or means. Their experiences as Canadian-born Chinese women have helped them to develop a mastery of a number of aspects of Canadian culture such as language, customs, dress and even body language, that allow them to slip and move between the splits and binaries of their Canadian and Chinese selves as strategies for survival. These abilities, however, can be accompanied by a complexity of contradictions where one is not always certain how to reconcile the fear of rejection with the declaration of one’s ethnic origins. Ambivalence also arises in a discussion about the physical constraints of the cheongsam that not only elicits discomfort for the body, but produces a hesitancy related to a consciousness of the body and the possibility of negative readings of a figure-hugging dress.

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__________________________________________________________________ You have to have the right mindset to be in it because it can be very oppressive, and really stuffy. Sometimes you don’t feel right. You can feel very exposed and uncomfortable in it. (LS, 35) While women find the dress beautiful, they also experience varying degrees of discomfort that can be inflicted by its restrictive cut, which disciplines the body, forcing the wearer to walk straighter, taller and with a more considered gait. In her book The Cheongsam, historian Hazel Clark writes that the evolution of the cheongsam coincided with changes in political and cultural shifts, which encouraged greater freedom and equality for Chinese women. The form-fitting silhouette however, influenced by Hollywood ‘fashion’ in the 1930’s meant women’s bodies would be revealed like never before. The notion of emancipation through movement is confounded by the tightness of the cheongsam, which imposes the ‘fashion’ ideal of a thin body shape upon women. I go and I try them on and they wrinkle in certain places and they have extra material in others and the saleslady will reassure me that they can take it in and make it all fine. But it’s not comfortable to be in and I feel self-conscious about my body and the excesses of my body…and how the dress wrinkles whenever I sit down. (AJ, 25) Clark also cites the role of poster art in the formation and perpetuation of the commodification of the Chinese female around the world. 8 Images often depicted women wearing risqué-looking cheongsams and displayed in accommodating poses, creating an association between the dress, Chinese female sexuality and availability to the male gaze. One is forced to wonder therefore, how this alleged freedom may have actually masked a new kind of oppression for women, which is part of the apprehension around the wearing the cheongsam today. Position 3:

Assertion

Four out of five women spoke of the shame and embarrassment they felt as children who were teased and ostracized at school because of their difference. They desperately wanted to fit in with the predominantly white children that surrounded them and went to great lengths to prove that they were just ‘regular Canadians’. This meant suppressing any action or behavior that would underline their Chinese background. However, as these women became teenagers, exercising aspects of one’s heritage became a tool of assertion and empowerment.

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__________________________________________________________________ In terms of identity I do feel much more conscious of myself as a racialized person when I put these pieces of clothing on. It’s almost as though racialization and that whole process of realizing that I was a racial Other was beyond my control whereas when I put on certain pieces of clothing that connotes ‘otherness’ I am regaining control of that entire process and taking ownership of this identity that has kind of been thrust upon me. (AJ, 25) Post-colonial thought provides a number of theories of engagement for the postcolonial subject. ‘Hybridity’ a concept most often associated with Homi K. Bhabha, is a provocative term that provides ways to explore how wearing the cheongsam can inspire agency where fabric or detail choices can mix up or upset expectations about the dress and its wearer.9 Stuart Hall’s seminal 1993 essay ‘Cultural Identity and Diaspora’ is also useful for its ability to describe how a sense of identity is contingent upon place, history and experience, all variables that are forever shifting. Hall celebrates the flexibility and mutability of identity, which resonates with the desire of some of these women to wear the dress as a way to allow their identities to continuously morph and re-shape. With me being mixed when I wear it sometimes people will be like, why are you wearing that. Which is a little bit tedious, but I suppose at the risk of sounding a little self-righteous I feel like I have a right to wear it. I don’t feel I should be questioned or I need to answer why I’m wearing it, I’m just wearing it because it’s a part of who I am. (AM, 39) The wearing of the cheongsam is a gesture that carries with it the courage to question hegemonies, to define one’s identity and to exercise empowerment. It is a tactic to affirm difference put forth on one’s own terms and definitions. There is a desire to resist the essentialism of identity as well as other types of baggage that expose power struggles over who belongs and who does not. Putting an end to selfeffacement, these women use the cheongsam to assert a set of ideas that are complex, multi-faceted and ultimately unapologetic. Position 4:

Performance

Wearing the dress for all of these women constitutes a performative act that is contingent and negotiated on an ongoing basis. What is fascinating about the notion of performing identity in this instance is that while these women want to claim their Chinese heritage, they are quite aware of how they may take on a role or play out an interpretation of their Chinese selves when wearing the cheongsam. Dorinne Kondo provides reassurance that these performances are not hollow

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__________________________________________________________________ gestures, by building on Judith Butler’s ‘performance theory’. She states that ‘the enacting of identities in fact brings those identities into being, rather than expressing some predetermined essence’.10 This idea therefore fuels the notion that identities are fluid and can be performed as a way to connect with the disparate, hidden or erased senses of oneself. This argument also allows for the opening up of re-combinations of various elements that can inform one’s identity, where clothing can be a part of that exploration. It’s like playing drag where you dress up in another gender. You try on that other gender for size but it’s not necessarily something you do in your everyday life. You enjoy doing it in a particular moment because of ways it enables you to inhabit your body…but also your identity and feeling out these new corners and these new spaces of your identity that are often so left unexplored. But for me it’s so performative, particularly because these are not clothes that I was encouraged to wear growing up. So when I put them on there is a very self-conscious choosing of something that is almost a little bit forbidden even though it is apart of my history. (AJ, 25) So at times it is a bit of that dressing up. It’s somewhere for me, it’s somewhere between costume and tradition and the honour and the respect to your ancestors you know, it’s a combination of all those things. And all those apply when you put it on. (LS, 35) The consciousness of performing an imagined perception of a Chinese identity further feeds aspects of hesitance that the interviewees have towards the cheongsam. How can one assert one’s Chineseness by wearing the cheongsam without re-inscribing gendered, Orientalist discourses or committing autoexoticization? One way of navigating this ambivalence is to consider Sandra Niessen, Carla Jones and Ann Marie Leshkowich’s ‘performance practices’ strategy, which synthesizes the ‘performance theory’ of Judith Butler, further developed by Dorinne Kondo, with the ‘practice theory’ outlined by Michel De Certeau and Pierre Bourdieu.11 The aim of this strategy is to track the constraints that shape and limit identity creation and subversion. This approach could be a way for women to actively engage with an understanding of the attraction and reservation that surrounds the cheongsam, allowing them to take control of wearing the dress rather than the other way around.

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__________________________________________________________________ Position 5:

Exclusion

If there was any doubt about whether clothing is contested terrain, the question of who should be allowed to wear the cheongsam makes it clear that it is. Three out of the five women strongly felt that only Chinese women or women of Chinese heritage have the right to wear this dress, an attitude that came as a shocking surprise to some. I don’t want to uphold Chinese culture. I shouldn’t be the one doing that just because I wear a cheongsam. But mind you in the same breath if a white chick was wearing a cheongsam I’d say no, what the hell’s she doing in a cheongsam! So I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. I can’t believe that this is how I feel. They don’t compute, they don’t equal to each other but this is how I feel. (TL, 42) Because this interviewee considers herself open-minded, she is genuinely shocked by her insistence that the cheongsam should only be worn by Chinese women, when she, a woman of Chinese heritage, is not always comfortable wearing a cheongsam. She is troubled by her own essentialist distillations of this dress, which she associates with a very narrow definition of tradition, authenticity and Chinese-ness. Another woman expressed the outrage she would feel if she were to witness a white woman wearing the cheongsam. She would feel compelled to question the woman’s motives and claim to wear the dress. It would just be one of those things where I would get angry and I would just desperately want to ask, so why are you wearing this piece of clothing, like where does it come from, wondering if it’s some form of cultural appropriation from someone who is in a privileged racial position of appropriating an ethnic symbol to maybe give herself an air of exoticness or buy into certain fetishes…and that would be just an automatic suspicion for me. (AJ, 25) Responses such as these are evidence that for diasporic Chinese Canadian women, the cheongsam is full of contention as a jealously guarded object. Linked with power, privilege and one’s own questionings this garment, it is a site of profound and often hidden insecurities. On the one hand, its beauty is seductive and brings about the desire to lay claim to wearing it, and excluding it from others. On the other hand, it can underscore one’s difference in a society that covertly promotes homogenous culture. Deeply ingrained concepts of authenticity and

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__________________________________________________________________ tradition as ‘pure’ and therefore superior contribute to further confusion when it comes to what constitutes an authentic or traditional cheongsam and who can and cannot wear it. Is the authenticity of this dress measured by who has made it, by what fabric it was made of, the provenance of that fabric or the techniques employed in its creation? Anxieties about these questions are mitigated by Margaret Maynard’s writings as she contends that ethnic clothing is relational and in continual process. She states, ‘There is no habitual way of defining ethnic dress nor can it be expressed in terms of its stasis.’12 It will always be affected by historical, cultural, economic and practical influences, and therefore, almost any cheongsam can be considered authentic. Eicher further opens up the definitions of authenticity and tradition with the idea that the meanings of ethnic clothing are mutable. The way that ethnic clothing is made and worn will continue to evolve as a result of the variety of forces and everyday practices experienced and exercised by diasporic people. What is revealed in these statements at this point in time however is that wearing the cheongsam is a privilege that you are born with or that could, with great difficulty, be earned. Because clothing is a material concern, it is crucial to examine cheongsam wearing practices against the issues of class and socio-economic power when it comes to a discussion of exclusion and the wearing of this dress as a gesture of agency. In many ways, wearing the cheongsam can be deemed an elite and exclusive practice. Popularized by socialites and upper class women, this dress was a made-to-measure garment prior to the arrival of mass manufactured clothing. Once mass produced clothing made its way into the buying habits of consumers, having clothes made this way became prohibitively expensive even for the middle class. Having custom made clothing became a luxury only accessible for special occasions or for the wealthy. Most of the women interviewed expressed how the cheongsam has become a dress that should ideally be custom-made as mass-produced cheongsams are often ill-fitting and of lower quality. However, Margaret Maynard’s work in Dress and Globalization demonstrates that people employ all kinds of interesting strategies to express themselves with clothing regardless of income. The interviewees supported this idea by describing how they are wearing cheongsams they have inherited from family members, buying them second hand or having them made in less expensive and precious fabrics. They are even going for the store bought versions but looking for less typical fabrics and patterns. These practices therefore, demonstrate the creativity and ingenuity of women to explore the limits of expressing their identities through the cheongsam regardless of economic barriers. It is not the prestige or the price of the dress that matters. What is important is its value as a marker of cultural and ethnic identity.

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__________________________________________________________________ Position 6:

The Precision of Language

When referring to the cheongsam, the women take a very clear position on which terms can be used to describe the dress. In particular, they were critical of the words ‘costume’ and ‘fashion’ with regard to the cheongsam. Yeah, there is a difference between wearing a costume and someone who is wearing a cheongsam - a real cheongsam. Because the costume is about a costume. It’s about dressing up being something that you’re not and playing something that you’re not. With the dress-up cheongsam at Halloween I can also imagine hair in a big bun and chopsticks sticking out of your head. Do you know what I mean? So the intent is completely different. (TL, 42) The undeniable link between costumes and Halloween brings with it immediate associations with a temporary performance that is light and ‘just for fun’, as one pretends for one night to be someone or something else. For this woman, to think of the cheongsam as a costume risks the distillation of an ethnic identity to that of a mere stereotype rendering the dress cheap and superficial, denying any reverence for the history and culture surrounding the garment as well as any connection or meaning that the garment may generate for the wearer. Similarly, ‘fashion’ was a term that women found challenging. Because the dress is so charged with meaning, it cannot be thought of having anything in common with the erratic and commercial world of ‘fashion’. I would never call the pieces of clothing that I have inherited ‘fashion’ because that is such a Western concept for me that it’s antithetical to the kinds of histories that I’m putting on when I’m putting on those clothes. I’m trying to make a certain kind of statement [due to] the racialized division between…the Western ‘fashion’ world that is promoted on the runways of New York and the kind of anonymity that is attached to the kinds of clothing that I have inherited. It’s just two different worlds and two different words that lead down paths of connotation that I would never connect to one another. (AJ, 25) For this woman, the cheongsam is symbolic of her family ties, which anchor her sense of self and identity. In this way, her clothing is not affected by the seasons, nor does it go out of style. Ethnic clothing represents a constant that grounds her to her past and inspires the guarding and nurturing of its memory. However, where this discussion becomes contested yet again is when we recall

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__________________________________________________________________ how a number of these women have themselves used the terms ‘dressing up’, ‘costume’ and even ‘fashion’ in their own statements about the dress. What becomes significant therefore is ‘who’ is doing the speaking. In the same way that it is only permissible for a woman of Chinese heritage to wear a ‘real’ cheongsam, it is only acceptable for a woman of Chinese heritage to refer to a cheongsam as ‘costume’ or ‘fashion’ as the contextualization that she brings to the discussion is infused with the particular weight of her experience. 5. Adding Stitches There is much to investigate in the contemporary wearing practices of ethnic clothing in Canada, some of which have only been superficially touched on here. What these interviews show us is that a connection to one’s heritage is being expressed through the wearing of ethnic clothing, a practice that is contingent and negotiated on an ongoing basis, a strategy of survival as well as a tool for experimentation with one’s identity. The subject of clothing is preoccupied with far reaching questions that are pertinent to our sense of self, how it is informed and how we grapple with its communication. In this book Rachid Belghiti’s examines Said’s image of dance ‘as an empowering image which symbolically describes the ways through which Palestinians construct their history of struggle and failure.’13 This sentiment resonates deeply with this chapter, as the cheongsam can also register as symbolic of empowerment that commingles ambivalence and desire. Clothing is therefore alive with the concerns that inhabit our contemporary lives in the face of globalization and the questioning of national identity formation. The choices we make about what to wear are becoming a more complex set of semiotics that challenge and question a reductionist sense of self and the everyday practices of its representation. The respondents in this study describe a relationship with the cheongsam that is informed by experiences with relocation, racism, multicultural discourse, family upbringing, and media. This dress can be desirable for its beauty, its link with family, tradition, and the assertion of a Chinese identity. At the same time it can produce anxiety, where its display on the body can further underscore difference, which in the Canadian context has historically marked one as ‘Other’. It is this set of equal and opposite tensions that make this dress a site of contestation and wonder, both felt and lived in equal measure.

Notes 1

M Bhattacharyya, ‘Writing New Identities: South Asian Women, North America and three Asian-American Novels’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012.

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__________________________________________________________________ 2

M Mayrand Dress and Globalization, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2004, p. 5. 3 S Niessen The Globalization of Asian Dress, Berg, Oxford, New York, 2003, p. 24. 4 J C Forney, ‘An investigation of the relationship between dress and appearance and retention of ethnic identity’. Dissertation Abstracts International, vol. 42, no. 1-B, 1981, p. 2. 5 D Kondo, About Face: Performing Race in ‘fashion’ and Theater, Routledge, London and New York, 1997, p. 4. 6 T Assis, ‘Crioulas Media: Technology, Language and Identity from a Quilombola Community in Brazil to the Multicultural World’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy, Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 7 K Mercer, 'Black Art and the Burden of Representation', in Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies, Routledge, London and New York, 1994, pp. 223-258. 8 H Clark, The Cheongsam, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1999, p. 7. 9 H Bhabha, The Location of Culture, Routledge, London and New York, 1994, p. 86. 10 D Kondo, About Face: Performing Race in ‘fashion’ and Theater, Routledge, London and New York, 1997, p. 7. 11 S Niessen The Globalization of Asian Dress, Berg, Oxford, New York, 2003, pp. 22-23. 12 M Mayrand Dress and Globalization, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2004, p. 71. 13 R Belghiti, ‘The Image of Dance and the Narrative of Secular Culture in Edward Said’s After the Last Sky’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), InterDisciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012.

Bibliography Araeen, R., ‘A New Beginning: Beyond Postcolonial Cultural Theory and Identity Politics’, in The Third Text Reader on Art, Culture and Theory. R. Araeen, S. Cubitt, and Z. Sardar, (eds), Continuum, London, 2002, pp. 333-345. Assis, T., ‘Crioulas Media: Technology, Language and Identity from a Quilombola Community in Brazil to the Multicultural World’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy, Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Bannerji, H., The Dark Side of the Nation: Essays on Multiculturalism, Nationalism, and Gender. Canadian Scholars’ Press, Toronto, 2000.

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__________________________________________________________________ Barnard, M., ‘fashion’ as Communication. Routledge, London, 1996. Barthes, R., The ‘fashion’ System. McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd., Toronto, 1983. Belghiti, R., ‘The Image of Dance and the Narrative of Secular Culture in Edward Said’s After the Last Sky’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), InterDisciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Bhabha, H., The Location of Culture. Routledge, London and New York, 1994. Bhattacharyya, M., ‘Writing New Identities: South Asian Women, North America and three Asian-American Novels’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Bird, E. S., Dressing In Feathers: The Construction of The Indian In American Popular Culture. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1996. Butler, J., Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge, New York, 1997. Case, S. & S. L. Foster, Cruising the Performative: Interventions into the Representation of Ethnicity, Nationality, and Sexuality, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indianapolis, 1995. Chatteraman, V. & S. Lennon, ‘Ethnic Identity, consumption of cultural apparel, and self-perceptions of ethnic consumers’. Journal of ‘fashion’ Marketing and Management, vol.12, no. 4, 2008, pp. 518-531. Chuh, K. & K. Shimakawa, Orientations: Mapping Studies in the Asian Diaspora, Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 2001. Clark, H., The Cheongsam. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1999. Craik, J., The Face of ‘fashion’: Cultural Studies in ‘fashion’. Routledge, London, 1993. Curdt-Christiansen, X., ‘Made in China’, Not Just Any Dress: Narratives of Memory, Body and Identity. Peter Lang Publishing, New York, 2004, pp. 183-190. De Certeau, M., The Practice of Everyday Life. University of California Press Ltd., London, 2002.

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__________________________________________________________________ Eicher, J.B., Dress and Ethnicity: Change Across Space and Time. Berg, Oxford, 1995. Eicher, J.B., and M-E. Roach-Higgins & K. K. P. Johnson, Dress and Identity. Berg, Oxford, 1995. Fanon, F., Black Skin, White Masks. Grove Press, New York, 1967. Forney, J. C., ‘An investigation of the relationship between dress and appearance and retention of ethnic identity’. Dissertation Abstracts International, vol. 42, no. 1-B, 1981. Forney, J.C., N., Rabolt, ‘Ethnic identity: its relationship to ethnic and contemporary dress’. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, vol. 4, no. 2, 19851986, pp. 1-8. Fung, R., ‘Multiculturalism Reconsidered’, in Yellow Peril Reconsidered, P. Wong (ed), On the Cutting Edge Society, Vancouver, 1990. pp. 17-19. Hall, S., ‘Conclusion: The Multi-cultural Question’, in Un/settled Multiculturalisms: Diasporas, Entanglements, Transruptions. B. Hesse, (ed), Zed Books, London, 2000. Hall, S., ‘Cultural Identity and Diaspora’, in Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory, A Reader, P. Williams, L. Chrisman, (eds), Columbia University Press, New York, 1993. Hollander, A., Seeing through Clothes. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1993. Niessen, S., The Globalization of Asian Dress. Berg, Oxford, New York, 2003. Kaiser, S., The Social Psychology of Clothing: Symbolic Appearances in Context. Macmillan, New York, 1994. Kondo, D., About Face: Performing Race in Fashion and Theatre. Routledge, New York, 1997. Lurie, A., The Language of Clothes. Vintage Books, New York, 1983.

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__________________________________________________________________ Mackey, E., The House of Difference: Cultural Politics and National Identity in Canada. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2002. Maynard, M., Dress and Globalization. Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2004. Leong, R., Moving the Image: Independent Asian Pacific American Media Arts. UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press, California, 1991. Mitchell, K., ‘Different Diasporas and the Hype of Hybridity’. Environment and Planning D:Society and Space, vol.15, no. 5, 1997, pp. 533-553. Moy, J., Marginal Sights: staging the Chinese in America. University of Iowa, Iowa City, 1993. Narumi, H., ‘Fashion, Orientalism and the Limits of Counter Culture’, Postcolonial Studies, vol. 3 no. 3, 2000, pp. 311-330. Papastergiadis, N., The Turbulence of Migration: Deterritorialization and Hybridity, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2000.

Globalization,

Said, E., Orientalism, Vintage Books, 1978. Savigliano, M., Tango and the Political Economy of Passion, Westview, Boulder, Colorado, 1995. Shohat, E. & R. Stam, Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media, Routledge, New York, 1994. Spivak, G., ‘Can the Subaltern Speak’, in Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory, A Reader, P. Williams, L. Chrisman, (eds), Columbia University Press, New York, 1993. Tarlo, E., Clothing Matters: Dress and Identity in India. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1996. Taylor, L., The Study of Dress History. Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2002. Tobing-Rony, F., The Third Eye: race, cinema, and ethnographic spectacle. Duke University Press, Durham, 1996.

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__________________________________________________________________ West, Cornell, Beyond Eurocentrism and Multiculturalism. Common Courage Press, Monroe, ME, 1993. Wilson, E., Adorned in Dreams: ‘fashion’ and Modernity. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 2003. Cheryl Sim is by day the Assistant Curator at DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art. By night she is a media artist and musician. Her projects are inspired by feminist and post-colonial concerns that underscore an engaged approach.

Part Three Collective Interpretations and Identity Policies

Crioulas Media: Technology, Language and Identity from a Quilombola Community in Brazil to the Multicultural World Tiago Assis Abstract In this chapter I discuss issues around the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) by info-excluded communities, using the example of the experience of a Quilombola community in Brazil and the intercultural movement Identidades. The community is located in Conceição das Crioulas in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco. The struggle for land possession, led primarily by women, represents 200 years of the community’s history. Depleted at various levels, organized around a subsistence economy, the community additionally faces gender equality problems and the severities resulting from dry and arid land. With a history of conflict – including the construction of their Quilombola identity – their tradition of participatory decision-making, which transformed them into a nationally studied model, created the need for the population to access the means to tell their own history and also to serve their collective struggles and aspirations. This need brought the community together with ‘Identidades (identities) intercultural movement’. In April 2005, as a result of this experience, a group of young members of this community formed ‘Crioulas Vídeo’ (creoule video) and their contact with ICT started at this time. They are the first Quilombola producers, and nowadays use video, photography and the web as a means of expression, in an autonomous and independent manner. This chapter will examine the impact and the consequences of ICT in terms of power, culture, language and identity, using the Conceição das Crioulas collective experience as a reference. It will question the implementation of technologies that were developed from Western models, ignoring and excluding other societies and cultures such as the community in question. Finally, this chapter relates this experience to some debates in the Multiculturalism, Conflict and Belonging conference. Key Words: Identity, Quilombola, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), power, culture, language, interface, conflict, media, extensions. ***** 1. Culture as a Medium The orchestra of xylophones of the VaChopi – people who inhabit the south-east of Mozambique, in Inhambane province – is called timbila. Timbila is the plural of m'bila, the name that people give to the marimba. To the sound of the Timbila orchestra, the dancers move their bodies, muzimba, frantically.

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__________________________________________________________________ Timbila and muzimba are closely linked, as there is in Chopi a close link between kusinha (dance) and kuveta (play), full communication that can lead to dialogue between soloists of both parts.1 Timbila Muzimba is a group that combines musical instruments, rhythms and melodies of the Mozambican tradition with images and sounds of the contemporary world. Together with the timbilas it is possible to witness, the sounds of a bass guitar and a saxophone. Basically, the contemporary and the traditional adapt to each other, because, Timbila Muzimba is an urban cultural environment more than a band, continuing the VaChopi in the contemporary context. One may believe that electric instruments and gadgets brought modernity to this environment, but actually bass guitar and saxophone entered the kuveta and kusinha of timbila and cannot be disconnected from them; they are part of a whole and cannot be heard or played separately. For music producers this indivisibility produces, an unusual conflict because it is not possible to record the instruments separately since they can only act as a whole. There is no score to follow, there is only Timbila Muzimba: a culture that mediates with the instruments! In The Spell of the Sensuous, David Abram’ premise: ‘we are human only in contact and conviviality, with what is not human’ does not imply the renunciation of our complex technologies; it rather implies ‘that we must renew our acquaintance with the sensuous world in which our techniques and technologies are all rooted.’ Abram seeks to explain the importance of technologies in our progressive separation from nature, saying that it was the animate earth that allowed the emergence of these technologies.2 Timbila Muzimba integrates electronic technologies, maintaining the indigenous VaChopi oral culture as a medium, where this relationship with the animate earth remains. The electric bass, despite carrying the ‘distanciation’ from the animate earth, together with the timbilas, does not prevent us from approaching the sensuous world of the Vachopi. This issue of separation and return is present in all technologies and to regard culture as a medium is the basis of the integration of the various instruments that they can compose. When we speak of ICT, we have to keep in mind that these technologies carry with them the weight of a distance, the largest to which man manages to extend himself, and, at the same time, the need for approximation with the origin, from which these distances separate us: Nature. The Net is the word and medium that carries, absorbs and expands the ICT. In this chapter, we will analyse this medium from two perspectives: -

The Net as the need for a return, which frees us from logic and languages implied by various media. Nowadays, we can combine multiple possibilities of exploration of various

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media, breaking with their syntax as an opportunity to build new languages. The Net as a departure, insofar as it carries grammars produced in the Western world through related cities.

2. The Net as the Need for a Return We have to understand the media while framing them in their evolution throughout history, particularly in Western culture, in which the media characterize humans at the same time as the media is characterized. This symbiosis between technology and humans changed the perceptual field. At the same time the technology that was developed from the perceptual field is being altered. David Abram, following Merleau-Ponty says that ‘the event of perception, experientially considered, is an inherently interactive, participatory event, a reciprocal interplay between the perceiver and the perceived.’ And adds that ‘For language, although it is rooted in perception, nevertheless has a profound capacity to turn back upon, and influence, our sensorial experience.’3 The media are extensions of the human body. In the case of communication media, extensions of thought and of the body, that is, thought becomes the content of a medium, speech. By developing language, humans influenced their way of thinking. By inventing writing, they in a sense influenced perception, communication, thought, their brains and themselves. And in another sense influenced all the other media that followed: press, photography, cinema, internet, society, in short, themselves anew. A medium may always be considered as a multimedium. This is one of the conclusions we may take from the aphorism ‘the medium is the message’ 4. When we consider that the content of a medium is another medium, it is the content of a container. It is also true that if the medium is changed, the message is also inevitably changed. In the history of technology, several media have evolved and influenced one other in diverse manners: painting as a medium and painting in photography, for instance, are influenced by their development, and return and repeat that influence throughout history in a permanent symbiosis. We are referring to a bidirectional interaction: influence is scattered to the adjacent media, to the painting content (drawing) and the photography container (video). Therefore, successively, the appearance of a new medium or the changes suffered in a medium have consequences for all media. If we analyze a medium such as writing, the ‘container’ of speech, we see, from its origin until today, a game between the human mind and language, in a symbiosis that shapes a system, at the same time as this system shapes its agents. Derrick de Kerckhove explains these origins, in The Skin of Culture, taking as his starting point the research of Denise Schmandt-Besserat, where the relationships between the invention of money and the invention of writing emerge. Kerckhove shows the consequences of an alphabetic model that conditioned our mind, at the

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__________________________________________________________________ same time that it was built by it: ‘Because of the sequential properties of our alphabetic conditioning, the western mind has also been trained to divide information into small chunks and reassemble them in a left-right sequential order.’5 According to Kerckhove, this system had an impact on our mind and one of the effects was, for example, the invention of perspective. He concludes that ‘The alphabet has supported the basic inspiration and the models for the most powerful codes of mankind: the atomic structure, the genetic string of amino acids, the computer bit.’6 The very example of the alphabet as software keeps us in this fragmented world that separates the mind, as software, from its brain, as hardware. This is a continuation of ‘Descartes’ error’ in separating ‘mind from body’. 7 António Damásio acknowledges that this error could be ascribed to Plato, as does Abram, when he shows that the origin of this separation may be present in Hellenistic philosophy and in the Judeo-Christian tradition in that ‘Indeed, they both made use of the strange and potent technology which we have come to call ‘the alphabet’.’8 In the chapter ‘Globalisation, Transculturalism and Environment: Sharing and Understanding Indigenous Perspectives through Poetry’, we can find more reflections about the separation between mind, body and environment. 9 António Cuadrado-Fernandez shows us how to access the imagination of the poetry of the indigenous people, which is, from my point of view, inseparable from the animate earth. Humans shape language like language shapes humans. The media shape contents and contents shape media. Particularly when these contents are ‘needs’ or messages that need to expand their containers, developing technologies that create changes in people’s perceptions. In this crossroad of media, man himself becomes a medium carrying on the necessary mutations, from the invention of the alphabet and its consequences in human perception to the conception of a fragmented and fragmentary world. In this text I analyze the technological and social evolutions, that have culminated in a netocracy, (a society dominated by the power of the network), for a better understanding of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and of the Net in which the medium is the user.10 As McLuhan foresaw, the Net is an extension of the brain, electrical energy is pure information and, in fact, simulates the conditions of our central nervous system.11 It is therefore a privileged medium for the return and to renew our acquaintance with the sensuous world. If a medium such as writing transformed the world ’to its measure’, a fragmented world, a medium like the Net, like an extension of our ‘central nervous system’, probably gives us back ways of thinking and relating closer to our origin as humans. This does not mean to say that this is a regression; on the contrary, there is a need to free dormant logic and language by various media. The internet has already witnessed the deconstruction of grammars and syntaxes developed by the Western world, for example the oralization of writing and the introduction of ideographic characters such as the emoticon, the Renaissance perspective and the

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__________________________________________________________________ film grammar (frame, shot, scene, sequence introduced by D. W. Griffith), are dissolved in a multidimensional world. My second perspective – analyzing the influence of the Net with the bidirectionality that a medium demands – is a challenge that needs a generalized vision of human history. 3. The Net as a Departure and a Consequent Estrangement In this section I focus on the anthropological field in the classical sense and on urban anthropology at the same time. Man has transferred his evolution, the evolution of his own body, to extensions, thus accelerating the process of evolution. As an organism, man has created his own extensions by taking them to a specialization level in which they substitute nature; he created new worlds (cities, for example) and has inevitably fractured his relationship with the rural environment. Being Non-places, cities are collective areas articulated between political space (polis) and public space (urbs). Presently, polis, which may be mistaken with power, is actually merely strength; however it is not capable of controlling the urbs. As for the urbs, we already can speak of power, more accurately of potentiality, the true demonstration of the public space.12 In The Perfect Crime, Baudrillard speaks of the ‘disappearance of the Real’, making space for illusion and fiction, suggesting that the ‘extensions of man’ tend to be ‘exclusions of man’.13 The failure of today’s cities is the result of human extensions: a complete disentanglement from Nature and human condition. The polis has become a space that has stopped serving the urbs, and the urbs is composed by so many different individuals that they become more and more detached from the polis. The only aspects uniting them is anonymity, the constant search for identity in a ‘liquid modernity’14, and the refusal of polis. This failure obviously first took place in the so-called under-developed societies for several reasons. However, considering this chapter’s study, it remains important to study the cultural and technological causes. At present, with ‘nodalization’15 (extensive migration across national borders to cultural centers), instead of countries, the West is made of cities, borderless spaces; all the technology that has emerged has been configured and dematerialized, and it has also configured those cities; this is the Occidental man’s and extensions’ ‘biotope’. ‘Man and his extensions constitute one interrelated system. It is a mistake of the greatest magnitude to act as though man were one thing and his house or his cities, his technology or his language were something else.’16 This is the ‘cultural dimension’ invisible in the Western exportations to other countries, creating deep fractures with the other likewise-hidden cultural dimensions. The present model of the cities’ polis, of technologies and languages is condemned in front of an urbs profoundly related to Nature. This model is also condemned in the long run, by a complete withdrawal from Nature, with man forgetting and misunderstanding it. With this double perspective into account, we face the following problem:

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Facing culture as a medium and as a narrative, the discussion about ICT as fiction or scientific research media has much to do with the author’s perspective and with the public’s eye. Once we all live in fiction and narrative, will it be enough to merely introduce the new media to excluded villages, in order to let mediation be performed?

4. The Experience Since 1996, a intercultural movement called ‘Identidades’17 has been promoting relations between Mozambique, Cape Verde, Brazil and Portugal. This movement consists mainly of students and teachers of the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto (FBAUP) and is based in Gesto Cultural Cooperative. Today we may for example refer to, ‘Identidades - Portuguese group’ and ‘Identidades - Mozambican group’. This trend seems to be the result of the sharing feeling enveloping Identidades. From the various cultures traversed by Identidades, new groups with the same desires appear; it is thus no longer an energy emanating from Portugal, but an intrinsic energy of all joining countries, converging in the project proposed by Identidades: a truly intercultural movement. The trajectory of Identidades carried ICT to communities that are economically in a subsistence phase. The latest case, is the Conceição das Crioulas in the Brazilian Northeast, 550 km away from the capital Recife, far from the tourist destinations on the Brazilian coast. There are neither tropical beaches there, nor even drinking water. The place is barren and dry, surrounded by hills. In the eighteenth century, six black women have settled down in this adverse terrain and tried to survive. Women are leading this Quilombola community since the beginning, which still maintains its matrifocal spirit. Quilombos are an ethnic group of predominantly rural black population, descended from slaves, which defines itself through relationships with their land, kinship, territory, ancestry, traditions and cultural practices. The willpower of these women surviving in hostile environments, characterizes the community today and the struggle for land still continues with different contours. Approximately 3,800 people survive in the region, through to family farming and handicrafts. In addition to the disadvantages of the territory and the consequent lack of resources, the inhabitants, like their ancestors, struggle for what is theirs by right. The core of this struggle is about the possession and use of land usurped by large landowners. Crioulas have become prisoners of their land and habits. They have built their history autonomously, by overcoming the hardships; they have built their character by the organizational power that characterizes them and gained freedom in the spirit rooted in the handicraft that they nowadays embrace. The earth resists the Crioula and the Crioula resist the land until they are confounded with one another.

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__________________________________________________________________ Their land has been stolen, without understanding the strong unity linking the Crioulas and their land. Since August 2003, invited by the Centro de Cultura Luíz Freire, Identidades is involved in various activities in the Conceição das Crioulas. In 2004, during a meeting, the community's interest rose towards the Video Workshop provided by Identidades, particularly in Mozambique and Cape Verde. The people of Conceição das Crioulas were used to seeing documentaries and stories about their own community, but the result never pleased them. They never identified themselves with the stories told by others and wanted to tell their own story through a videographic medium. Identidades provided the media and expertise to perform this task, and in April 2005, the organization offered a video workshop for five days at the Conceição das Crioulas’ Vila-Centro. The equipment provided included an Apple iMac G4, a Sony ‘digital 8’ video camera, a tripod and a microphone. During this workshop, the Crioulas Vídeo was born; this team has since produced several videos from the community. In April 2005, computers, cameras and video were absolutely new here, having been seen only with visitors and in occasional workshops. The Conceição das Crioulas Quilombola Association (AQCC) had an old PC for office use. The relationship with new technology was practically nonexistent and the participants in this workshop were taking the first steps. In front of cameras, people would come closer or feel uncomfortable. Suspicion hovered and curiosity never disappeared. In the community the few that had television shared it, placing the set in front of the window, facing the road, so that everyone could see. At that time, in a predominantly rural community, people in the middle of the road looked towards the interior of a house and saw the outside world beyond Conceição. In August of the following year, Internet broadband arrived to AQCC (the single post in the community). In the meantime Crioulas Vídeo has produced over 20 videos, independently and professionally. The people are no longer shy in front of the camera. Video has become a political tool, a true weapon of promotion of Conceição and, sometimes, the proof that was lacking of the hostilities suffered by the community. In August 2007 there was no mobile network in Conceição das Crioulas, but several people used a multimedia phone in Salgueiro, the nearest city, almost 42km away. Credit systems have also arrived. Several houses now have a TV, satellite and a DVD player. Some already have a refrigerator despite the impossibility of filling it up with food. Drinking water is closer but still inaccessible. The world invades Conceição with its vices. The ‘Information Project’ came to Conceição. What is the role of the people who resist and keep struggling for their land and identity? Crioulas Vídeo increased their videographic productivity with their documentary ‘Serra das Princesas’, broadcast by Recife University TV as well as by the Portuguese festival Tom de Video in Tondela . The team participated in a

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__________________________________________________________________ collective documentary project ‘Açude de Conceição’, which was selected for the audiovisual festival Visões Periféricas. They receive commissions from various institutions and through this generate income. The team also trained new members from the community’s youth and also began to train other Quilombola communities. It is one of the major community institutions and well known in other Quilombola communities. Yet the message needs to go further. We decided, therefore, to take a further step and create a multimedia workshop. The Internet usage in AQCC was focused on email exchange, chats and little else. Many have their own MSN, Orkut and Hi5 accounts, yet we wish to start using this medium as a broadcaster and generator of the Conceição das Crioulas Quilombola identity. To this effect we organized a web publishing workshop with two Crioulas Vídeo members. In this workshop we created the Crioulas Vídeo and community website.18 Hoping to develop with upcoming workshops, a working group explores this new medium in the same way they have done with video. 5. The Interfaces: Netocracy and Africa A new culture has developed in this technological world. Those closer to the structures of new media understand the Internet’s power in terms of control of the masses. A new class has arisen that dominates the masses and don’t follow the paradigms of the past: They are the 'netocrats', who manipulate information artistically, managing to capture the attention of the multitudes and keep them prisoners of their webs.19 Once again, the consequences in terms of power, culture and identity are almost invisible if not hidden. When we open the door of the Net to a community, we are exporting the entire universe discriminating, isolating, and forgetting this community. We are, however, also offering these people a political tool to defend themselves from this world and to enable the community to expand their message and identity. Time will tell the benefits and damages of this process. We now believe that the benefit is addressed to the ‘developed’ world, by opening a window to a different way of living. By realizing that Africa is not limited to the continent and that, by virtue of globalization, it has multiplied into several communities around the world, we chose the Quilombola community of Conceição das Crioulas because it lives the deep contrast of the issues addressed: the community lives in constant search of its Quilombola identity, whose deepest roots remain in Africa. In the search for new media as means of expression of their identity, the community finds languages that are not theirs. These new media, supposedly integrating and bringing time and space closer, such as their past in Africa, at the same time distance the community with grammars and syntaxes developed for the Western world, bringing conflict to this process. The community is in a rebuilding process, from its identity to the media it uses. Everything is questioned. With regard to this issue, it is also up to us to reduce and understand this separation, using new media for recuperation and

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__________________________________________________________________ integration purposes. The Internet, potentially demanding universal accessibility and participation in the creative process of new languages, is in rupture with oneway media. If this process of reconstruction is a parallel challenge to info-excluded communities, embracing them in the same project will be the first step to success. We can only assess that we did not find multiculturalism in this project, we understand the other as opposed and it is in conflict that we find an authentic intercultural laboratory; a laboratory where ‘guinea pigs’ – ourselves and others – are in deep reconstruction and in need of rebuilding their languages and interfaces, in order to face this experience. In an internet increasingly focused on semantics, we do not find a universal translating interface, nor do we find the translation of certain African words in the world of information. It is necessary that they appear and inspire these new media, spaces and times. Like Timbila Muzimba incorporated the contemporary instruments in their band, hopefully African culture will engage with ICT transforming these and themselves. By using them with the close connection existing between new media and Nature, let us learn from and in Africa what we have been losing with our extensions. 6. Intercultural Labs: Launching the Debate This intercultural laboratory, promoted by the ‘Identidades intercultural movement’, is as important in the context of research and internal action as in its confrontation in debates with the exteriority of the movement. To the relation between return and estrangement, we have added the relation between ‘inside and outside’, linking frontiers that, in such context, lose their configuration and bewilder our crucial references. These are conflicting spots we had to face. They are the basis of the identities carried and faced in each space during this experience. Conscious of moving on risky grounds and in a permanent quest for balance, we have ignited several inertias as a counterbalance, knowing that when the participative dynamics are potentiated, or when a single community is given power through technology, such power drives in different uncontrollable directions, starting by learning the sense of experience. In this way, we acquire the power in a configuration process that the power is released for others. This game of power resignation is inevitable, which prevents the balance between the parts (the communities and us), maybe contributing even more to the imbalance than the inherent social-cultural inequality. In this conflict, we have studied the hypothesis concerning the suspension effort of the improvements which are endogenous to the movement itself. In that sense of sought apathy, we have moved forward with a set of actions coming out from the needs of the community. Therefore, the greater effort is to hold back our own rhetoric, our own certainties and habits because we know that these impulses may more easily lead to ruptures rather than strengthen the relationships we have embraced. Those impulses suspend the immediate

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__________________________________________________________________ successes of the experience so that this experience may also be developed in unknown areas, more exactly what we want and what we can learn. This process, understood as a method, allows the actions to swallow us and savour themselves, following the concepts of Brazilian 'Antropophagy movement' and 'tropicalism'. It also permits learning to reciprocally emanate from the processes and avoiding the risk of adopting a paternalist attitude, or to make use of the exercise of power. From each individual’s point of view, I believe that we also seek the unknown inside ourselves, the inter-subjective space that is neither the self nor the other: neither space.20 A space inside each one and the other that belongs to no-one, but from where one can express belongingness to difference. In the Identidades movement, both multiple ‘experiences’ and the study of everyone involved are subjects of reflection and discussion at a regular basis. This habit has evolved into systematization and organization of the participative reflection, which we identify as a field of action and research. In this sense, the roots of this reflection lie in action, and this particularity has determined what has become the conducting line of the movement: the need to merge reflection and activities. Action has led us to research (not to mention that research may lead us to action) and has strengthen the intercultural sense in the activity and its own dynamic, where the production of shared knowledge only supports and strengthens the path, removing the possibility of deviating its course. The nature of this process binds the potentiated and promoted research, focusing on the problematic which makes the movement move. However, the pursued thoroughness and ‘scientism’, both derived from the community’s interests and necessarily and consciously from our interests, concerns and epistemological accuracy, are never cast aside. Everybody’s earning is shared with the others and it has never become a collectivized force, but only a set of forces filled up with the enriching multiple personalities embodying it, thus establishing relations among themselves, even in a contradictory and conflicting manner. This strength avoids the formation of a doctrinaire collective, where imposition rules. These are the tensions that keep the movement together, which is established by the game of affectations that determines its volunteering, democratic and participative sense. The conscious rejection of having collective doctrinaire ideas derives from the organicity of this movement and from its ’dehierarchization’, therefore favoring the ‘shared lessons’ in debates, joint experiments, and in daily life, for each participant’s individual and intimate ground. The effort lies in the establishment of objective, practical and reflective conditions so that everybody may acquire maximum experience and strengthen their knowledge, in order to preview new events, sustained in more developed epistemological constructions. Each participant belonging to diverse fields of action and research interconnects the otherness of their experience, cross their learning in movement, disseminates and discussed his/her ideas in (inter)national forums. There we find a new strength, a

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__________________________________________________________________ new knowledge coming from diverse spaces of organized knowledge, distant from our experiences, but whose parallels are visible and relevant for our activity. In the field of international and multicultural debates, the confrontation of ideas is assumed in an uncommitted and fearless way, or the quest for a qualified and deep understanding of the epistemological complexity that is part of the world of art, design and development and of artistic education. In this chapter, the quest for inertia in the field of intercultural action is understood in an inverse manner and dispensable in favor of a declared search for conflict, authority and fight for power. We face these academic spaces as another ‘community’, as another experience in which, transformed by the activities we submit ourselves to, we carry those actions of knowledge and meaning and the uncomfortable feeling of imbalance in which we move. This consciousness justifies our scientific interventions and endows them with a positive, factual, affirmative and emotionally involving weight. 7. Society as Fiction In ‘the Net as a return and departure’, we pointed out life between ‘narrative and fiction’, evoking the presence of a subjacent narrative in everyone, at least in the history of these cultures. It is a space of the imaginary inspired in reality, which transforms reality at the same time. In this aspect, the distinction between fiction and reality becomes diffuse, particularly when the space that tells both stories, fiction and reality, is the medium space. It is not surprising that, in a century marked by audiovisual domination as the twentieth century was, the essence of history has been represented by cinema, as it was the technology that best expressed this essence, often anticipating it.21 Actually, within the audiovisual media, we could have been tempted to select the documentary model as the most appropriate portrait of the 20th century’s history. But cinema remains in fact the closest to this history and portrays it more accurately.22 Fictional space is inherent to political space. The latter contaminates the first, having made it an instrument of the various ideologies throughout history. The History of the West enables us to make this statement. The documentary format has often been used as propaganda and directly as a political instrument. Cinema has also been used many times as a political instrument, but being the great model of consumption was what most transformed our sensuous world and reality itself that, let’s not forget, is a consumer reality. Essentially, the anachronistic properties of cinema and fiction were often able to anticipate reality more efficiently than any other documentary focused on the future. We emphasize that, more than the idea of country, the idea of city prevails in the Occident and although the polis, as a political space is close to fiction and detached from the urbs, cities did not become fiction due to the urbs. Albin Wagener defined ‘nation’ as fiction in the session ‘Problematizing Nationalism’ of the conference Multiculturalism, Conflict and Belonging (2010), and develops this

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__________________________________________________________________ concept with respect to ‘access to French citizenship’ in his chapter: ‘Representations and Defence Processes in Cross-Cultural Conflicts: France and the Case of its ‘National Identity’.’23 It seems that today’s nations are fictions or a nation is ‘an imagined political community.’24 These fictions support politics and are also used to support certain cities usually known as capitals. The concept of nation has become obstructive to the country administration in several grounds. We are interested in analyzing this from a multicultural perspective. The idea of nation is an illusion of belonging which hides culture. We realize that in intercultural relations, the local/regional is a more important referent than nationality. Forgetting this aspect has led independent countries to adopt the former colonizing countries’ language, which has culminated in the disappearance of hundreds of autochthones languages, often leaving the search for identity in one of the few remaining ‘ethnic heritage(s)’, i.e. traditional clothes. As Cheryl Sim shows us in chapter: ‘The Cheongsam: A Site of Wonder and Contestation for Canadian Women of Chinese Heritage.’25 Parts of narratives still remain in these habits, a fictional and real space waiting to be rescued by people, like a Crioulas Vídeo which may be able to transform that space into an image, or Timbila Muzimba which may give narrative back to the ‘image of dance’ (inseparable from music). The narrative of culture, present in the 'image of the dance', can also be rescued in the text and photo of a book, as in the concrete case: ‘The Image of Dance and the Narrative of Secular Culture in Edward Said’s After the Last Sky’ that Rachid Belghiti presents in this volume, showing the epistemological fields open by this ’image of the dance’ and how that image transforms the structure of the narrative of the book itself. 26 In a wider sense, the whole society is fiction and only people are real – it is from this perspective that Jacques Rancière explains what emancipation is: ‘learn how to be equal in an unequal society.’27 We insist on the idea that both in rural and in urban areas, laboratories of ideas start in urbs, people, and culture. It is in acting and observing within the several cultural experiences that we may analyze what might be the principles of intercultural politics. If there are ‘thick’ and ‘thin’28 aspects in cultures, attention and discussion about both should be balanced. Western politics suffers from the temptation to only discuss the thick aspects, because these can be regulated. As one is tempted to again evoke Baudrillard: ‘Touche pas à ma différence’ (Hands off my difference!), following his findings about ‘Rights as universal reference’.29 But, concluding positively, I prefer to refer to the importance of tenuous (or thin) aspects like the connection to the sensuous world with culture. 8. Media Rethorics Crioulas Vídeo’s early work, using fiction inspired by the stories and legends of the community, strengthened the relationships of the group and of Crioulas Vídeo with the community, manifesting a great sense of belonging. As works became

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__________________________________________________________________ more institutionalized, either for the community or for the exterior like the Quilombola National Movement, and although those were very important works at a political level, such feeling of belonging seemed to fade away both in internal relations within the group and in the object itself, which is contaminated by medium grammar. Several factors contribute to this, but the determinant factor is the rhetoric of the medium. The fact that the use of a medium implies ‘team work’ and ‘work organization’, establishes relational dynamics that makes decision sharing about ‘contents’ more scattered and often negotiated with ‘external’ interferences (either collaborative or ordered). The media impose a regulation (grammar) on the language so that ‘thick’ aspects do not leave much space for ‘thin’ aspects. In the language field, what, may survive within the medium rhetoric may be literally translated, i.e. transliterated. What often cannot be translated, due to the strength of culture, has to be transcreated, thus forcing grammar to be changed. Thus, if the message is changed, we have to change the media or its structure, mainly because the media grammar is not universal and may be built according to each culture. This is valid for any kind of technology. The withdrawal of some communities from the audiovisual reference world inevitably favor the search for a personal language which may be incorporated in laboratory contexts and therefore acquire a field resistant to appeals from the outside. When establishing a parallel between this small-scale videographic experience (Crioulas Vídeo), the cinema and the 20th century’s history, it may then be possible to establish that if the community members work with the audiovisual media using their imaginary and their own defined grammar, the community will be not only reporting its history, which was their first goal, but also edifying its own resistance to draw its future. 9. Eulogy to Darkness Technology Technological worlds still need to be discovered, submersed in cultures that did not have the opportunity to develop and organize knowledge about the latent technological competences, so that it could be adapted to the way living and sociological performances and solutions are configured. We recall Junichiro Tanizaki’s question: ‘if we in the Orient had developed our own science?’30 In the 30s, Tanizaki, disappointed with the disappearance of the shadow culture in the East due to the importation of the culture from the Western science and technology, put the hypothesis of the East to develop its own science, developing for instance the photographic technology, which would enable one to question: ‘how much better our own photographic technology might have suited our complexion, our facial features, our climate, our land.’31 These kinds of questions undress the commercial embarrassment made by facial recognition technologies that do not work in different ethnicities. These comical problems are far away from the invisible problems at the cultural level.

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__________________________________________________________________ In the image of the city of Singapore, presented by Michael Kearney, in the chapter: ‘Designing Identity: An Attempt to Manufacture Singaporeans’32, in an operative field, it is possible to separate two languages as official (mother tongue) and technological. This is a polis-like solution so that an urb can have access to technology and to ‘progress’. This urb is swallowed by technological rhetoric or it may take advantage of that aspect to use that neither space, being conscious of these two languages and of what separates them. This dividing place can be used to expand concepts and develop technology to serve the urb. Another possibility is to face this question as a complex one, and consider that division, impeditive of a science sustained by culture, as a technology at the urb’s service. It is not at stake whether culture derives from this hybridism. What is at stake is a space of knowledge in the shadow, which would emerge from the same spot where people ‘are born’, thus establishing the belonging relation of such knowledge with people. This way, technology is established at the service of culture. 10. A Political Return We constantly go back to politics and language because language is the political field. Ideas are completed in discourse, which is itself completed in media. If certain values are merged and mistaken and are mixed up to combine multiple ideologies and reach new values, which may satisfy this globalized world, there still is a possibility of rupture with the origin of these values. The difference is in the attempt to hold culture to ideological hybridism or, on the contrary, to make it from people and their ‘social’ experiences, i.e. to make it from cultures and everybody’s multiple identities and understand their new possibilities. We undoubtedly need both actions and also the tension between them. The first hypothesis will always be the top-down actions problem, which due to the urbs’ distance is separated from it in a liquid reality that tries to keep the urbs impotent. As we have already discussed, we place our field of action in the second hypothesis. We are conscious that the rupture with certain ideals such as introduced by Enlightenment does not mean to discard them, but that a society built upon those ideals may be reoriented on needs distinct from those that fostered these ideas. This means that we may understand that the idea of equality is intrinsic to the idea of human, and that society inevitably promotes inequality. The human is used as a protocol; it is the equality unit used in unequal circumstances. Learning how to be equal becomes emancipation in this irregular ground. It is from this emancipation that the dynamics of power should be changed and new meanings and ideals should be created. This plan’s premises consider that each unit can communicate with one other and that, in case of misunderstanding, this misunderstanding may be used. After all, this is the best space for emancipation. Emancipation is the great victory of translation, as it is explained by Rancière in The Ignorant Schoolmaster.

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__________________________________________________________________ Jacotot’s students’ adventure with the bilingual text – in the mother tongue and in a foreign language – has not only enabled them to learn a new language, but also to experience a deep interiorization of the text’s content. Above all, as Rancière tells, it is possible for an ignorant to learn from another ignorant; better said, all of us are ignorant and are learning from one other, because: ‘This poetic labour of translation is at the heart of all learning.’33 The translation exercise is another exploration of the possibility for language and thought to expand. Not only are we considering words; we mainly consider concepts because language may be the same, while culture may be different. In other words, the same concept circulating in different significance systems acquires different characteristics. In fact, words do not have meanings; they have uses. From the conclusions of Alejandro Cervantes-Carson, in the Multiculturalism Conflict and Belonging conference, we can understand this circuit, starting a concept in the assertion hemisphere in a ‘thick’ quadrant, moving to a ‘thin’ quadrant and descending to the assignment hemisphere, finding the possible designations.34 This fits into the technological moment we are experiencing. The sharing values held by networks become stronger, opening cultures in new communication channels: ‘Not necessarily of shared values, but of sharing the value of communication.’35 This is one of the possible responses to the problem of the ‘exclusive power of culture’ that Agnieszka Jarzewicz presents in the chapter: ‘Cultural Entanglements of Human Rights Discourse’36 There is no escape from the network contamination. We may consider the question of the meaning acquired by the network in each culture. What are the meanings present in the network within each culture? What emancipation capability do we create? Translation is also a challenge between the message and the medium. If the interfaces are technology ‘translators’, they will have to be built on culture, which will necessarily result in different interfaces for equal individuals. This is the communication society’s basic conflict, which emancipates in the multicultural field by using the network. This conflicting field gains ruling relevance in the intercultural laboratory promoted by the Identidades intercultural movement.37 It is important to recall that in the binary reality black is as important as white and that zero equals one. What we ensure as neutral from a technological point of view has to be ensured from a resistant and emancipating political point of view. Even in the network, there will be cultures that due to their ‘exclusive power’ will close networks and make them more obscure. The fact of being under the same protocol implies that those are potential doors to be opened. 38 A door is opened whenever two different cultures meet, tolerating their differences in order to communicate. These intercultural relations emerging from two cultures open a way to the redefinition of both cultures and even society, with the basic principles of communication, respect for differences and the need to tolerate the organization of conflict areas. This conflict is solved because we want to be equal, while culturally

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__________________________________________________________________ different. Communication becomes the ground to ‘put in common’ the differences to find new meanings and new differences. The space of conflict is the conflict experience, which may expand concepts in virtues fostered by languages. The space of conflict is the neither space, which we may wish to not reach or accept, in order to try to remain in ‘between’. Following Daniel Hameline’s thought: ‘So we’ll keep at a distance the seductions of a chimeric and anonymous rationality, without thereby reclaiming the symmetric folly of salvation through the desperate celebration of unique differences.’39 It is in the other that we may ‘belong’ and therefore create another identity among many others. This is the intercultural dynamic needed for multiculturalism, which, far from being unifying or based on domination, becomes plural and based on differences. Like the Net, which becomes a network of networks, we move from multiculturalism to multiculturalisms. This passage from the singular to the plural was suggested at the conclusion of the conference by Charlene Rajendran and we can follow it in the conclusions of her chapter: ‘Multicultural Belongings on the Contemporary Stage: Krishen Jit’s Theatre of Identity in Malaysia.’40 11. Conflict on Language We make new meanings out of daily routine; we give action back to the metaphysic plan in order to expand our limits. Our intercultural laboratory operates in actions between the communities and the Identidades members. Although such actions have their origin in communities, research about this activity is rarely focused on the problems of those communities, because this research emerges from everybody’s problems. This does not mean that we withdraw ourselves from the community’s problems; the problems are present in the activities and fundamentally in the emotional relationships established over the years and in the bonds of complicity established with the wishes of the populations. The research dynamics are focused on the community when the members of this community are implicitly involved in Identidades. In this sense, activities organized by Identidades in Mozambique, Cape Verde, Brazil and Portugal carry the members of each of these countries to an intercultural context, for the sharing of ‘all’ crossed problems and, naturally, for the discussion grounds as well as for action and research. Despite being united by the same language and having a shared history, cultural conflicts emerge and, in its ambiguity, language raises communicability problems. In the Artistic Education International Meeting (EIEA) in Cape Verde, the word ‘clarificar’ (clarify) was pronounced several times. Márcia, one of the Quilombolas leaders of Conceição das Crioulas did not agree and insisted that the term ‘negritar’ (blacken) should be used (in Portuguese the word ‘clarificar’ means to ‘make clear’, therefore highlighting an idea, for example; playing with the words and colors associated to them, can also mean to ‘make whiter’). ‘Negritar’ is a neologism coming from the word ‘negro’, ‘black’ in Portuguese. The word ‘negritar’ raised several questions; probably everyone

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__________________________________________________________________ associated them with the fact that the Quilombolas were mainly black. In Portuguese, negrito is also the ‘bold’ function in the word processor formatting tools used to highlight parts in a text (in this case ‘to darken’). Marcia has transformed this function into a verb giving it action and meaning. She gave it the highlighting sense associated to the word ‘clarificar’, but now belonging to the Quilombola point of view, adding a perspective, which enriches and expands culture, language, concepts and knowledge. Following Setsuko Adachi in the issues presented in this volume in the chapter: ‘Undermined Empathy, Undermined Coexistence: Japanese Discursive Formations Related to Empathy’41, one can say that if the word ‘empathy’ is missing in Japanese discourse, the hypothesis of its existence in other cultures raises the possibility of opening this ‘door’ in Japanese discourse. Opening this door not only widens Japanese discourse, but also the concept of empathy. The space of fiction is crucial for empathy as, if it did not exist, how would we imagine the other? Making use of Adachi’s idea, learning how to use empathy is more important than knowing or translating the meaning of empathy in each culture. The root of identity lies in the area contested with the other or with oneself. It is there that we understand where we belong or where we may belong to. In fact, the Babel myth was not a punishment; it was maybe one of the best accidents of humanity, as long as we give to misunderstanding a translation space of a permanent cultural maieutics.

Notes 1

T Muzimba, Por Conta Própria, Gesto Cooperativa Cultural, Porto, 2004, (CD Cover). 2 D Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-ThanHuman World, Vintage Books, New York, 1997, pp. ix-x. 3 Ibid., pp. 88-89. 4 M McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, The MIT Press, Cambridge, 1994, p. 7. 5 D de Kerckhove, The Skin of Culture: Investigating The New Electronic Reality, Kogan Page, London, 1997, p. 34. 6 Ibid. 7 A Damásio, Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, Penguin, New York, 2005, p. 248-250. 8 Abram, op. cit., p. 93. 9 A Cuadrado-Fernandez, ‘Globalisation, Transculturalism and Environment: Sharing and Understanding Indigenous Perspectives through Poetry’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 10 A Bard & J Soderqvist, Netocracy: The New Power Elite And Life After Capitalism, FT Press, London, 2002, p. 203.

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McLuhan, op. cit., p. 351. M Delgado, El Animal Público. Anagrama, Barcelona, 1999, pp. 192-209. 13 J Baudrillard, The Perfect Crime, Verso, London, 1996, pp. 35-45. 14 Z Bauman, Liquid Modernity, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2000. 15 Bard & Soderqvist, op. cit., pp. 134-135. 16 E. T. Hall, The Hidden Dimension, Anchor, New York, 1990, p. 188. 17 http://identidades.eu, last updated: June 5, 2011, viewed on June 19th 2011. 18 http://crioulasvideo.org, last updated: July 10, 2010, viewed on June 19th 2011 and http://conceicaodascrioulas.org, last updated: August 10, 2010, viewed on June 19th 2011. 19 Bard, op. cit., pp. 95-118. 20 A Cervantes-Carson, in the ‘Development Meeting and Closing Reflections’, broadening the discussion that had started in the communication: Anuradha Choudry, ‘Psyche East and West: The Problem of Identity and Strangeness’, at the 4th Global Conference - Multiculturalism Conflict and Belonging, Oxford, 2010. 21 J Rancière, Film Fables, Berg, New York, 2006, pp. 171-186. 22 Reflection on the talk ‘The Image in Question’ by Jacques Rancière at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 3 February 2010. See for example: Slavoj Zizek, Lacrimae Rerum, Translated by Luís Leitão, Orfeu Negro, Lisboa, 2008. 23 A Wagener, ‘Representations and Defence Processes in Cross-Cultural Conflicts: France and the Case of its ‘National Identity’’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 24 A Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Verso, London, 2006, p. 6. 25 C Sim, ‘The Cheongsam: A Site of Wonder and Contestation for Canadian Women of Chinese Heritage’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), InterDisciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 26 R Belghiti, ‘The Image of Dance and the Narrative of Secular Culture in Edward Said’s After the Last Sky’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), InterDisciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 27 J Rancière, The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1991, p. 133. 28 E Asaf Bekaroglu, ‘Belonging through everyday-life practices: The Dutch case’, 4th Global Conference - Multiculturalism Conflict and Belonging, Oxford, 2010. 29 Baudrillard, op. cit., p. 138. 30 J Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows, Leete's Island Books, Sedgwick, 1997, p. 7. 31 ibid., p. 9. 32 M Kearney, ‘Designing Identity: An Attempt to Manufacture Singaporeans’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 33 J Rancière, The Emancipated Spectator, Verso, London, 2009, p. 10. 12

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A Cervantes-Carson, ‘Development Meeting and Closing Reflections.’, 4th Global Conference - Multiculturalism Conflict and Belonging, Oxford, 2010. 35 A-M Târnovan, ‘Transcultural Values in the Network Society’, 4th Global Conference - Multiculturalism Conflict and Belonging, Oxford, 2010, quoting: Manuel Castells, The Network Society - A cross-cultural Perspective, Edward Elgar Publishing Inc, Massachusetts, USA, 2004, p. 39. 36 A Jarzewicz, ‘Cultural Entanglements of Human Rights Discourse’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 37 From where my own unrestlessnesses and the shaping of my technological performance pour. 38 The events in Tunes and in Cairo at the beginning of the year 2011 are the evidence that those technological doors are important for the polis control and for the urbs expression. 39 A Nóvoa (ed), Profissão Professor, Porto Editora, Porto, 1999, p. 40. Translated by me. 40 C Rajendran, ‘Multicultural Belongings on the Contemporary Stage: Krishen Jit’s Theatre of Identity in Malaysia’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 41 S Adachi, ‘Undermined Empathy, Undermined Coexistence: Japanese Discursive Formations Related to Empathy’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012.

Bibliography Abram, D., The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-ThanHuman World. Vintage Books, New York, 1997. Adachi, S., ‘Undermined Empathy, Undermined Coexistence: Japanese Discursive Formations Related to Empathy’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Agamben, G., La Comunità che viene. A comunidade que vem. Translated by António Guerreiro, Editorial Presença, Lisboa, 1993. Bard, A. & J. Soderqvist, Netocracy: The New Power Elite And Life After Capitalism. FT Press, London, 2002. Baudrillard, J., The Perfect Crime. Verso, London, 1996. Bauman, Z., Liquid love – on the frailty of human bonds. Amor Líquido. Translated by Carlos Medeiros, Relógio D’Água, 2006.

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__________________________________________________________________ ———, Liquid Modernity. Polity Press, Cambridge, 2000. Benedict, A., Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Verso, London, 2006. Belghiti, R., ‘The Image of Dance and the Narrative of Secular Culture in Edward Said’s ‘After the Last Sky’’. in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), InterDisciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Berenguer, F., Estructuras Hiperactivas. Sendema, Valencia, 2009. Castells, M., The Network Society - A cross-cultural Perspective. Edward Elgar Publishing Inc, Massachusetts, USA, 2004. Cuadrado-Fernandez A., ‘Globalisation, Transculturalism and Environment: Sharing and Understanding Indigenous Perspectives through Poetry’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Damásio, A., Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. Penguin, New York, 2005. Delgado, M., El Animal Público. Anagrama, Barcelona, 1999. Hall, E., The Hidden Dimension. Anchor, New York, 1990. Jarzewicz, A., ‘Cultural Entanglements of Human Rights Discourse’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Kearney, M., ‘Designing Identity: An Attempt to Manufacture Singaporeans’, in this volume’. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Kelly K., What Technology Wants. Penguin, New York, 2010. Kerckhove, D., The Skin of Culture: Investigating the New Electronic Reality. Kogan Page, London, 1997. McLuhan, M., Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. The MIT Press, Cambridge, 1994.

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__________________________________________________________________ Mouffe, C., The Return of the Political. O Regresso do Político. Translated by Ana Cecília Simões. Gradiva, Lisboa, 1996. Nóvoa, A., (ed), Profissão Professor, Porto Editora, Porto, 1999. Rajendran, C., ‘Multicultural Belongings on the Contemporary Stage: Krishen Jit’s Theatre of Identity in Malaysia’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Rancière, J., The Emancipated Spectator. Verso, London, 2009. ———, The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation. Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1991. ———, Film Fables, Berg, New York, 2006. Said, E., Orientalismo. Translated by Pedro Serra, Livros Cotovia, Lisboa, 2004. Sim C., ‘The Cheongsam: A Site of Wonder and Contestation for Canadian Women of Chinese Heritage’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Tanizaki, J., In Praise of Shadows. Leete's Island Books, Sedgwick, 1997. Wagener, A., ‘Representations and Defence Processes in Cross-Cultural Conflicts: France and the Case of its ‘National Identity’’, in this volume, A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Zizek, S., Lacrimae Rerum. Translated by Luís Leitão, Orfeu Negro, Lisboa, 2008. ———, Plaidoyer en faveur de l'intolérance. Elogio da Intolerância. Translated by Miguel Serras Pereira, Relógio d' Água, Lisboa, 2006. Tiago Assis is a researcher and teacher at I2ADS, School of Fine Arts, University of Porto - Portugal and a scholar at Valencia’s Universitat Politécnica, Spain.

Multicultural Belongings on the Contemporary Stage: Krishen Jit’s Theatre of Identity in Malaysia Charlene Rajendran Abstract This chapter argues that contemporary experimental theatre in plural postcolonial societies, such as that created by Malaysian director Krishen Jit, can be critically exigent in performing identity as multiple, overlapping and intertwined. I will demonstrate, with brief examples of Krishen’s work, how theatre that articulates what he termed ‘multiculturalism in one body’,1 engages with difference as inherent in societies with acknowledged histories of migration and mix. By depicting culture as a collage of difference rather than a pure and unitary collection of practices and ideas, these performances consciously resist essentialist frames of fixed and singular identities. They develop dialogical non-orthodox frames of staging through stylisations of form and abstractions of content that draw on interdisciplinary approaches to theatre. In the process they interpret and reflect the complexity of shared belongings and overlapping cultures that emerge in everyday life. Furthermore they acknowledge socio-historical and political perspectives by working with situated narratives. This asserts a multiplicity of belongings that need not destabilize rootedness but is in fact empowering through its openness. Key Words: Identity, cultural difference, multiple belongings, avant-garde theatre, liveness, postcolonial society. ***** 1. Introduction The increased global awareness of a critical need to negotiate cultural difference with insight and imagination, points to the growing presence and pertinence of multiplicity in all societies. More nations and communities over all continents, acknowledge the diversity in their midst and inasmuch as there is a celebration of this potential, measures are needed to deal with the tensions that emerge. As individuals and societies grapple with problems of prejudice and discrimination based on race, religion, gender, class, nationality and other categories of self and other, they are challenged to build bridges across divisions caused by ignorance and fear. Mutual respect and dialogical co-existence are needed to overcome notions of difference as primarily disruptive. As Paul Gilroy points out, … it is important to ask what critical perspectives might nurture the ability and desire to live with difference on an increasingly divided but also contingent planet? We need to know what sorts of insight and reflection might actually help increasingly

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__________________________________________________________________ differentiated societies and anxious individuals to cope successfully with the challenges involved in dwelling comfortably in proximity to the unfamiliar without becoming fearful and hostile. We need to consider whether the scale upon which sameness and difference are calculated might be altered productively so that the strangeness of strangers goes out of focus and other dimensions of basic sameness can be acknowledged and made significant.2 Hence the political will to recognise the relatedness of self and other, is strengthened when there is acknowledgement of both difference and sameness as inextricably linked in constructs of culture and identity. This makes crucial the ability to empathise with the other and recognise connectedness as part of a shift towards greater inclusivity. In postcolonial and plural Malaysia, experimental theatre director Krishen Jit (1939-2005) consciously set about developing theatre practices that provoked performers and spectators to recognise inter-relatedness through difference. He interrogated and expressed the dynamics of cultural multiplicity through a range of strategies that resisted ethnic absolutism. The intent was to enact the complexity of cultural interactions that exceeded the boundaries of official categorisation. However Krishen’s theatre did not deny the workings of these assignations of culture either. He drew on their situated histories and rootedness, but pushed towards an openness that allowed for reinvention and change. Using interdisciplinary approaches that allowed for mixed vocabularies of culture to intersect and integrate, Krishen devised ways of portraying identity that emphasised particularity, but incorporated ways of seeing that extended beyond the specific. Cultures and characters were contextually grounded yet exceeded their normative constructs. What was Chinese could also be Indian, and what was Western could also be Malaysian. The traditional was recognised as part of the modern, and the local was played as a metaphor of the trans-local. Thus multiplicity was recognised both within and between cultures, and identity was performed as a coherent collage of multiple elements. In so doing he produced critically exigent performances that not only depicted cultural difference, but also expanded the discourses of identity by urging for inclusive frames of multiplicity. Krishen3 consciously excavated what he termed multiculturalism in one body, refuting the dominant notion that differences of culture existed primarily between bodies. For this reason he often dramatised supposedly separate cultures as being interwoven, creating opportunities for performers and spectators to reflect on and participate in conscious and commonly experienced intersections of culture. Bearing in mind the rendering of bodies as primary determinants of identity that are often ascribed as singular rather than multiple, Krishen questioned the authority and valency of these constructs. He advocated a way of looking at selves and

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__________________________________________________________________ others as bodies with several ways of being framed. In an interview with this writer he noted that, ... in the case of plural societies such as Malaysia and Singapore, and even certain parts of India, multiculturalism is in one body. We tend to think of it as a negotiation between one body and another, but I actually think it is in one body and in many ways I have been trying to excavate that in one way or another. 4 To do this he experimented with a range of styles and forms, resisting a specific definable process as characteristic of his work. Just as Malaysian culture was continually in flux, so Krishen’s theatre responded to these shifts by engaging with emergent issues such as interculturalism, urbanisation and political agency. Theatre as a site of play and imaginative intervention was critical to his continual adaptation to socio-political change. This continual reinvention and relocation as a practitioner prompted a collage of difference even within his own theatre career – making that a distinct quality of his aesthetic innovation.5 In my view Krishen’s theatre was a powerful intervention in the Malaysian landscape of arts practice because it generated alternative ways of negotiating cultural difference, thus challenging the sanctioned rhetoric of the state. By creating experimental contemporary avant-garde theatre which emphasised a multifocal perspective, Krishen’s work contested narrow frames which insisted on separating and dividing culture in a multicultural society. Instead it staged Malaysian culture as a collage of contradictory yet related elements that were interconnected even if distinct. In my view these performances of identity provided critical perspectives that could ‘nurture the ability and the desire to live with difference’,6 and thereby advanced more inclusive options. I will discuss a few examples of how Krishen did this and why his work is significant as aestheticpolitical interventions in an increasingly mixed society – at national and global levels. 2. Staging Alternative Connections: Forging Identity as Collage In a world where globalisation has led to an appetite for technological connectedness across time and space, there is a need to reflect on cultural relatedness that engages difference as desirable. However, the tendency to lean towards growing obsessions with trans-national ‘terrorism’ has produced a growing sense of difference as threatening rather than an opportunity for enrichment. In the face of social uncertainty and violence, Arjun Appadurai points to an ‘anxiety of incompleteness’7 that exacerbates a fear of difference and rage against the other. The ‘elimination of difference’8 is sought, even as it is more difficult to avoid blurred boundaries. As a result there are relatively few spaces that

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__________________________________________________________________ provide positive reflective experiences of difference as empowering and integral to identity. Furthermore, the exoticisation of difference is used in service of tourism and consumerism, which capitalize on the superficial in order to maximize profit. The other is often framed as a curiosity, and commodified accordingly. As Gilroy notes, ‘previously separated worlds of absolutely difference groups can be made to leak. They bleed risk, pleasure, and excitement into one another as part of selling things and accumulating capital’.9 Here there is little room to interrogate situated histories, nor commit to egalitarian processes of social cohesion. The essentialised other is conveniently packaged to suit the powers that be – often as a peripheral entity compared to the dominant self. In addition, nationalist policies reinforce prejudicial notions of self and other, to perpetuate nativist myths that suggest purity and singularity of identity. The need to define core values of a society as hinged on one ethnic identity take precedence, as Albin Wagener discusses in relation to the French situation and the political move to articulate ‘Frenchness’ in ways that exclude cultural outsiders, who may nonetheless be national insiders.10 Social, cultural and ethnic cleavages are thereby deepened, through tokenistic representations that depict the other as conveniently oppositional. Otherness is framed as enticing for a brief captivating experience, but best kept at a distance within neatly categorised boxes. These sanctioned top-down constructs invariably neglect quotidian workings of cultures that are regularly in dialogue with difference on a daily basis. Favouring the centre, the periphery is unrepresented and rendered voiceless. Furthermore the marginal sites, where intersections overlap and integrate, are little acknowledged due to their transgression of sanctioned norms. Hence questions of how to take ownership of this otherness emerge. In projects such as Cheryl Sim’s ‘Cheongsam Project’,11 which attempts to understand the meanings of wearing a particular Chinese female dress for Chinese diasporic women in Canadian multicultural society at the beginning of the 21 st century, issues of authenticity and appropriateness complicate the easy wearing of the dress. Similarly Madhubanti Bhattacharyya examines how some migrant Indian novelists develop Indian diasporic female characters living in America as protagonists who deploy the kitchen and bedroom for their ‘performances’ of alternative identity, in an effort to create new ways of belonging and assimilating. 12 Here choices are imagined and articulated, but do they provide the acceptance desired? Gilroy introduces the concept of ‘conviviality’, as a way of re-negotiating the value of the everyday in cultural representation. Defining conviviality as ‘the processes of cohabitation and interaction that have made multiculture an ordinary feature of social life in Britain’s urban areas and in postcolonial cities elsewhere’, Gilroy claims that one of its virtues is its ability to go further than simply refuting ‘absolute or integral races’.13 It enjoys a ‘radical openness’ which then ‘turns attention toward the always unpredictable mechanisms of identification’.14 In so

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__________________________________________________________________ doing it generates improvisational and imaginative expressions of multiplicity that allow for dynamic mix. It is unafraid of uncertainty, and approaches the incompleteness with creative curiosity. Contesting normative ways of dealing with difference, contemporary theatre performance, such as Krishen’s, was ‘convivial’ in that it offered spaces for rethinking settled assumptions about identity. It wove together diverse vocabularies and ideologies in order to connect rather than keep them apart. By looking at ordinary social life in which mixture and overlap were positive ways of managing alterity, it encouraged openness to the indefiniteness and uncertainty that also prevailed. Difficulties were not denied, but neither were they seen as insurmountable. By creating sensuous encounters of inter- and intracultural conflict and tension, the work spoke to the problems and the potential of these situations. It thus dealt with sensitive issues of fear and prejudice by evoking empathy and humour resonant with everyday life, and moved beyond the merely factual or rational to evoke imaginative ways of re-viewing the norm. As part of an avant-garde, contemporary and experimental theatre movement that began in Malaysia in the 1970s, Krishen’s theatre was often pioneering in its efforts to rethink culture and identity. He responded to socio-political processes of nationalism and postcolonial reinvention by questioning the limits of self and other, community and nation. When he provoked questions about the meaning of being Malaysian, he asserted views that projected identity as inherently mixed and multiple, instead of separated and singular. This was his way of ‘excavating’ vocabularies and experiences that would critically intervene in the discourse of Malaysian culture and identity. In Malaysia, where identity is prescribed according to categories of race and religion as primary determinants of entitlement and position, attempts to question the norm by representing mixes of culture as inherent are not sanctioned by the state. Conversely these expressions of culture become radical subversions due to a relative lack of alternative sites for non-conforming expressions of self and other. The society, which constitutes a majority of Malay-Muslims, with several Chinese, Indians, and other ethnic groups that ascribe to Buddhism, Sikhism, Hinduism, Christianity and animist practices, is divided by policies of affirmative action that accord special rights and privileges to those who are identified as Malay-Muslim Malaysians, or ‘bumiputera’ Malaysians (which loosely translates as ‘sons of the soil’). This majoritarianism sets up a ‘core’ and ‘periphery’ which limits national unity and fractures a sense of shared belonging. Self and other tend to be constructed along these lines of division. The dividedness thus produces tensions of identity. Mixing, although common to the ordinary Malaysian, is deemed transgressive.15 As a result, the official rhetoric frames Malays, Chinese, Indians and other ethnic groups as culturally exclusive, with little or no overlap. Even though they share a nationality, their ‘core’ identity, which refers to their ethno-religious

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__________________________________________________________________ identity, is kept distinct. Furthermore, these separate identities purport cultural practices and beliefs that reinforce a singularity rather than multiplicity. Even though individuals may in fact intertwine multiple cultural elements in everyday life, these are little acknowledged as valid. Thus being Malay-Chinese or IndianMalay is not officially recognised, nor admitted as a way of life. Neither is the choice to be Muslim-Hindu or Buddhist-Christian, even if these exist as threads in the perception and performance of one’s history and identity. Instead, a singular category is assigned, often according to paternal lineage. To critique the prevailing essentialism and rigidity of these cultural constructs, Krishen’s theatre purposefully staged culture as collages and fusions. This embodied identity as a concoction of several elements, even if some were more solidified as primordial cultures and others more fluid and recent. In his large-scale interdisciplinary theatre performances Krishen wove varied traditions and styles of movement, visuality and sound, to explore representations of culture as porous and in ongoing dialogue with otherness. This entailed mixing between traditional and folk, Malay, Chinese and Indian cultural elements, while incorporating modern Western and contemporary influences as well. For example, traditional Chinese Opera movements were used to embody and express English language scripts that dealt with issues of Malaysian politics and identity. This signified their relatedness within the ‘body’ of society and its individuals, even if officially delineated as apart. Similarly in his small-scale multi-lingual devised works, Krishen depicted intimate portrayals of culture as interactive and overlapping, by combining different languages as parts of a larger whole. While bilingualism and multilingualism are not uncommon in the Malaysian experience, theatre practice tends to be divided according to language. Thus to perform them as intersecting and overlapping was to contest their allegedly distinct terrains. Characters spoke in more than one language, and often switched registers to mark shifts of power and proximity. What this performed was a representation of Malaysian culture that transcended the particularities of race and religion, but did not deny their importance. That which was relegated to separate spheres was consciously presented on a shared stage to produce new experiences and imaginings of self and other. These symbolic representations of how new forms of culture emerge within interstitial sites that welcome difference and dialogue, challenged the official frames and boundaries of identity. Monologue performances in which solo actors played several roles, transforming physically and vocally to perform different characters, further illustrated how multiculturalism can operate ‘in one body’. Here the performer became several others, while remaining present as self, thereby creating complex lenses through which to view and experience culture. For example, when moving from Indian male to Eurasian female, Muslim bohemian to Taoist activist, the actor would draw on cultural references easily accessible to an audience, while inventing

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__________________________________________________________________ new concoctions to bring these characters to life. All this time, the actor’s presence on stage mediated the appearances of these diverse others. Crucial to the efficacy of the process, the spectator was involved in the imaginative process of interpreting and understanding the multiple references used to depict difference. Making sense of the interactions within and across cultures, not only required literacies of these many cultures, it also demanded a willingness to play with their meanings and open up ways of reviewing them. Each depiction of character was a representation that was also a re-interpretation designed to dislodge fixed notions and rigid frames. These depictions were intended to unsettle and provoke spectators towards a questioning of social norms and artistic conventions, avoiding the comfort of cathartic release and simple viewing. Instead Krishen staged the dynamics of marginal spaces that were less ruled by the dominant centre, and thus dealt with the complexities of difference as generative of alternative frames for apprehending culture. In so doing, the unpredictable and indeterminable were highlighted to reflect the disunities and displacements that mark a contemporary sensibility, and asserted a politic of eclecticism that was not reducible. In this regard Krishen’s theatre became known as a site for contesting the norm. 16 3. Conversing With Strangers: Attending to the Play of Cultures Experimental contemporary theatre dealing with issues of culture and identity, such as Krishen’s, often stages multi-focal perspectives that question the dominant norm. They emphasise open-endedness and veer away from neat, simplistic conclusions. Life is shown to be perpetually in flux, negotiating between ideas, concepts and beliefs that emerge from contextually based experience. Difference is acknowledged but these are portrayed as inadvertently inter-related. Theatre as a collage of contradictory elements, thereby contests singular, unitary interpretations of culture, and generates meaning through juxtapositions framed in abstract, fragmented and non-linear constructs. Anti-traditional in form, experimental contemporary theatre posits antagonistic alternatives to critique convention and dismantle hegemonic structures of power. As with Krishen’s theatre, there is scepticism towards fixed positions as this limits alternatives and ascribes power to entrenched authorities. Instead there is preference for an expansiveness that emerges from a sense of play and process. In the Malaysian context these avant-garde approaches can be read as transgressive in that they generate what Scott terms ‘hidden transcripts’17 that resist the dominant, and critique power.18 They provide space for what is often unsanctioned and thus ‘hidden’ to emerge and be engaged with. In so doing sensitive issues of racial prejudice and religious bias can be reworked to show empathy for all sides, while also positing critical alternatives. They excavate layers of meaning through socio-historically based insights and a capacity for engaging with the everyday as well. But most importantly, they become part of an

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__________________________________________________________________ experiential encounter of alternative processes of negotiating difference through theatre. Here attention is drawn to the liveness of the performance and its reliance on both performer and spectator having to ‘pay attention’ by ‘watching and being watched’, thereby becoming ‘co-witnesses’ of significant events.19 The responsibility for meaning making in order to complete the event as meaningful is shared between performer and spectator. Watching is no longer passive, but requires interpretation and making choices about how to view. In multi-focal work, this entails being ‘co-witnesses’ with a conscious acknowledgement of each view being partial and incomplete. As a result of the performative turn in theatre, which decentralises the verbal text and expands the importance of the non-verbal mise-en-scène, the physical ‘presence’ and ‘participation’ of performer and spectator are consciously heightened. In Erika Fische-Lichte’s terms the ‘bodily co-presence’ of actor and spectator makes them ‘co-actors’ or ‘co-subjects’ in an ‘autopoietic feedback loop’.20 This marks an ‘oscillatory’, not ‘dichotomous’,21 relationship between them. It further imbricates their subjectivities in mutually experienced encounters, and opens up a ‘transformative’ capacity to radically review culture and identity.22 Even if it appears that the performer is voiced and the spectator is silenced, the ‘feedback loop’ creates a connectedness that draws them together, and thus weaves a temporary community among them. Working through the challenge of fragmented, non-linear and abstract modes of performance, Krishen’s audiences were required to engage dialogically. The participants, both performers and spectators, who often started off as ‘strangers’, had to connect through the story, theme, action and event, and share the space they inhabited for the duration of the performance. Hence a strategic choice of content and form that reduced the ‘strangeness of strangers’23 and enabled crossing between boundaries was crucial for a rich dialogue of ideas. Even if the viewing process was complicated by disjuncture and displacement, this entailed a conversation that was oscillatory and mutually related. This opportunity for a ‘conversation between strangers’, which philosopher K.A. Appiah suggests is the basis of a ‘cosmopolitan spirit’, reconfigures difference, as accessible and knowable.24 Conversations, much like experimental theatre, are multi-voiced and multi-opinioned. Ideas shift with a ludic quality of being open to change and review. The process is improvisatory and spontaneous, unpredictable and rarely conclusive. While rootedness is allowed for, it is also open to reconfiguration and question. Through the process of dialogue, ideas and beliefs are shared in order to elicit understanding and respect. Moreover it allows for a growing interconnectedness that reconstitutes the other as an integral aspect of self, not merely as different. In plural postcolonial societies, such as Malaysia, which struggle to overcome the negative effects of prejudice and polarisation, theatre that initiates

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__________________________________________________________________ ‘conversations between strangers’ encourages an inclusive approach to community and nation. The engagement is based on interaction rather than segregation. ‘Bodily co-presence’ and an ‘oscillatory’ relationship becomes a way to forge links and build inter-relatedness, to exceed colonialist frames of pluralism, such as described by J.S. Furnivall,25 and challenge divisive nationalist rhetoric that segregates and prescribes division. By pointing to the capacity for ‘strangers’ to overcome the barriers of unfamiliarity and engage with difference as mutually constructive, theatre stirs a need to rethink settled assumptions about culture. Krishen’s experiments with theatre did this by focussing on the ‘convivial’ or what he termed ‘normative’ in culture. By drawing on the everyday, and refracting ideas through avant-garde forms and styles, he prodded alternative ways of envisaging the meaning of being and becoming Malaysian. In his words, I feel we don’t ask enough questions about our normative behaviour. We are not investing enough into what we see as Malaysians. I am trying to penetrate the whole issue of how we imagine our community. Even if it is ‘imagined’, what is it that is being imagined?26 The process of imagining a community as capable of managing its multiplicity with a sense of play and purpose was central to the choices he made for theatre in Malaysia. He was consciously trying to ‘pay attention’ and thus acknowledge and excavate that which would extend the capacity for rethinking the notion of being Malaysian as being inherently mixed yet distinct, open yet rooted. 4. Multicultural Belongings as Mixed Vocabularies in Cohesion In his devised multilingual theatre, Krishen staged difference as part of everyday experience that Malaysians, particularly in an urban context, were accustomed to dealing with.27 Culture was seen as continually responding to different experiences and views, without losing its rootedness or historical narrative. Instead the adaptations opened up new possibilities for expansion. Such that when Krishen consciously incorporated different verbal and performative languages within a single production, Malaysian culture was depicted as constitutive of varied vocabularies that are not limited by their cultural assignation. Putting together multiple language registers of Chinese, Malay and English that were further combined with varieties of song, rhythm and movement, Krishen articulated how these were in fact mutually imbricated. In so doing he excavated both the particularity and mix that defied a rigid and neat compartmentalization of Malaysian theatre along cultural and linguistic lines.28 Just as these multiple codes were performed and experienced on a shared stage, their histories and identities were thoughtfully framed within a shared space – effectively ‘in one body’. The actors articulated their individual trajectories of

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__________________________________________________________________ identity, through stories and dramatised episodes that depicted their individually marked worlds. Yet these were also sutured to indicate overlapping experiences that acknowledged interwoven belongings. For this reason he chose actors who were bi- if not multi-lingual, and thus able to draw from their own experience of being multi-cultural within themselves. These multiple belongings marked their own ‘rooted cosmopolitanisms’29 which allowed for reconfiguring and reinvention. In this manner Krishen’s theatre advocated multicultural belongings, in which the multiplicity within and between bodies was acknowledged as valuable in the forging of a Malaysian community. It encouraged a deeper appreciation of cultural mixes, and thus worked to reduce the fear of cultural dissolution through change. This generated a capacity for openness without discarding roots. Furthermore it engaged with the need to resist dominant cultures that tend to insist on uniformity. These ‘disjunctive flows’30 opposed the global and national hegemony, to assert expressions of self and other that did not conform to prescribed frames. This theatre of identity was in effect a performance of the ‘multiculturalism within one body’ that Krishen was keen to excavate as an alternative to the idea that bodies must be seen as representative of single cultures. While societies can be regarded as mixed, even if polarised in their composite, individuals tend to be categorised according to labels that denote a unitary identity. One example of this was in the play US: Actions and Images,31 which examined identity in Malaysian society by dramatically enacting the memories and perceptions of five performers in their twenties and their diverse cultural backgrounds. By choosing a mixed cast of three women and two men, of whom two were Chinese, one Malay, one Indian-Eurasian and the other Malay-English, Krishen reflected the Malaysian community – it was a fragment of the larger ‘body’ of society. The play dealt with issues of identity and belonging, by staging stories about the actor’s family and growing up years. The improvisations for devising this work involved actors researching their own lives and bringing to the process their own telling of these tales. In dramatizing these sequences, alternative vocabularies such as movement and song were used to layer their meaning with multiple dimensions of sensuousness. This was Krishen’s approach to physicalising text in order to maximise the expressive range of varied vocabularies. Stories from childhood were narrated and enacted in a range of languages and styles, to convey the collage of cultures that constitute being Malaysian. Episodes enacted and narrated about school-going days and childhood games, dreams of the future and how parents met and were married, reflected social and cultural differences between them. But through the games, songs and intersecting storytelling segments, they also demonstrated the overlaps and pointed to aspects of sameness. Resisting the generic and essentialised, the performers found connections between and within their dramatised selves to recognise and include the other as integral to their own identities. Yet even as each actor represented a particular segment of society, and thus was situated in specific

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__________________________________________________________________ histories and localities, they were also framed as part of a shared national whole. Within this frame, tensions and conflicts were understood as everyday realities of the human condition, rather than the disruption of difference. A particular instance that powerfully demonstrated this reworking of culture through performance was when the Indian-Eurasian performer, Sunetra Fernando, related the story of her paternal Sri-Lankan Singhalese grandfather’s death and the grief regarding his unknown grave. A musician trained in Western classical and traditional Malay forms, Fernando performed the unspeakable inner sorrow of cultural loss through her singing voice, and the rebab, a two-stringed spike fiddle, often associated with healing rituals in Malay traditional performances. Having narrated the circumstances of the death in English, Fernando’s mother-tongue, she shifted to singing in a Malay traditional style while playing the rebab, which produces a sound akin to the melancholic tone of the human voice. As she did this, her voice and the sound of the rebab melded into one. Likewise her body merged with the instrument, manipulating and moving with the bow in her lament of lost histories and forgotten pasts. Even as she compensated for the lost grave by retrieving the story on stage, Fernando was reconstructing a new heritage for herself - one that connected her English speaking Indian-Eurasian background with traditional Malay culture. As she intertwined these separate spheres to demonstrate her multiple belongings, spectators were also pushed to recast cultures as inclusive of others. Being Indian-Eurasian did not exclude her from participating and claiming Malay traditional culture as also part of her identity. Being herself already of mixed ethnic lineage, the openness to her ‘national’ cultural roots provided further agency in her particular way of performing and being Malaysian. Here multiculturalism within the body was experienced as vocabularies of cultural difference finding ways of adapting to each other in voice, movement and the shifts of language. Inventing alternative approaches by asserting mixed identity as part of a national rubric, elicited inter- and intra-national dialogues about, rethinking the ‘stranger’ and ‘attending’ to the other. Within the frame of the production, that performed several interactions and conversations between strangers in diverse languages, the individual became symbolic of the multiplicity in society. Weaving together self and other, between and within bodies, the performance recognized the rootedness of specific cultures, while also blurring these boundaries to allow for mix and overlap. This enacted a powerful option of inclusivity that reduced the threat of dissolution and extended the capacity for inter-connection. Not only was the mix of cultures articulated as being a characteristic of society, it was also a quality of the individual. Something that Krishen developed further in the monologue performances he directed.

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__________________________________________________________________ 5. Multicultural Bodies as Composites of Selves and Others Just as characters in Krishen’s multi-lingual devised performances moved from one language to another, the actor in monologue performances was required to shift seamlessly from one character to another. In this process of ongoing transformations performed by a solo actor, the multiplicity within the body was dramatically enacted. The ‘conviviality’ of everyday life was performed as ‘conversations’ between different characters and cultural vocabularies. Here Krishen examined the ways in which wide-ranging cultures could be found within the individual’s imagination and experience, such that the actor was able to identify with and portray a wide range of characters in continuous flow. Drawing on the resources of the imaginative body and voice to generate multiple gestures, accents and rhythms that distinguish between each character, the actor produced depictions of ethnicity, class and gender that emerged through contrast and comparison. Shifting from Chinese to Indian, male to female, Muslim to Christian, nouveau riche to working class, the actor drew on knowable elements of these constructs, to portray the characters as distinct and identifiable. However these interpretive acts of performance, also suggested a way of presenting aspects of culture as inter-related by being literally and metaphorically parts of the same ‘body’. The self was thus made up of several dimensions that connected in overlapping, intersecting and dialogical ways. As the actor moved between one character and another, she created a way of embodying a range of selves and others as parts of a whole. Inasmuch as these characters were different to each other, they were threaded through the same story and the same body. Made present by ‘one body’, these varied characters found articulation through the actions and vocalisations of one actor. Such that while the actor was playing the other, the self was not absent, but indirectly referred to. The actor’s presence as both a gendered and racialised body were present and never hidden. Thus while acting as non-self the actor’s self contributed to the play of contrasts. Instead of creating a naturalistic illusion, heightened mimicry and stylised reinventions of caricature and stereotypes, pointed to the actor’s skill and imagination in doing so. While the characters came and went, the actor was always on stage. Yet none remained fixed but in ongoing negotiation and interaction. Meaning was thereby derived through understanding both difference and sameness, thus continually questioning notions of separate cultures. Audiences had to make sense of this mode of storytelling by decoding and accessing the many references and vocabularies being used to generate this multiplicity. ‘Watching’ relied on the ability to recognize the multiple selves being concocted, asserting a vision of Malaysian identities as contingent and connected. The ‘conversation’ created between strangers within the play, within the actor and between the ‘co-subjects’ of actor and spectator, created a potent ‘feedback loop’ that advanced an inclusive framework for understanding culture as

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__________________________________________________________________ integrative and mixed. Furthermore the experience of the spectator as ‘co-subject’ was rendered more crucial with the ‘feedback loop’ intensified to provoke greater involvement and criticality. By referencing stereotypes and idiosyncrasies that combined to suggest knowable personas, audiences participated in the reworking of boundaries. In Krishen’s 2004 restaging of the play Election Day,32 Krishen depicted how difference becomes blurred in moments of crisis, pointing to the sameness in human beings that is simultaneous with their particularity. The play, written and first performed by Huzir Sulaiman in 1999, is about the tensions that surface between three men in their thirties, who live together and find themselves attracted to the same woman. As housemates who share a home, they wrestle with wanting to possess the seemingly unattainable ‘beautiful, alluring, enchanting, bewitching’ Natasha.33 This competitiveness about a woman reveals deeper truths about the facades of identity that they wear to perform a semblance of mutuality. Eventually, this deception leads to a rupture in their friendship and destroys their co-existence. Based on real events that occurred on the day of the 1999 General Election in Malaysia, Francis, Fozi and Dedric, who are Indian-, Malay- and ChineseMalaysian respectively, are caught up in the fever of a heated election as they help campaign for an opposition candidate. Despite this seeming solidarity, their friendship is torn apart by a lack of trust and deception. The ‘anxieties of incompleteness’34 that riddled a disgruntled populace struggling with sociopolitical turbulence in Malaysia of the late 1990s, served as a backdrop for the tensions that undermined the ability of the three friends to live as housemates. Questions of racial and religious prejudice, as well as economic and political disenfranchisement, surfaced through the camaraderie. To play with this sense of deception and difference, Krishen cast female performer Jo Kukathas, although the play was originally written for a male actor. Her portrayal of the mainly male characters in the play foregrounded the performativity of gender as a construct that could be both mimicked and inhabited. It was not merely performative as a ‘stylised repetition of acts’ 35 but worked more as a ‘stylised re-presentation of select acts’ to communicate particular aspects of being particular kinds of ‘male’ in each instance. While Francis was depicted as the cop with bad health, often slouched, coughing and dealing with a bad stomach, Dedric was portrayed to be a straight-backed, earnest and intense activist. In contrast Fozi represented the easy-going bohemian architect, whose carefree manner expressed his relative lack of anxiety and fear. Kukathas created ways of showing how each one of them was made-up of knowable traits. Yet she also evoked ways of seeing them as particular and situated. Moreover she had to switch between being Chinese, Indian and Malay, creating each identity through accent, gesture and physicality. While class and profession informed the interpretation of character, the more inscribed ‘visible identities’ 36 were race and gender. Vocal accent was most potent in crafting these variations,

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__________________________________________________________________ conveying rhythms and textures in language that were more evident in the delivery than the text. The spectator’s ability to ‘hear’ and thus decode these accents was crucial to the ‘watching’. The demand to ‘witness’ with insight and criticality, was a way to stimulate a kind of ‘conversation’ that would resonate. As the play reaches a climactic end, the protagonist Francis, reveals to his housemates, Fozi and Dedric, that he has betrayed them. Not only has he been a spy and framed them, he has also slept with Natasha, initially Fozi’s girlfriend but later Dedric’s as well. The tension escalates as Natasha confirms that she has been with all three men, and the police enter to arrest Dedric and Fozi on account of their ‘subversive’ activities. In her depiction of the anger, betrayal and bitterness that the three men feel at this point, Kukathas created a growing similarity in their physicality and voice. Whereas earlier they were markedly different, they were now seen as increasingly alike. Their looks of disdain and the deep-throated growls of anger and futility rendered them more similar than before. These overlaps pointed to the shared desires and griefs of different individuals, who may have shared the same ‘house’, campaigned for the same ‘candidate’ and aspired towards possessing the same ‘woman’, but were eventually divided by jealousy and deception. Connected in their lust as much as their loathing, it is their deeper selves that transcend the surface to link them in their disappointment and disgust. Krishen’s choice to reduce the differences between the three men at this point in the play marked his dismantling of cultural boundaries, while emphasising the overlaps of being human. In this way the performance provoked the spectator to identify with self and other as interwoven. It also generated a vision of selves as simultaneously different and similar. Having recognised the three men as distinct and thus rooted in their cultural trajectories, they are subsequently linked at a further level through personal and political interaction and co-existence. They did not simply share the shelter and protection of Malaysia as ‘home’, they were also connected in their political ‘agenda’, apart from their personal ‘desire’ for Natasha. Their multiplicity was within them, between them and aspects of a larger body, namely Malaysian society. 6. Conclusion To counter the idea that singular identities are more secure because they are rooted, Krishen created theatre that performed the mix as an alternative in which distinctiveness was reinvented to remain open to influence. He thus contested the fictions of purity and questioned the ideologies that reinforce divisions rather than emphasise the links. His work demonstrates what Tina Rahimy suggests about art as an ‘experience of connection of unfamiliars and of unfamiliar connections’.37 In her deliberation on difference as commonality she points to the way art provides an ‘experience of otherness, wherein a well-known object becomes unusual, becomes singular; an otherness that is not feared’. Through this non-threatening

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__________________________________________________________________ defamiliarisation, art creates commonality by engaging with difference as a way of understanding context, memory and politics. It requires what Rahimy calls ‘the comprehension that this difference has always been our commonality’. In this respect it requires having to ‘pay attention’ through ‘watching’ and ‘being watched’,38 while being willing to engage in a ‘conversation with strangers’. 39 Staging multiculturalism within the body was Krishen’s attempt to provide a way of rethinking singular and fixed assigned identities which tend to curtail expansion and agency. It became an opportunity to generate complex viewing that allowed for bodies and voices to be resemanticised imaginatively, beyond the scope of official policy. In Malaysia this was particularly potent in view of racialised frames for segregating society. On a wider scale, it challenges ways of viewing self and other to reconfigure prejudicial and narrow assumptions about the ways in which individuals and communities may choose to belong and gain acceptance in a global society. Where difference prevails, the capacity to embrace and play with multiplicity can only enhance the scope for empathy, mutual respect and dynamic co-existence.

Notes 1

Recorded interview with Krishen Jit, conducted by this writer in 2004. P Gilroy, Postcolonial Melancholia, Columbia University Press, New York, 2005, pp. 3-4. 3 Although it is common academic practice to refer to persons by their surname, I choose to use Krishen instead of Jit for two reasons. Firstly, there is traditionally no surname accorded to some Indian and Malay names, unlike Western and Chinese ones. Krishen’s full name was Krishen Jit Amar Singh, combining his given name, Krishen Jit, with his father’s name, Amar Singh. Thus even though he was widely known as Krishen Jit, both are his given names and he was referred to as Krishen in the Malaysian theatre community. Secondly, to privilege the surname is a patriarchal and depersonalised way of referring to individuals. So whilst I will adhere to the practice in relation to writers cited, I will make an exception where Krishen is concerned. I do so to acknowledge my position as an insider and ongoing participant of the community. 4 Recorded interview with Krishen Jit, conducted by this author in 2004. 5 In his theatre career Krishen worked in a range of sites and with a wide diversity of collaborators. As a child he was introduced to performance on the streets of Kuala Lumpur, his birthplace and home city. He later began to perform on stage as a teenager in an established colonial school. He then went on to direct plays for English and Malay language theatre, moving from one site to another according to his politics and the opportunities available. He also became an educator, producer and critic, thus taking on a plurality of roles which gave him extensive experience and pushed him to continually rethink his own position and process. See C 2

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__________________________________________________________________ Rajendran, and C J W-L Wee, ‘The Theatre of Krishen Jit: The Politics of Staging Difference in Multicultural Malaysia’, in TDR: The Drama Review, 51:2 (T194), 2007, pp. 11-23, for extended discussion on Krishen’s theatre career. 6 Gilroy, op. cit. p. 3. 7 A Appadurai, Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger, Duke University Press, Durham and London, 2006, p. 8. 8 Ibid. p. 11. 9 Gilroy, op. cit. p. 56. 10 A Wagener, ‘Representations and Defence Processes in Cross-Cultural Conflicts: France and the Case of its ‘National Identity’’ in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 11 C Sim, ‘The Cheongsam: A Site of Wonder and Contestation for Canadian Women of Chinese Heritage’, in this volume, A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 12 M Bhattacharyya, ‘Writing New Identities: South Asian Women, North America and Three Asian-American Novels’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 13 Gilroy, op. cit., p. xv. 14 Ibid. 15 See T G Lim, A Gomes, and A Rahman, Multiethnic Malaysia: Past, Present and Future, Strategic Information and Research Development Centre, Petaling Jaya, 2009, for wide-ranging critical discussions on multi-ethnic Malaysia and the implications for politics, economics, culture, identity and other aspects of society. 16 See K Rowland, ‘Introduction’ in Krishen Jit: An Uncommon Position, Contemporary Asian Arts Centre, Singapore, 2003, p. 13-24, for discussion on Krishen’s impact as theatre director, critic and mentor in the Malaysian cultural landscape. 17 J Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts, Yale University Press, New Haven,1990. 18 In his book Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts, James Scott argues that ‘hidden transcripts’ are strategies for resisting dominance, he points to the margin and interstice as the site for transgression that is secretive but no less inscribed in culture. This approach to reworking displacement becomes evident, particularly in contexts where behaviours are strictly regulated by prohibitory laws. In avant-garde theater, the layers of performative text that deepen and interrogate the written text, often produces ‘hidden transcripts’ to challenge authoritarian power. Scott compares the hidden transcript to a ‘public transcript’ by noting that the former is a ‘discourse that takes place ‘offstage’ beyond direct observation by powerholders’, Ibid, p. 4. I would argue that because experimental theatre tends to appeal to a small unconventional minority in society, this in effect renders it distant from being part of a ‘public transcript’.

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__________________________________________________________________ 19

In his book The Necessity of Theater, Paul Woodruff argues that the ‘art of theatre’ is that ‘by which human beings make human action worth watching, in a measured time and space’, Ibid, p. 39. His emphasis on the art of ‘watching and being watched’ further asserts that ‘theatre binds together a community around actions that people have witnessed together, actions that have a special importance for them’, Ibid, p. 34. In his view the ‘art of making human action worth watching’ demands ‘paying attention’ in order to feel connected and know ‘how it might feel to be another’, Ibid, p. 10. Thus conflict is set up to ‘attract attention to action’, Ibid, p. 55 and thereby sustain a curiosity and interest. 20 E Fischer-Lichte, The Transformative Power of Performance: A new aesthetics, Routledge, London and New York, 2008, pp.32-39. 21 Ibid., p.17 22 In her book The Transformative Power of Performance Erika Fische-Lichte examines the performative turn in theater, and how performance as an ‘event’, rather than an ‘art object’, reworks the meaning-making process of theatre, by experimenting with the contingent relationships between actors and subjects. This emphasises the importance of audience responses to actions on ‘stage’, and recasts them as ‘actors’ by becoming ‘perceiving subjects’, Ibid, p. 60, and thus assigning actors with the task of being ‘radically present’, Ibid, p. 24-74. 23 Gilroy, op. cit., p. 3. 24 In his book Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers K. A. Appiah argues that difference can be dealt with through conversation and does not need to be resolved in agreement. He makes the point that ‘strangers’ merit respect and understanding, and that the cosmopolitan approaches this responsibility towards ‘legitimate difference’ as a challenge rather than a solution, Ibid, p. xv. As such ‘variety matters’ but ‘there is no place for the enforcement of diversity’, Ibid, p. 104-5. Instead ‘conversations across boundaries of identity’ become a ‘metaphor for engagement’ and ‘helps people get used to one another’, Ibid, p. 85. 25 British colonial officer J.S. Furnivall, cited in R W Hefner, ‘Introduction: Multiculturalism and Citizenship in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia’ in The Politics of Multiculturalism: Pluralism and Citizenship in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, R.W. Hefner (ed), Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 2001, described colonial societies in Southeast Asia, such as Malaysia, as being ‘plural’, meaning that each cultural community was observed to ‘live side by side, yet without mingling, in one political unit’, Ibid, p. 4. The idea that there was no ‘mingling’ suggested a polarised society, in addition to being plural. 26 Krishen, quoted in M Ambikaipaker, ‘Cultural Encounter’, in The Edge, 15 March, Kuala Lumpur, 1999 27 In the 1990s Krishen directed three devised multi-lingual performances, in which actors collaborated with the director to create a script based on selected themes or characters. They were US: Actions and Images (1993), Work (1996) and A Chance

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__________________________________________________________________ Encounter (1999). This often included drawing from the actor’s personal experience and observation as a critical resource. The material was then structured in non-linear intersecting episodes to suggest a collage of cultures rather than a unitary vision of identity. 28 While Chinese, Malay and Indian language theatre are racialised spaces, often depicting stories of these particular communities, English language theatre in Malaysia is in one sense more neutral as it does not signify a racially based identity. However it points to a class and education distinction that identifies urban upper and middle classes as fluent in English, and this also suggests higher levels of education. While most of Krishen’s theatre was within the frame of English language theatre, he continually questioned the boundaries that marked what that meant. 29 In Mitchell Cohen’s article ‘Rooted Cosmopolitanism’ in Toward a Global Civil Society, M. Walzer (ed), Oxford, Bergahn Books, 1995, pp. 223-234, his notion of ‘rooted cosmopolitanism’ allows for distinct histories and cultural affiliations but also ‘accepts multiplicity of roots and branches’ as it makes a case for identity that ‘rests in the legitimacy of plural loyalties, of standing in many circles, but with common ground’, Ibid, p. 233. In this way cultural difference is both ‘rooted’ in particular loyalties but able to extend beyond these. 30 A Appadurai, Modernity At Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1996. 31 Performed in Kuala Lumpur in 1993, produced by Five Arts Centre, Malaysia. 32 Performed in Kuala Lumpur in 2002, produced by Five Arts Centre, Malaysia. 33 H Sulaiman, Eight Plays, Silverfish Books, Kuala Lumpur, 2002, p.152. 34 A Appadurai, Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger, Duke University Press, Durham and London, 2006 35 J Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Routledge, London, 1990, p.140. 36 L M Alcoff, Visible Identities: Race, Gender and the Self, Oxford University Press, New York, 2006. 37 T Rahimy, ‘The Battleground of a Milieu: On the Concept of Flight and Its Political Milieu’, in this volume, A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), InterDisciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 38 Woodruff, op. cit., p.39. 39 Appiah, op. cit., p.85.

Bibliography Alcoff, L. M., Visible Identities: Race, Gender and the Self, Oxford University Press, New York, 2006.

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__________________________________________________________________ Ambikaipaker, M., ‘Cultural Encounter’, in The Edge, 15 March, Kuala Lumpur, 1999. Appadurai, A., Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger, Duke University Press, Durham and London, 2006. ———, Modernity At Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1996. Appiah, K. A., Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, W.W. Norton and Company, New York, 2006. Bhattacharyya, M., ‘Writing new identities: South Asian Women, North America and Three Asian-American Novels’, in this volume, A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds.), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Butler, J., Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge, London, 1990. Cohen, M., ‘Rooted Cosmopolitanism’, in Toward a Global Civil Society, M. Walzer (ed), Oxford, Bergahn Books, 1995, pp. 223-234. Fischer-Lichte, E., The Transformative Power of Performance: A new aesthetics, Routledge, London and New York, 2008. Gilroy, P., Postcolonial Melancholia. Columbia University Press, New York, 2005. Hefner, R. W., ‘Introduction: Multiculturalism and Citizenship in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia’, in The Politics of Multiculturalism: Pluralism and Citizenship in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, R.W. Hefner (ed.), Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 2001, pp. 1-58. Lim, T. G., A. Gomes, and A. Rahman, Multiethnic Malaysia: Past, Present and Future, Strategic Information and Research Development Centre, Petaling Jaya, 2009. Rahimy, T., ‘The Battleground of a Milieu: On the Concept of Flight and Its Political Milieu’, in this volume, A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), InterDisciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012.

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__________________________________________________________________ Rajendran, C., and C.J.W-L. Wee, ‘The Theatre of Krishen Jit: The Politics of Staging Difference in Multicultural Malaysia’, in TDR: The Drama Review, 51:2 (T194), 2007, pp. 11-23. Rowland, K., ‘Introduction’, in Krishen Jit: An Uncommon Position, K Rowland (ed.), Contemporary Asian Arts Centre, Singapore, 2003, pp. 13-24. Scott, J. C., Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1990. Sim, C., ‘The Cheongsam: A Site of Wonder and Contestation for Canadian Women of Chinese Heritage’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), InterDisciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Sulaiman, H., Eight Plays, Silverfish Books, Kuala Lumpur, 2002. Wagener, A., ‘Representations and Defence Processes in Cross-Cultural Conflicts: France and the Case of its ‘National Identity’’, in this volume, A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Woodruff, P., The Necessity of Theater: The Art of Watching and Being Watched, Oxford University Press, New York, 2009. Charlene Rajendran is a Malaysian theatre practitioner, writer and educator who teaches theatre at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. She has been involved in Malaysian theatre as a director, performer and youth theatre facilitator, working with a range of arts practitioners including Janet Pillai, Krishen Jit, Wong Hoy Cheong and Marion D'Cruz. Her writing ranges from poems and plays, to experimental collages of text, such as in Taxi Tales on a Crooked Bridge (2008, Matahari Publishing). Her research interests and teaching are presently focused on performance and culture in Southeast Asia, in particular the politics of difference. Her current work focuses on contemporary theatre director, Krishen Jit (19392005), and his negotiations of multiplicity in Malaysia.

Designing Identity: An Attempt to Manufacture Singaporeans Michael Kearney Abstract The focus of this chapter is on the modern independent city-nation of Singapore’s endeavour to engineer identity and regulate social behaviour. The impetus behind this social engineering is to create, from an ethnically diverse population of Chinese, Indian, and Malay, Singaporeans in an attempt to secure social order and economic success. Fundamental to achieving the above are the government’s education policies, housing policies, and responses to incidents of ethnic tension. The government’s intent is to generate a sense of cohesion within the population through a Singaporean identity while promoting within each individual an adherence to their ethnic/cultural heritage, which will ground the individual and guard against the influence of non-Asian ethics and morals. Conjoined with this, the government advocates policies to promote English proficiency and multicultural tolerance, which are held to be keys in attaining a solid position for Singapore in commerce and technology. The underlying theoretical mechanism utilized in this analysis is the Identity Matrixing Model (IMM), which provides an analytical method for examining how identity is constituted through a layering process where culturally constructed systems are internalized by individuals. This research offers more than a case study of Singapore; it demonstrates how the IMM can be applied to multicultural issues. Key Words: Identity Matrixing Model, Singapore, multiculturalism, identity formation, social engineering. ***** 1. Premise of Studying the Manufacturing of Singaporeans The exponentially increasing role over the last sixty years of Advanced Information and Communications Systems (AICS) in the formation of human identity has dramatically changed what had been regionally based cultural identities. In the paradigm of globalisation, identities must be viewed as being culturally hybrid constructions.1 Rather than being formed, or programmed, from the cultural constructions of a single Symbolic Order, or a limited number of Symbolic Orders, the identities forming today are being programmed by the internalisation of myriad elements from a vast array of Symbolic Orders.2 Aspects of these Symbolic Orders, for it is rare that a complete Symbolic Order system is infused into another Symbolic Order system, can come from diverse and distant parts of the Earth and enter into what had been insular regional Symbolic Orders via their transmission through AICS. In order to chart this complex process, the Identity Matrixing Model (IMM) can be utilised. 3 A central tenet of this model is

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__________________________________________________________________ that identities are woven through the processes of Vertical Matrixing and Horizontal Matrixing.4 One of the impetuses behind charting how identities are being formed in the paradigm of globalisation is the important role that globalised individuals have in the economic and social stability of the communities in which they reside. Antonio Cuadrado-Fernandez posits in his chapter in this volume, ‘Mind, Body and Environment in Indigenous Anglophone Writing: Poetic Interventions for a New Modernity,’ that the stability and prosperity of indigenous communities are increasingly vulnerable to the practices of multinational economic entities. 5 If nations cannot produce individuals with Global Hodological Maps, 6 whether these nations are currently rich or poor will be of minor consequence in the coming decades. This evidenced in recent developments in India and China where those individuals that are technologically and economically adept and have been trained to function in a globalised landscape have become affluent, while those unable to operate in the 3rd Paradigm of economics are mired in a cycle of social and economic degradation. 7 If nations cannot produce individuals that are able to successfully navigate the globally integrated systems that bring economic prosperity, then such nations will befall the faith outlined by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri in their book Empire: Even the dominant countries are now dependent on the global system; the interactions of the world market have resulted in a generalized disarticulation of all economies. Increasingly, any attempt at isolation or separation will mean only a more brutal kind of domination by the global system, a reduction to powerlessness and poverty.8 The selection of Singapore as the focus of this case study is based on a number of factors. One is the city-nation’s extremely small geographical size. Other larger nations are comprised of multiple regions: Singapore, for example, is in contrast to a geographically larger nation such as the United States of America, which has many different regions: Northeast as opposed to West Coast, Midwest as opposed to The South, each of which function as separate Symbolic Order sets, thus providing different cultural constructions that are matrixed into the individuals inhabiting these specific distinct regions. The result is that these different Symbolic Order sets yield different regional identity types within the United States. Singapore’s limited physical area makes it essentially a single geographical region. Therefore, as a case study, Singapore is an extremely favourable locale as it offers a single-region-nation that is operating at the upper echelons of economics and technology in the global paradigm without diverse sub-regional Singaporean identity types. Another essential factor is Singapore’s multiethnic/multicultural composition, Chinese, Indian, Malay, and that there is no indigenous population of

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__________________________________________________________________ a Singaporean ethnic group. Consider Singapore’s neighbour Malaysia, which is also comprised of ethnic Chinese, Indian, and Malay, although in vastly different proportions with the Malays being the majority: the Malays are the distinct indigenous population, and the laws and policies of Malaysia reflect the Malay culture’s dominance within Malaysia. A final, yet major, factor is the policy of social engineering enacted by the governing body of Singapore: the government’s theory is that through education and social policies and laws, citizens designed for success in the global paradigms of economics and technology, who will obediently follow the social morals and systems as they are dictated by the governing authorities, due to the population’s internalisation of the authoritarian social regulations, can be produced. The goal of those designing and controlling this system is to manufacture the ideal citizen, the Singaporean, an individual who contributes to the economic stability of the nation and strives for the social harmony of the state. 2. Fact/Official History: Generating an Illusion Whenever we are going to investigate a country, state, city, or region, we must acknowledge that there are histories and then official histories. This notion is also a point of concern in Albin Wagener’s chapter in this volume, ‘Representations and Defence Processes in Cross-Cultural Conflicts: France and the Case of its ‘National Identity’,’ where Wagener argues that the concept of nation is an artificial, meaning human produced rather than nature produced, intellectual construct and illustrates this point with his discussion of the 2009 attempt by the French Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Development Solidarity ‘to redefine what French people would call their ‘national identity’.’9 The histories of locations, and the individuals that populate them, are constructed, woven together from facts, myths, and pure invention, usually with a designed purposeful intention that serves the interests of the governing or controlling individuals of that locale. This concept is further supported by Rachid Belghiti’s chapter is this volume, ‘The Image of Dance and the Narrative of Secular Culture in Edward Said’s After the Last Sky,’ where Belghiti argues that secular society, the world of nations, is a choice made by humans: it is a human construct rather than fate. Moreover, Belghiti argues that in their current forms, most nations act as shackles upon individuals because the education and socialisation processes that are operating in the formation of a national identity often work against notions of acceptance, tolerance, and belonging when multicultural situations arise. 10 Obviously many systems of governance inculcate policies that promote acceptance, tolerance, and belonging; however, the degree to which these policies are successful deserves close scrutiny. When investigating the city-nation of Singapore, it becomes soundly evident that the elements of fact, myth, and invention are all in play in the policies designed by those in power, the intention of which is the programming of the

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__________________________________________________________________ inhabitants with the proper, Singaporean, identity in order to manufacture a socially stable and economically capable population base. The island shows up on a Chinese map as Pu-Luo-Chong in 300 AD; in 1365 the island is a trading post, part of the Sumatran Sriwijayan Empire, called Temasek (Sea Town), and by the 1500s it is known as Singapura, the Sanskrit for Lion City. According to Malay legend, this final name came about when a Sumatran prince visiting the island encountered a strange animal and was told it was a lion. 11 The creation of the illusion, the myth, of modern Singapore begins with the story of the arrival of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles in January 1819. There is a statue of Raffles with a plaque on the pedestal to mark the exact spot, part of the generation of the illusion as it provides a physical grounding location for the origin of the modern city-nation of Singapore, along the Singapore River where he disembarked. It is interesting to note, since we are dealing with illusion, that this area of Singapore is labelled the Colonial District in the Lonely Planet Guide, which seems quite appropriate since there are many structures from the English colonial era in the area; however, when referring to this area as the Colonial District to my Singaporean colleagues, Dr. Jeremy Fernando, Centre for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University Singapore, and Dr. Lim Lee Ching, Singapore Institute of Management, they were puzzled as to where I meant. Upon explanation, Dr. Lim responded, ‘I guess you could call it that, if you wanted to, why not.’12 The plaque reads: On this historic site Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles First landed in Singapore On 28th January 1819 And with genius and perception Changed the destiny of Singapore From an obscure fishing village To a great seaport and Modern metropolis13 While I will concede to Sir Thomas’ genius and perception, we must consider that Sir Thomas most probably envisioned a typical British colonial free port, rather than a modern metropolis. Facts regarding his town plans indicate this: while he was against slavery, he supported a system of indentured servitude where individuals would ‘be forced to work off the cost of their passage’ to Singapore over the course of two years; he divided the area into distinct districts, a commercial district, a government district, and kampongs, villages, which administered the population along ‘neat racial categories,’ which was a common colonial practice. 14 These boundaries are still evident today. Chinatown is still located in close proximity to the mouth and quays of the Singapore River.

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__________________________________________________________________ However, all of the prime real-estate hugging the riverside is now occupied by the skyscrapers of big business or thriving restaurants and bars, targeting international visitors, situated in the structures of former riverside trading establishments that have been modernised. The skyscrapers and restaurants and bars are depicted in the photograph below, the restaurants and bars are the two story structures hugging the river bank on the right side of the photograph.

Image 1: South Bank of the Singapore River. Photograph by Michael Kearney, © February 2010. Little India is still centred around Serangoon Rd and retains the distinct atmosphere of a kampong. The shops and restaurants are overwhelming Indian in the wares and dishes for sale: a typical store front of Singapore’s Little India is shown in the photograph below. As it is mirrored in the ethnic neighbourhoods of multiethnic/multicultural/multiracial regions the world over, the majority of the residents of Singapore’s Little India are of Tamil decent. Thus, it is not surprising to find that the majority of the people traversing the streets of Little India are ethnic Tamils, with a sprinkling of international visitors, and a very minute number of Singaporean ethnic Chinese and Malays. Dr. Lim Lee Ching has been going to Little India to the same small establishment for over twenty years because he loves Indian food but has yet to learn the proprietor’s name, which is in contrast to his experience and behaviour in the Chinese dining establishments he frequents. He

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__________________________________________________________________ explained that while most Singaporeans would have friends, or perhaps acquaintances, from other ethnic groups, that Singaporeans mainly socialize within their own ethnic circles; 15 however, this is common in many multicultural/multiethnic regions; it is not a practice unique to Singapore.

Image 2: Little India, Singapore. Photograph by Michael Kearney, © February 2010. While the ethnic divisions are quite evident, and the individuals would have a strong sense of connection to their ethnic/cultural heritage, the population of Singapore generally consider themselves Singaporean first: unless the individual is a recent immigrant to the city-nation. However, it is also clearly evident as one traverses the limited landscape of Singapore that modern high-rise flats now house most of the population. What is of primary importance here is that the allocation of this housing is executed following an extremely strict scheme of equitable distribution for the ethnic groups that populate modern Singapore. This will be discussed in more detail below. It is a fact that Singapore existed before Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles landed in January 1819, and it is a fact that he established a British ruled trading post on the island for the East India Trading company, but it was not until the 1970s that it became official history that Sir Thomas was the founder of Singapore. Yes, we

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__________________________________________________________________ may say that he was in a sense the founder of the colonial Singapore, which over the course of about 150 years became the modern metropolis of Singapore, but what was the need to make this the official foundation history of Singapore? Apparently Raffles was declared the official founder of Singapore to settle a dispute between Chinese and Malays regarding the city-nation’s foundation.16 This brings to the forefront a major concern for, and goal of, Singapore’s governing authorities – ‘social harmony.’17 The idea of a social harmony, where all of the members of the society coexist in a benevolent and prosperous manner, is a wonderful thing. However, it is vital to examine how this social harmony is achieved, to be cognisant of governmental policies constructing and maintaining it, to be aware of the agents that are putting these policies into action and for what ends, and finally to consider the extent that the individual subject in such a society achieves autonomy. In order to answer these questions, it is necessary to contemplate the social engineering that Singapore practices. From 1963 to 1965 Singapore was part of the new nation, independent from British rule, of Malaysia, which included Malaya, Sabah, Sarawak, and Singapore. In 1965, Singapore split from Malaysia due to a growing rift between the Chinese population, the overwhelming majority in Singapore, and the Malay population, which held the majority through the rest of Malaysia: the Malays feared Chinese economic and political dominance.18 From the outset, Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first prime minister and the leader of the People’s Action Party (PAP), took advantage of Singapore’s one-party rule to undertake a plan to industrialise Singapore’s economy. The plan’s scope was broad, incorporating infrastructure development, housing schemes, and education policies. The goal was to forge Singapore’s multiethnic population into a harmonious society that could operate at the highest global economic and technological levels. The development of the infrastructure, including modern transportation systems, water and electric supplies, and sanitation and sewer systems was vital to the development of a modern business district around the mouth of the Singapore River. A major aspect of this plan of urban renovation was the new housing scheme. The razing of the slums situated in the vicinity of the south bank of the Singapore River in order to build a globalised business district would displace a large portion of the population. The solution was to construct modern apartment blocks. However, this uprooting of people from localised communities, the former kampongs that were drawn upon ethnic lines, could have had a counter effect on the aim of social harmony. To alleviate this, the government held to a strict policy of equitable distribution of housing. While the population of Singapore has grown from 2,013,600 in 1970 to 3,642,700 in 2008, its demographic percentage based on ethnicity has roughly remained constant. These percentages are 75% Chinese, 13% Malay, 9% Tamil, with the final 3% being a mixture.19 With an eye toward unity, toward creating

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__________________________________________________________________ Singaporeans, rather than dividing the population into distinct housing blocks following the ethnic demographics, the government enacted a policy where each housing scheme would mirror the ethnic demographics of the nation. The aim of this was to circumvent any claims of bias in the distribution of housing. 20 Moreover, in order for the inhabitants to more easily accept relocation from kampongs and residences that had been home to generations of families, the sites for the new apartment blocks had to be conveniently located so as to be close to the amenities utilized during daily life, shops and local restaurants for example, as well as allowing for easy access to the downtown shopping and business districts of Singapore. The photograph below shows a public housing block, the large connected towers in the background; the smaller buildings in the foreground house local shops, restaurants, pubs, and cafes. This housing scheme is located a five minute bus ride from the central business district and a five minute walk from the heart of Chinatown, which houses several large shopping malls.

Image 3: Public Housing Block, Singapore. Photograph by Michael Kearney, © December 2010. Considering these policies objectively, they can indeed be held to have been executed quite well regarding location and ethnic equitability. However, such massive restructuring of the urban landscape would rarely be perceived favourably by the individual subjects experiencing it. For the plan to work, the image of unity,

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__________________________________________________________________ among the Chinese, Indian, and Malay inhabitants, in working toward an economically prosperous Singapore must be generated. Monuments, often in the form of statues, serve a function in all nations in creating a sense of national identity, cohesiveness, and unity. The production of monuments can be held as an element in a national system that provides images, or points of reference, that function to bond the constituents of a nation together. The importance of presenting and maintaining national unity through discursive formations in order to stabilize a nation is discussed by Setsuko Adachi in her chapter in this volume, ‘Undermined Empathy, Undermined Coexistence: Japanese Discursive Formations Related to Empathy.’ While the positive points of a national unity are obviously evident: a socially stable environment where the large majority of the population see themselves as a part of the nation working toward the benefit of all, Adachi quite poignantly illuminates, through a socio-psycho-linguistic analysis, a negative aspect: the negation, the dehumanising, the formulation of a deep seeded national narcissism that completely disregards any other that exists outside the parameters of the nation group.21 Just as the riverside monument to Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles marks the origin point of the concept of the modern Singapore, the statues in the first photograph below locate in history Singapore’s origin as a centre of trade in Southeast Asia. The statues depict an Indian labourer, a Chinese person keeping account of transactions, and a Westerner overseeing the process. These statues can easily be dated as being representations from 19th century Singapore, and they reflect the social and economic positions, as well as the division of labour, quite accurately. The statues in the second photograph below are located adjacent to the statues in the first photograph: this series of statues are a short walk up the bank of the Singapore River from the statue of Raffles. The statues in the second photograph are intended, as the adjoining plaque stipulates, to depict the link between the Singapore of old, which was a hub of trade, through the Chinese individual seated on the ground with an accounts ledger before him; and the contemporary state of Singapore, which is a major player in the globalised markets of capitalism, represented by the female stockbroker in modern business attire, which also serves to symbolise Singapore’s official position on equality between the sexes. The intention behind the creation of these statues, is that when they are read together they will perpetuate the image of Singaporeans as a diversified, yet unified, group, with a long tradition of business acumen, with each member of the nation fulfilling their role toward the benefit of the whole nation, with equal status as citizens even if this is not reflected in their monetary remuneration, or the positions they occupy within the work force.

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Image 4: On North Bank of Singapore River. Photograph by Michael Kearney, © February 2010.

Image 5: On North Bank of Singapore River. Photograph by Michael Kearney, © February 2010.

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__________________________________________________________________ Tina Rahimy presents the notion, in her chapter in this volume, ‘The Battleground of a Milieu: On the Concept of Flight and its Political Milieu’, that our perspectives are dependent upon the concepts of the context that we hold. 22 Considering this in relation to the creation of national monuments, it becomes evident that the function of the artistic creations depicted in the two preceding photographs is to provide a politicised context that will direct, or dictate, the perspective of the population. The premise of the Singaporean social engineers was that in order to create a stable society that was strong economically, it was necessary to forge an image of united Singaporeans functioning with great business acumen; however, without adequate education and training, this would prove to be an empty, and therefore, useless image. Thus, it was essential to formulate education policies that would form the diverse inhabitants of the island into Singaporeans; paramount in the minds of the social engineers of Singapore during this process were the economic benefits that could be reaped through strict education policies that moulded the island’s multiethnic population into a cohesive group, into Singaporeans. With the goal of producing citizens that could operate at the highest global standards of technology, the Ministry of Education put major emphasis on mathematics and sciences. However, it is the bilingual policy that marks Singapore’s education plan as unique. The aims of the bilingual policy are clearly expressed by the Ministry of Education in the following: A cornerstone of Singapore’s education system is the bilingual policy which allows each child to learn English and his Mother Tongue, which could be Malay, Chinese or Tamil, to the best of his abilities. This enables children to be proficient in English, which is the language of commerce, technology and administration, and their Mother Tongue, the language of their cultural heritage.23 Proficiency in English allows Singapore to operate in the global paradigm of business with an advantage over other nations, particularly Asian, that are struggling to produce people competent in English. Japan is one of the countries struggling with English proficiency: the funding to conduct the research presented in this chapter and Associate Professor Setsuko Adachi’s chapter 24 in this volume has been granted as part of a continuing group research project run out of Kogakuin University, Tokyo. One of the core issues being investigated by this project, headed by myself and Associate Professor Adachi, is the problem of language acquisition in relation to how identities are formatted. The aim is to develop solutions that can be implemented in governmental and educational programs within Japan so that it can operate more efficiently and benevolently in the global paradigm. In her chapter in this volume, Setsuko Adachi provides an

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__________________________________________________________________ informative account of some of the misguided and convoluted policies regarding English language education in Japan and the discursive formations of the Japanese Symbolic Order that underpin the modes of thought that devised them. 25 Regarding Singapore’s policy of bilingualism, there appears to be more to the Mother Tongue aspect than being aware of your cultural/ethnic heritage. With the leaders seeking order, a key to an economically prosperous society, social regulations, the well known draconian laws of Singapore, needed to be coupled with a policy of identity formation. Authoritarian social regulations and Asian ethics, which include a ‘subservience to family and society,’ primarily derived from ‘neo-Confucian ideals,’ are internalised by individuals through the education system. The aim is to guard against the ‘Western pluralism and democracy,’ 26 which are held as decadent, that could be infused into individuals through the Meta-Symbolic Order as it is transmitted globally by AICS. 27 Setsuko Adachi’s argument reveals that Japan is also following this course as a mode of protection against being infected by outside influences.28 As with any nation, regardless of the degree of its multicultural/multiethnic composition, social regulations, housing schemes, and education policies are designed to produce a stable society that can be successful economically. Often, the social engineering agents behind these plans generate histories to aid in the production of the illusion of a national identity. The degree to which this can be conducted successfully is uncertain; moreover, whether the term successful is even appropriate must be questioned since we are dealing with the degree of autonomy of individuals’ identities. 3. Problems and Some Weird Solutions Let us consider three recent issues related to the illusions of social harmony and the solutions that were prescribed. The front page headline of The Straits Times on February 13, 2010 read, ‘Racist Facebook Postings: Three Youths Won’t Be Charged.’29 The problem arose when a youth posted ‘a derogatory term referring to Indians.’30 Two Singapore Polytechnic students, Sam Soo Siu Weng, 17, and Goh Jun Yi, 18, were only cautioned for their roles as administrators of the Facebook group. The third teenager, whose name was not released, received the ‘sternest punishment’ of the three: he was ‘placed on the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports’ Guidance Programme.’31 This programme, which was initiated in 1997, was designed ‘for first-time offenders who commit minor offences, offering [emphasis added] them an opportunity … to make amends and resolve against re-offending in the future.’ 32 Part of the programme of rehabilitation, or punishment depending upon one’s perception, is that the individual must ‘undergo a ‘voluntary [emphasis added], six-month programme that focuses on counselling and rehabilitation with the active involvement of parents’.’ 33 The terms ‘offering’ and ‘voluntary’ are interesting here: it is not stipulated in the article what would occur if the youth declined the offer and chose

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__________________________________________________________________ not to volunteer. Most likely, some form of sterner punishment would be assigned to the youth; would incarceration be a possibility? The point here is that the language utilized by the government gives a false sense, to both the youth and the reader of the article, of the youth making an autonomous decision. Moreover, let us not forget the correlation between the terms programme and programming: programmes are attempts to program the individuals enrolled in them. It is not within the scope of this chapter to judge whether this programme is just or successful, but rather the aim is to illuminate the policies of social engineering, toward the end of a harmonious society is this case, that are being practiced by the governing systems of Singapore. Moreover, it should be noted that the media, both print and electronic (AICS), holds a primary role in this process: they disseminate the information in a manner that reinforces governmental policies, actually praising them, rather than scrutinizing the legitimacy of the policies: the media serves as a major transmission mechanism for the government’s programme code. While I argue strongly for educational policies designed with the aim of exposing how susceptible we all are to being programmed, having our identities matrixed, by the myriad Symbolic Orders within which we exist, I must also be objective, and realistic, in addressing the positive aspects of the above case. If occurring in the United States, a multicultural, multiracial, multireligious, multiethnic nation that at times promotes the message that the United States has policies that celebrate its diversity, this case would very doubtfully garner front page space in any major newspaper. Moreover, would there be any grounds for legal recourse to prohibit the spreading of such racist sentiments? No, the youth would be protected under his right of freedom of speech. According to United States law, even if the posting encouraged violence, it would only be viewed as criminal if the threat were imminent. While it is an individual’s legal right to spread hate on the internet in the United States, Singapore has decided to implement laws toward securing racial and ethnic harmony. Singapore’s policy was clearly stipulated by Deputy Assistant Commissioner of Police, Teo Chun Ching: the ‘police would like to remind the public that it takes a serious view of acts that can threaten the social harmony in Singapore. This includes those who do so hiding behind a shroud of anonymity afforded by the internet.’34 Clearly the government views Singapore’s social harmony as an essential cornerstone of any present or future success. Singapore’s laws are often viewed as draconian, and in many cases quite validly. However, that charge cannot be levied in this case: the boys were not charged with any crime because the police deemed the boys ‘acted out of immaturity, rather than malice;’ 35 moreover, the trio apologised for their actions. A rather lenient reaction, yet one that quickly and directly addressed the issue of ethnic/racial intolerance. I gather that the main point of the authorities was to reinforce the message, through the media, that Singapore will not tolerate ethnic, religious, or racial intolerance. However, the United States’ laws allowing individuals the freedom to express their beliefs are past due in being revised so that

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__________________________________________________________________ they address those particular situations where the beliefs being expressed, and the intention of the dissemination of those beliefs, are concerned with the fostering of hate. To drive the point home, both in this paper and in Singapore, the very next day, February 14, 2010, the headline in The Straits Times read, ‘Don’t Trivialise Beliefs of Others: SM Goh.’36 While this article mentioned the three youths, the onus was on ‘insensitive comments about Buddhism and Taoism’37 that were posted online by the founder of Lighthouse Evangelism, Senior Pastor Rony Tan and Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong’s public response to the two incidents of derogatory comments. Minister Goh commented that ‘Singaporeans are free to practise and promote their religions, but must do so responsibly and without trivialising the religious beliefs of others,’ that they ‘cannot afford to take the racial and religious harmony [in Singapore] for granted,’ and that when any instances of such disharmony arise ‘we must act quickly, exercise tolerance, respect any different viewpoints as being part and parcel of our multicultural social fabric and try to resolve the misunderstanding sincerely.’38 While Senior Pastor Tan ‘was hauled up for questioning,’ 39 he was not charged because he apologised and removed the postings. With these two cases, Singapore certainly seems to be following a policy that other multicultural states could put into practise: a strict policy administered leniently when possible. However, the cases could have gone much worse against the trio of youths and Senior Pastor Tan: they could have been charged with sedition. Therein lies a weird solution, the government maintains the right to enforce draconian penalties in order to foster social harmony. 40 A state programming its population to have identities that function under the illusion of being autonomous does not connote that subjective identities are being formed. It rather seems that the individuals formatted by the Singaporean Symbolic Order are programmed to be drones, which results in the façade of a social harmony between autonomous individuals. The third issue of this section considers remedying the drone problem in Singapore; however, it draws some questionable conclusions and offers some more weird solutions. On the website ‘Doctor Asian Rake,’ Asian Rake David, who has lived in Singapore for over two years, wrote: … what has struck me as probably the most salient trait of Singaporean people in general … is the lack of social comfort and the prevalence of social anxiety.41 The website refers to an article on academic freedom and creativity in Singapore, which argues that ‘self-censorship,’ the result of what I referred to earlier as the internalisation of authoritarian social regulations, limits the ability of the population to take creative chances. One conclusion that may be drawn here is that because of PAP’s success in guiding Singapore to the establishment of a stable

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__________________________________________________________________ economy, the population is willing to accept government restrictions, and has therefore become apathetic. The charge of Singaporean apathy was echoed by Dr. Charlene Rajendran, from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, on September 24, 2010 at the MCB4 conference when she stated that her Singaporean students were ‘existing in la-la land.’42 I will agree with both charges of apathy, but I must point out that this apathetic condition is more a result of the conditions of modern urban affluence rather than draconian Singaporean regulations, and that this apathy can be seen manifest in all regions that are functioning at the higher levels of the globalised economic paradigm. Moreover, some of the solutions being proffered in the article are ridiculous: one teacher, for homework, has his male students go shopping dressed as women. This instructor also has students, as a class assignment, go up to strangers on the street and ask for money, or if they could swap clothes. To what end are these projects designed? I do not see how forcing these tasks upon students, particularly those that may be shy or reluctant to perform in public, is going to negate apathy and foster creativity. Moreover, I wonder what ramifications would befall a teacher in the United States, or in other so called advanced nations, if such tasks were assigned. I am rather certain that some form of disciplinary action against the instructor would be the end result in the United States. 4. Observing Realities Martha C. Nussbaum in ‘The Ugly Models’ writes that ‘[i]t is time to take off the rose-colored glasses. Singapore and China are terrible models of education for any nation that aspires to remain a pluralistic democracy. They have not succeeded on their own business-oriented terms, and they have energetically suppressed imagination and analysis when it comes to the future of the nation and the tough choices that lie before it.’43 I will not deem to forecast Singapore’s future economic fate; however, Nussbaum is inaccurate in her assessment of Singapore’s current economic state. The education plan for economic success in a globalised paradigm, which PAP implemented as part of their overall plan of social engineering, has been successful: Singapore was ranked as ‘Asia’s most competitive economy in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2010-2011;’44 In a time of global economic turmoil Singapore is more than adequately sustaining itself. Moreover, it is socially harmonious in that it is a safe nation in which to reside that responds swiftly to racial/ethnic/religious intolerance. These are obviously not negative situations. In contrast, consider the intention of Reverend Terry Jones to burn the Quran. The U.S. is ‘built on the notions of religious freedom and religious tolerance;’ 45 however, to what extent can it enforce tolerance? According to President Obama, under the right of ‘freedom of speech’ Jones could burn the Quran, and the only thing he could be charged with would be ‘public burning.’46 In addition, it must be strenuously noted that Singapore has never aspired to a policy of pluralistic democracy,47 so perhaps rather than utilizing the word ‘terrible’ when

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__________________________________________________________________ referring to the education policies, it would be more appropriate to use a phrase like unsuitable model of education for nations aspiring to follow different paths than those of Singapore and China. Nussbaum’s argument seems to me to be rather subjective and quite Western-political-policy-centred. Over the past five hundred years, has not the West already imposed enough of its systems on the East, as well as those territories south of the Equator? While it may not be in a Western democracy’s best interest to implement many of the policies that are functioning in Singapore, and Singapore is not calling for Western style democracies to follow its systems, there may be some policies that would benefit a Western democracy, and it would be just as true regarding a reverse course of flow: certain governmental concepts utilized in the West would benefit Singapore. The essential point that links the above systems, the main issue addressed in this chapter, and an issue that remains all too invisible for the overwhelming multitude, is that individuals are being programmed, their identities are being matrixed, by the cultural constructions operating in the Symbolic Orders within which they exist, whether that be a Western pluralistic democracy or Singapore. The major concern being expressed in this chapter is that in remaining ignorant to the fact that one is caught up in this process diminishes any hope of a semblance of autonomy. This process of identity being formed from the cultural constructions that comprise one’s social set has been functioning since the inception of human culture. As the Identity Matrixing Model48 illustrates, the process is extremely fluid and adaptable and has evolved in conjunction with societal developments. The process of identity formation has even adapted to the conditions posed by the paradigm of globalisation. Paul Virilio addresses this and the loss of autonomy in The Information Bomb: If, in terms of current laws, which are supposed to protect individual liberties … our prolific audiovisual environment [AICS] has long since induced us to cease having any concern for those multiple appearances of ourselves which unknown general staffs – of the military and the police, but also the medical, financial, political, industrial and advertising establishments – steal, misappropriate, explore and manipulate without our knowing it, engaged as they are in secretly fighting over our optical clones, our modern mortal remains; to turn them, in the short term, into unconscious actors in their virtual worlds, their nomadic games.49 Regarding the charges of apathy and lack of creativity, can we concede that there are many non-creative and apathetic individuals inhabiting nations following the policies of Western pluralism and democracy? Perhaps the origin of these detrimental aspects lies elsewhere. Of course, social programming can inhibit

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__________________________________________________________________ creativity, just as a different plan of social programming can foster creativity. However, creativity will emerge regardless of the constraints imposed through social engineering; in fact, creative works are often formed in response to inhibiting, restricting forms of social programming. Even within the most draconian regimes that have existed through-out human history, creative individuals, geniuses, have emerged. From my observations of Singapore/Singaporeans, which include three research trips to the island nation over the twenty-one month period preceding the composition of this chapter 50, and research into this topic, I have discerned, contrary to the beliefs I held before conducting this research, that Singapore has a vibrant art community. For example, Dr. Jeremy Fernando, Dr. Lim Lee Ching, director, author, and musician Kenny Png, artist, designer Sara Chong, and artist, designer Yanyun Chen are part of a collective that is active, and productive, in music, video, movie, drama, installation art, graphic design, and the publishing of vibrant and cutting-edge academic works, as well as prose and poetry. Moreover, this group has connections with collaborators in various countries, including Holland, India, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Switzerland, and the United States. In the play The Boxes, by Singaporean Kenny Png, the characters chant ‘I am happy because I should be happy’51 in an artistic indictment of Singaporean social engineering policies. In a conversation with Dr. Fernando, whose ethnicity is a combination of Portuguese and Chinese, when asked if he was a Singaporean, he responded, ‘Yeah, sure, why not.’ Has the social engineering of Singapore produced the ideal multicultural/multiethnic state? While Minister Goh may be eager to say yes, I must conclude, of course not, nowhere has, but so far Singapore is doing okay. Have PAP’s policies been able to produce Singaporeans? In a sense yes, the same way that the laws and social policies regarding multiculturalism and multiethnicism being enacted in Canada produce what can be termed Canadians: here it is prudent to recall Wagener’s and Belghiti’s points 52 that the concepts of nation and national identity are artificial, human concepts; thus, they are termed, named and defined by humans; therefore, humans have the power to adjust, or change, the definitions pertaining to Singaporeans or Canadians. Thus, it can be discerned that the concept of a Singaporean is a culturally constructed illusion, albeit a reality,53 but is this not the case with all notions of national identities. What should be evident is that people must be on guard as to what cultural constructions are being transmitted by governments through education/social policies. Just as important, if not more so, is that people in every region of the globe must be cognisant and wary, both for themselves and for the young under their care, of the nebulous programming mechanisms that are flowing through the Meta-Symbolic Order and that are being transmitted by AICS because it is through these that the dissemination of notions on social values, concepts of success, and senses of selfworth occurs, with the aim of the designing agents being the production of consumeristic drones.54 Once these are infused within the identity of an individual,

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__________________________________________________________________ there is very little chance of forming or maintaining any semblance of an autonomous identity.

Notes 1

For explanations of Advanced Information and Communications Systems (AICS) and cultural hybridity see M Kearney & S Adachi, ‘Mapping Hybrid Identities: A Matrixing Model for Transculturality’, in From Conflict to Recognition: Moving Multiculturalism Forward, M Kearney (ed), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2011. 2 For Jacques Lacan’s explanation of Symbolic Order see J Lacan, A Sheridan (trans), The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-analysis, Vintage Random House, London, 1998, p. 279; for a detailed discussion on how the concept has been developed by Kearney and Adachi for application in the Identity Matrixing Model see ibid. 3 For a thorough discussion of the Identity Matrixing Model (IMM) see Ibid. 4 For detailed explanations of Vertical Matrixing and Horizontal Matrixing see Ibid. 5 A Cuadrado-Fernandez, ‘Globalisation, Transculturalism and Environment: Sharing and Understanding Indigenous Perspectives through Poetry’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2011. 6 For a detailed explanation of Global Hodological Maps see Kearney & Adachi, ‘Mapping Hybrid Identities: A Matrixing Model for Transculturality’, op. cit. 7 The premise underlying their development of the concept of three economic paradigms, with the 3rd Paradigm being termed informatization, is explained by M Hardt & A Negri in their book Empire, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2001, p. 280; for further discussion on these three paradigms and how they function also see M Kearney & S Adachi, ‘The Production of the Global Consumer: Economic Booms and the Destruction of Cultures’, in Proceedings of the International Conference on Social Sciences & Humanities 2008: Crossing the Borders of Knowledge for the Future, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia, 2008, p. 10. 8 Hardt & Negri, Empire, p. 284. 9 A Wagener, ‘Representations and Defence Processes in Cross-Cultural Conflicts: France and the Case of its ‘National Identity’’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2011. 10 R Belghiti, ‘The Image of Dance and the Narrative of Secular Culture in Edward Said’s After the Last Sky’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), InterDisciplinary Press, Oxford, 2011. 11 S Richmond, Singapore, Lonely Planet Publications, Victoria, Australia, 2003, p. 9. 12 Interview with Dr. Jeremy Fernando, Centre for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University Singapore, and Dr. Lim Lee Ching, Singapore Institute of Management, February 10, 2010.

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This plaque is fixed to the pedestal of the statue of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles that is situated on the north bank of the Singapore River. 14 Richmond, op. cit., p. 10. 15 Interview with Dr. Lim Lee Ching, Singapore Institute of Management, Februay 11, 2010. 16 Interviews with Dr. Jeremy Fernando, Centre for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University Singapore, Dr. Lim Lee Ching, Singapore Institute of Management, and director, author, and musician Kenny Png, February 17, 2010 and December 5, 2010. 17 HH Chua, ‘Racist Facebook Postings: Three Youths Won’t Be Charged’. The Straits Times, February 13, 2010, p. A1. 18 Richmond, op. cit., p. 13; and phone interview with Dr. Jeremy Fernando, Centre for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University Singapore, September 18, 2010. 19 Monthly Digest of Statistics Singapore: February 2010. Department of Statistics, Ministry of Trade & Industry, Singapore, pp. 3-5. 20 Interview with Dr. Lim Lee Ching, Singapore Institute of Management, February 11, 2010; and phone interview with Dr. Jeremy Fernando, Centre for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University Singapore, September 18, 2010. 21 S Adachi, ‘Undermined Empathy, Undermined Coexistence: Japanese Discursive Formations Related to Empathy’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2011. 22 T Rahimy, ‘The Battleground of a Milieu: On the Concept of Flight and its Political Milieu’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2011. 23 2009 Education Statistics Digest, Ministry of Education, Singapore, p.v. 24 Adachi, op. cit. 25 Ibid. 26 Richmond, op. cit., p. 22; and interviews with Dr. Jeremy Fernando, Centre for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University Singapore, Dr. Lim Lee Ching, Singapore Institute of Management, and Dr. Neil Murphy, Head of the Department of English, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, February 9-12, 2010. 27 For an explanation of the Meta-Symbolic Order, see Kearney & Adachi, ‘Mapping Hybrid Identities: A Matrixing Model for Transculturality’, op. cit. 28 Adachi, op. cit. 29 Chua, op. cit., p. A1. 30 Ibid., p. A1. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid., p.A4.

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Ibid. Ibid. 35 Ibid., p. A1. 36 KB Kor, ‘Don’t Trivialise Beliefs of Others: SM Goh’. The Straits Times, February 14, 2010, p. A1. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 40 For more on Singapore’s Sedition Act see E S Anthony, ‘The Sedition Act Needs Revision’, in The Online Citizen: A Community of Singaporeans. http://theonlinecitizen.com/2010/02/the-sedition-act-needs-revision/ viewed on September 18, 2010; and, Singapore Statues Online, Attorney General’s Chambers. http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/non_version/cgi-bin/cgi_getdata.pl?actno=1964-REVED290&segid, viewed on September 18, 2010. 41 Doctor Asian Rake, ‘How Much Social Comfort is there in Singapore?’ August 12, 2010. http://www.doctorasianrake.com/2010/08/how-much-social-freedom-isthere-in-singapore/, viewed on September 18, 2010. 42 Statement made during a question & discussion period at the 4th Global Conference, Multiculturalism, Conflict and Belonging, held at Oriel College, Oxford University, September 23-26, 2010. For more of Ms. Rajendran’s views see her chapter in this volume: C Rajendran, ‘Multicultural Belongings on the Contemporary Stage: Krishen Jit’s Threatre of Identity in Malaysia’, in this volume, A Wagener & T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2011. 43 M C Nussbaum in ‘The Ugly Models’, viewed through Doctor Asian Rake, op. cit. 44 ravi.dhillon, ‘Singapore, Ranks as Asia’s Most Competitive Economy’, in Business Climate, Entrepreneurs, News, September 9, 2010. http://blog.guidemesingapore.com/economy/b844-singapore-ranks-as-asias-mostcompetitive-economy, viewed September 11, 2010. 45 A Althouse, Althouse, September 9, 2010. http://althouse.blogspot.com/2010/09/we-are-of-course-now-against-anyother.html, viewed on September 11, 2010. 46 Ibid. 47 See section two, ‘Fact/Official History: Generating an Illusion’, of this chapter, part related to note 26. 48 Kearney & Adachi, ‘Mapping Hybrid Identities: A Matrixing Model for Transculturality’, op. cit. 49 P Virilio, The Information Bomb, Verso, London, 2005, pp. 29-30. 50 Between February 2009 and December 2010. 51 K Png, ‘The Boxes’ (1997), in On Happiness, K Png & J Fernando, Math Paper Press, Singapore, 2010, p. 23-31. 34

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See section two, ‘Fact/Official History: Generating an Illusion’, of this chapter, parts related to notes 9 and 10. 53 For a detailed explanation of the theory on the difference between realities, which are based on perceptions formed through, by and during the identity matrixing process, and the Real, the thing as it is sans perception, see M Kearney, ‘Transcultural Identity Formation: The Matrixing of Language(s) and Regional and Global Cultural Constructions’, in Proceedings of the Malaysia International Conference on Foreign Languages (MICFL) 2010, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Putrajaya, Malaysia, 2010; it may also be helpful to look at M Heidegger, J Stambaugh (trans), Being and Time, State University of New York Press, Albany, New York, 1996, pp. 5-6; and J Lacan, A Sheridan (trans), The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-analysis, Vintage Random House, London, 1998, p. 280; and J Baudrillard, P Beitchman & W G J Niesluchowski (trans), Fatal Strategies, Pluto Press, London, 1999, p. 17. 54 For a detailed discussion on the production of consumers through the cultural constructions of the Meta-Symbolic Order that are being transmitted by AICS see M Kearney & S Adachi, ‘The Production of the Global Consumer: Economic Booms and the Destruction of Cultures’, in Proceedings of the International Conference on Social Sciences & Humanities 2008: Crossing the Borders of Knowledge for the Future, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia, 2008.

Bibliography 2009 Education Statistics Digest, Ministry of Education, Singapore. Adachi, S., ‘Undermined Empathy, Undermined Coexistence: Japanese Discursive Formations Related to Empathy’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2011. Althouse, A., Althouse, September 9, 2010, Viewed on 11 September 2010. http://althouse.blogspot.com/2010/09/we-are-of-course-now-against-anyother.html. Anthony, E. S., ‘The Sedition Act Needs Revision’. The Online Citizen: A Community of Singaporeans. Viewed 18 September 2010. http://theonlinecitizen.com/2010/02/the-sedition-act-needs-revision/. Baudrillard, J., P. Beitchman & W. G. J. Niesluchowski (trans), Fatal Strategies. Pluto Press, London, 1999.

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__________________________________________________________________ Chua, H. H., ‘Racist Facebook Postings: Three Youths Won’t Be Charged’. The Straits Times, February 13, 2010, p. A1. Cuadrado-Fernandez, A., ‘Globalisation, Transculturalism and Environment: Sharing and Understanding Indigenous Perspectives through Poetry’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2011. Doctor Asian Rake, ‘How Much Social Comfort is there in Singapore?’ August 12, 2010. Viewed on September 18, 2010. http://www.doctorasianrake.com/2010/08/how-much-social-freedom-is-there-insingapore/. Hardt, M. & A. Negri, Empire. Harvard University Press, Massachusetts, 2001. Heidegger, M., J. Stambaugh (trans), Being and Time. State University of New York Press, Albany, New York, 1996. Kearney, M. & S. Adachi, ‘Mapping Hybrid Identities: A Matrixing Model for Transculturality’, in From Conflict to Recognition: Moving Multiculturalism Forward. M. Kearney (ed), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. Kor, K. B., ‘Don’t Trivialise Beliefs of Others: SM Goh’. The Straits Times, February 14, 2010, p. A1. Lacan, J., A. Sheridan (trans), The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-analysis. Vintage Random House, London, 1998. Monthly Digest of Statistics Singapore: February 2010. Department of Statistics, Ministry of Trade & Industry, Singapore. Nussbaum, M. C., ‘The Ugly Models’ in Doctor Asian Rake, ‘How Much Social Comfort is there in Singapore?’ August 12, 2010. Viewed on September 18, 2010. http://www.doctorasianrake.com/2010/08/how-much-social-freedom-is-there-insingapore/. Png, K., ‘The Boxes’ (1997) in On Happiness. K. Png & J. Fernando, Math Paper Press, Singapore, 2010. Png, K. & J. Fernando, On Happiness. Math Paper Press, Singapore, 2010.

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__________________________________________________________________ Rahimy, T.,‘The Rumour of a Concept and the Battleground of its Milieu’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2011. Rajendran, C., ‘Multicultural Belongings on the Contemporary Stage: Krishen Jit’s Threatre of Identity in Malaysia’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2011. ravi.dhillon, ‘Singapore, Ranks as Asia’s Most Competitive Economy’. Business Climate, Entrepreneurs, News, September 9, 2010. Viewed September 11, 2010. http://blog.guidemesingapore.com/economy/b844-singapore-ranks-as-asias-mostcompetitive-economy, Richmond, S., Singapore. Lonely Planet Publications, Victoria, Australia, 2003. Singapore Statues Online, Attorney General’s Chambers. Viewed on September 18, 2010. http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/non_version/cgi-bin/cgi_getdata.pl?actno=1964-REVED290&segid Virilio, P., The Information Bomb. Verso, London, 2005. Wagener, A., ‘Representations and Defence Processes in Cross-Cultural Conflicts: France and the Case of its ‘National Identity’’, in this volume. A. Wagener & T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2011. Michael Kearney is associate professor in the Department of Languages and Cultural Studies at Kogakuin University, Research Associate Professor at the Stony Brook Institute for Global Studies (SBIGS), and Director of the Critical Theory Center Japan. He has published numerous articles on identity formation as well as pieces on William S. Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, Lydia Lunch, and the Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol. Book chapters include The Undermining of a West Briton: The Deconstruction of Joyce’s Gabriel Conroy, A Japanese Concept of the Self, and Mapping Hybrid Identities: A Matrixing Model for Transculturality. He is the editor of the book From Conflict to Recognition: Moving Multiculturalism Forward.

From Liberal Nationalism to Nationalistic Liberalism: Liberal Values and the Prospects for Progressive Nationalism Debopriyo Bal and Benjamin Herscovitch Abstract Over the course of the twentieth century, the composition of the population of industrialised states has undergone a radical transformation. States that were once largely ethnically homogeneous are now home to a wide range of ethnic groups. However, in many cases, the understanding of the nation has not kept pace with demographic changes. This has created a serious mismatch between ethnic, cultural, linguistic, etc., diversity, and a reductionistic and narrow conception of the nation. Faced with this inconsistency, liberals have tended to disavow nationalism on the grounds that nationalistic causes risk becoming violently exclusionary and, as a consequence, morally problematic means of fostering communal bonds. In this chapter we assess the prospects of a form of nationalism that is both liberal and as potent as traditional ethnic forms of nationalism. Building on the work of liberal nationalists, progressive patriots and civic nationalists, we argue that a progressive and yet powerful form of nationalism is indeed possible. More specifically, a powerful form of nationalism can be engineered that conceives of the nation in terms of a thin culture of liberal values. This would mean that rather than valorising a particular ethnic, cultural, linguistic, etc., group and excluding outsiders, the new liberal form of nationalism would embrace all individuals, provided of course that they affirm basic liberal values. Though this new nationalism celebrates a liberal cultural tradition, we argue that this cultural tradition is sufficiently thin to make this new nationalism far less exclusionary than traditional forms of nationalism. Indeed, it is only if national identity is defined in terms of liberal values that society will remain open to diversity. Key Words: Nationalism, liberal nationalism, progressive patriotism, civic nationalism, nationalistic liberalism, diversity, liberal values. ***** 1. Introduction The topic of nationalism arouses suspicion, especially amongst those who place themselves broadly within a framework of progressive politics. Nationalism is often denounced as racist, xenophobic, violent and aggressive because it seems to imply the championing of a dangerous parochialism. Nationalism thus appears contrary to the idea of moral universalism, namely the view that we ought to apply all standards impartially regardless of sex, nationality, ethnicity, and so on. As such, it would seem that nationalism is not only parochial but unjustifiably biased

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__________________________________________________________________ in favour of co-nationals. This conception of nationalism is typified by Albin Wagener’s chapter ‘Representations and Defence Processes in Cross-Cultural Conflicts: France and The Case of its ‘National Identity’’ in this volume.1 This bias may extend to other facets of life where, for instance, the rights of minorities are curtailed, histories are doctored or white-washed in order to bolster the national mythology2 and serve as the basis for violent territorial aggrandisement, and so on. George Orwell, for instance, in ‘Notes On Nationalism’ says that nationalism is: the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’.3 Certainly in modern times the ubiquitous talk of human rights and international law, increasing international economic interdependencies, etc., seem to make nationalism not only dangerous and uncouth, but an unwelcome relic of politics from the past.4 Many political parties and political movements that have marched under the banner of nationalism have, in fact, been violent and virulent, and many are associated with genocide and ethnic cleansing: the World Wars in Europe, the Balkans and Rwanda are but a few salient and sobering examples. As a consequence, the label nationalist may be considered a pejorative term. To contrast and resist nationalisms, we might be offered an internationalism or cosmopolitanism: moving forward involves looking outward. 2. Conceptual Clarification Ludwig Wittgenstein suggested that when investigating a phenomenon, it is useful to enumerate instances of that phenomenon as a preliminary step.5 In thinking about nationalism, it is easy to use a ‘biased or selective sample of cases’6 and then wrongly generalise or implicitly define nationalism as necessarily violent, racist, and so on. If we were to commit ourselves to such a definition, then denouncing nationalism as violent, etc., would follow trivially as it would be a tautology. This move would also be unhelpful for another reason: it may not adequately capture the range of nationalisms, real or theoretical. As such, it is helpful to remind ourselves that many liberation movements have in fact been nationalist struggles that have enjoyed and continue to enjoy widespread sympathy and solidarity. Examples include the Palestinians, the Tibetans and the Kurds, to name but a few. Similarly, other nationalist movements, such as those of the Québécois or Puerto Ricans, are markedly different to those nationalisms which are violent and virulent. Indian nationalism during the ‘Quit India’ movement actively tried to foster a secular national identity: multi-ethnic, multi-faith and linguistically diverse.7 Hence, based on these initial observations, it is clear that we are dealing with a complex and variegated phenomenon that resists simple caricatures: nationalism can be left-wing or right-wing, progressive or conservative, and so on.

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__________________________________________________________________ Further conceptual confusion may arise over the way that we conceive of a ‘nation’, or ‘national identity’, etc. In many cases, the nation is conceived in monolithic terms, such as racial purity, where membership is involuntary and the individual is subordinated to the nation. This conception belies the political reality of the increasing diversity in many parts of the world and makes these notions somewhat antiquated. We reject this conception on theoretical, historical and ethical grounds. Firstly, the nation need not be conceived of as a homogeneous, static and undifferentiated entity because many nations are composed of ‘subcultures’, which find themselves in an intricate and complex relationship with each other. Moreover, it is quite clear that over time national cultures change as they negotiate various internal and external developments. Consequently, to insist on a singular and unchanging conception would be both descriptively and normatively a serious error. In Australia, for instance, the national identity has significantly loosened from a pure ‘White Australia’ slowly towards a multicultural one with the arrival of non-European immigrants, particularly during the last 40 years. Furthermore, we envision a nation to be more akin to a voluntary association like a community group, as opposed to a rigid patriarchal family held together by blood ties. Any association to a nation would be purely voluntary, meaning that those who do not wish to identify with the nation need not, they may freely dream up whatever identity they wish. As a consequence, given that associations are voluntary, people can voluntarily associate with more than one nation. With our commitment to liberalism, we believe that the individual normatively precedes the nation. This has two important implications. Firstly, this means that an individual’s rights and liberties cannot be curbed for ‘the good of the nation’. Secondly, it means that our particular nationalism cannot be used to justify aggression or discrimination, as this may impinge on the rights and liberties of individuals. What is more, on our conception of nationalism, participation in political life would depend on one being a citizen of a state, rather than on one being a member of a nation. Suppose that in a secular and multicultural state there are racists with identities that are in some sense opposed to the national identity. Since our underlying commitment is to liberalism, these racists would still be ensured participation in the political sphere. It may also be helpful to keep in mind that whilst ‘nation’, ‘state’ and ‘nationstate’ are used synonymously, they are conceptually distinct. There are many nations (e.g., indigenous peoples) that do not have a state and there are states that are composed of many nations (e.g., Switzerland). Lastly, the word ‘liberalism’ in the title may be distracting, so it is perhaps useful to say what we mean by it. Our commitment to liberalism is, we believe, fairly innocuous: we are anti-authoritarian (for instance, we are opposed to granting excessive powers to law enforcement agencies by means of sedition laws), we believe that associations should be voluntary (we hold that joining an

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__________________________________________________________________ association should be like joining a community group or social club) and we are committed to individual freedom and autonomy (we believe that people should be able to live as they see fit, provided that does not undermine the freedom of others to do the same). This particular classical rendering of liberalism, we maintain, can be endorsed by progressives from many different political traditions. Our position, however, should not be confused with ‘neo-liberalism’ or other similar political agendas.8 3. Why Nationalism? Given the historical record and theoretical possibilities, we think that an ethically defensible form of nationalism is possible. Quite simply, we wish to circumscribe nationalist expressions within the bounds of liberalism broadly construed. This has two important features, as mentioned above: firstly, the individual normatively precedes the nation in importance and thus is no longer subordinate to the nation. This means, for example, that women’s bodies are not seen as machines for producing more children to increase the population, nor are people conscripted to fight, as this would entail that people’s rights are overridden by, for instance, the nation’s desire for a large population or more resources. Secondly, belonging to a nation would be purely voluntary and not imposed on the basis of blood and soil, for example. People would be free to associate with whichever nation they like – nations would be open associations. More importantly, this form of nationalism makes no specific reference to the content of the nationalism. Since nationalism pertains to national identity and political selfdetermination, this form of nationalism leaves it open to the members of a nation to determine their identity and political projects. This openness is important because identities change and so should be given the space to develop organically. Some of the complexities associated with non-organic approaches to identity formation are dealt with in Cheryl Sim’s chapter ‘The Cheongsam: A Site of Wonder and Contestation for Canadian Women of Chinese Heritage’ in this volume.9 Members of a nation can freely negotiate their identity through democratic dialogue and in so doing can decide what they wish to keep and what they wish to discard. Nations may have practices and aspects of their identity which are not commensurate with the demands of ethics and this openness will give them the opportunity to supersede retrograde identities by forging new ones. It should be noted here that the opposition between nationalism and cosmopolitanism is in reality vacuous since national identities can be cosmopolitan in nature. We further claim, beyond theoretical possibilities, that nationalism can serve an important function in societies: Firstly, liberalism is an abstemious political system. 10 It is largely a ‘negative’ doctrine which is concerned with what cannot be done (e.g., rights cannot be infringed). As such, it does not have a strong positive political programme that enjoins citizens to come together and undertake various projects in order to achieve


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__________________________________________________________________ a particular end or state of affairs. In contrast, nationalism creates unity and solidarity, which allows a political society to carry out projects that may be of vital importance (e.g., the distribution of goods). The reason for this is that the wellbeing of a political society depends not only on the qualities of its institutions, but also on the qualities of its citizens (e.g., their sense of identity and belonging). 11 Nationalism makes it possible to set aside potentially competing sub-national identities (e.g., ethnic, religious, etc.) in order to promote the public good. Secondly, whilst ‘nations’ may be peculiar to this particular historical period, it seems clear that national identities will not be disappearing in the near future. 12 Attempts at suppressing or eradicating national ties through legal and social discrimination or by violence have failed and, more importantly, have had the opposite effect of galvanising national identities. Furthermore, ignoring or downplaying national identities has often had the effect of producing alienation or disaffection with the status quo. Given this, we run the risk of doing great damage if we ignore nationalist expressions or try to supplant them with, say, a cosmopolitan identity. Instead, we ought to cultivate better forms of nationalism by seeking and expecting reasonable limits to their expression. Thirdly, and most importantly, we should support nationalism not only for its ability to create a sense of community, but because many people want to have such a community. People have complex identities, a component of which may be a national identity. This might come in the form of (a) language(s), specific religious tradition(s), shared history, and so on. Further possible sources of identity are explored in Madhubanti Bhattacharyya’s chapter ‘Writing New Identities: South Asian Women, North America and Three Asian-American novels’ in this volume.13 As Will Kymlicka points out, ‘national minorities have fought to maintain themselves as separate and self-governing societies, living and working in their own languages, even as they modernize and liberalize their historical cultures.’14 The internationalist and nationalist Rabindranath Tagore famously chastised Mahatma Gandhi for what he saw as a dangerous and parochial approach to the issue of national unity. Tagore contended that Gandhi used a narrow nationalism based on exclusivity. This forced Gandhi to famously say: I hope I am as great a believer in free air as the great Poet [i.e., Tagore]. I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.15 Gandhi’s response is important to our argument in a number of ways. Firstly, it shows again that it is not conceptually problematic to value other peoples and cultures whilst simultaneously valuing your own people and culture. The supposed antinomy between internationalism and nationalism is thus a bad caricature once

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__________________________________________________________________ we take a more nuanced approach to the subject. Moreover, as a consequence, this means that nationalism need not be exclusionary. Secondly, Gandhi does, in fact, value his own culture. If we were to extend the metaphor, we could say that he is grounded by his Indian identity and that being uprooted would be a moral and political tragedy. Lastly, the increasing homogeneity that comes with modernity is diluting cultures as the world becomes smaller, so to speak. David Miller paints a bleak picture when says that the erosion of national identities is likely to be replaced not by a ‘rich cultural pluralism for everyone, but [by] the world market as the distributor of cultural resources.’16 Nationalism may be important as a bulwark against this trend by helping sustain the diverse cultures that exist through political means. Whilst many people may sympathise with our thesis that we need cohesion, unity, fellow-feeling, and so on, it may be worrying that we have chosen to use the word ‘nationalism’ as opposed to something more congenial. Perhaps the historical association of nationalism with violent exuberance is too irresistible to deny. Nevertheless, we believe that it is important to use the word ‘nationalism’ in order to critically engage and question these associations which seem natural and given. In light of the possibility of new ways of conceptualising the nation, national identity and hence nationalism, we believe that it is a peculiar prejudice or a failure of the imagination to insist that nationalism is necessarily an evil. 4. The Limitations of Liberal Nationalism It should be evident from what we have claimed thus far that we agree with liberal nationalists, most notably Kymlicka, Miller and Yael Tamir 17, who maintain that the liberal state should accommodate nationalist expressions within the bounds of a liberal framework of rights and liberties. However, we maintain that liberal nationalism needs to be supplemented. The reason for this is that liberal nationalism is best understood as an account of how the liberal state should respond to diversity within its boundaries. It is called ‘liberal nationalism’ because it is nationalism within the bounds of a broadly liberal framework of rights and liberties. As such, it sidesteps the crucially important question of the appropriate means of creating national unity within a liberal state composed of diverse groups. The liberal nationalists detail the characteristics that a defensible form of nationalism must have if it is to receive the support of liberals (e.g., it should be consistent with basic liberal values), without giving an indication of what the basis for unity amongst liberals ought to be. Though providing an adequate account of the forms of nationalism that the liberal state should tolerate, liberal nationalism gives us no answer to the question of whether or not the liberal state should actively seek to propagate certain forms of nationalism. As will become clearer as the argument progresses, beyond a liberal nationalism that tolerates the expression of numerous nationalisms within the


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__________________________________________________________________ liberal state, we advocate a form of nationalistic liberalism that stands above these nationalisms. This meta-nationalism, for want of a better term, demands conformity as regards basic liberal values from the various forms of nationalism that might find expression in the liberal state. However, beyond that, it demands nothing. 5. The Limitations of Progressive Patriotism Like the liberal nationalists, Tim Soutphommasane, a prominent Australian advocate of progressive patriotism, is certainly calling for non-exclusion.18 As he argues himself, ‘[t]he patriotism I defend is one in which loving one’s country is not reduced to ethnicity or race.’19 This means that, as he has said in the press, when it comes to the question of determining who is part of our national community, ‘it is a commitment to our democratic national community – not to some race, ethnicity or religion – that counts the most.’20 However, unlike the liberal nationalists, with his call-to-arms that ‘[i]t is time for progressives to reclaim patriotism,’21 Soutphommasane puts forward a positive account of the basis for unity amongst liberals. In particular, he defends ‘a patriotism that demands of citizens a commitment to a national tradition, comprised of civic values and moulded by historical experience.’22 In essence, Soutphommasane is suggesting that the liberal state, which in his writings is Australia, should actively seek to propagate a form of national unity that centres on a tradition which embodies certain values and highlights exemplary historical experiences. Though we share Soutphommasane’s enthusiasm for a liberal reclamation of the issue of national identity, we think that we need to look elsewhere for an answer to the question of the appropriate liberal approach to this matter. The reason for this is simply that the love of country entailed by patriotism is not going to yield the love of certain values that is required to construct a non-exclusionary basis for national unity. This becomes clear when we consider Soutphommasane’s own description of the difference between patriotism and nationalism. He suggests that: [p]atriotism refers to a basic sentiment of identity among citizens, and is in this sense a political principle. Nationalism, on the other hand, is usually derived from an attachment to the culture of your country.23 With this in mind, it should be apparent that insofar as we want a basis for national unity that comes with certain values which prohibit exclusion with respect to ethnicity, culture, language, etc., we are going to need a form of nationalism and not a form of patriotism.24 More specifically, what we need is a form of nationalism that centres on a thin culture of liberal values and not a form of patriotism that has as its focus a political unit and so is, at least potentially, blind to

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__________________________________________________________________ values.25 Simply put, patriotism, with its commitment to a political unit, comes with too little cultural baggage for our purposes. To be sure, it would indeed be inappropriate for the liberal state to define national identity in terms of a thick cultural tradition that makes reference to social mores, religion, pastimes, etc. Nevertheless, and this is the crucial point, if the liberal state is to provide a nonexclusionary basis for national identity, a form of nationalism that has as its focus a thin culture of liberal values is needed. 6. The Limitations of Civic Nationalism On the basis of our critiques of liberal nationalism and progressive patriotism, it might be thought that our nationalistic liberalism and what Michael Ignatieff calls ‘civic nationalism’26 are identical. That is to say that it might be argued that nationalistic liberalism simply amounts to the view that ‘the nation should be composed of all those – regardless of race, colour, creed, gender, language or ethnicity – who subscribe to the nation’s political creed.’27 Though there is a strong affinity between our nationalistic liberalism and Ignatieff’s idea that national unity should centre on certain shared values, we take issue with what we think is a crucial omission from an adequate account of a non-exclusionary and powerful basis for national unity. To get a sense of what Ignatieff’s account lacks, let us consider one of its obvious implications. If a powerful form of unity can be created solely on the basis of shared values, then it should be possible for a liberal to feel the same kind of solidarity with other liberal polities as they feel with their own. The problem for Ignatieff is that, in all likelihood, a liberal will feel a much stronger allegiance to their own liberal polity than they will to other liberal polities. As MacIntyre has observed: [i]t may well be...that I could enjoy and benefit equally from similar forms of social life in other communities; but this hypothetical truth in no way diminishes the importance of the contention that my goods are as a matter of fact found here, among these particular people, in these particular relationships. Goods are never encountered except as thus particularised. 28 In light of this, we maintain that though a non-exclusionary form of national unity will centre on certain basic liberal values, for this bond of national unity to be truly powerful it must exist between people situated in a specific time and place.29 It is arguably because of this that, as Benedict Anderson notes when building on his definition of the nation as ‘an imagined political community’30: [t]he nation is imagined as limited...even the largest of them, encompassing perhaps a billion living human beings, has finite,


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__________________________________________________________________ if elastic, boundaries, beyond which lie other nations. No nation imagines itself coterminous with mankind.31 What this suggests is that, though liberals from different nations might share a pan-liberal solidarity, the bond will be far stronger when it exists amongst liberals in a particular temporal and spatial location. 7. Nationalistic Liberalism In the wake of the failure of liberal nationalism, progressive patriotism and civic nationalism to provide a viable basis for a non-exclusionary and yet powerful form of national unity, we argue that we should look to a form of liberalism with nationalistic characteristics. This is to say that we claim that there is actually a very good reason to not just accommodate, but actually promote a form of nationalism, albeit of a specifically liberal character. At the risk of raising the suspicion that we are crypto-fascists, this amounts to a defence of what we call nationalistic liberalism. Our advocacy of a nationalistic affirmation of basic liberal values is the product of the recognition of the fact that it is only through national unity with respect to liberal values that the stifling imposition of homogeneity can be avoided and ethnic, cultural, linguistic, etc., diversity protected. In other words, the liberal framework of rights and liberties that makes the recognition of diversity possible can only be sustained through national unity with respect to basic liberal values. As Miller has observed, ‘what best meets the needs of minority groups is a clear and distinct national unity which stands over and above the specific cultural traits of all the groups in the society in question.’32 Quite aside from the numerous benefits of nationalism that we referred to earlier,33 the rights and liberties of minority groups can only be fully guaranteed if a strong sense of national unity that centres on liberal values is fostered. That is to say that it is precisely conformity to the principles that flow from liberal values that both makes possible the preservation of diversity and allows minorities to claim rights and exercise liberties. When we compare and contrast nationalistic liberalism with the three positions critiqued earlier, we find that it has four principal characteristics: Like liberal nationalism, nationalistic liberalism accommodates diversity and does not seek to demand national unity with respect to ethnicity, culture, language, etc. That said, unlike liberal nationalism and like progressive patriotism and civic nationalism, nationalistic liberalism seeks to propagate national unity.

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__________________________________________________________________ Despite its affinity with progressive patriotism, unlike progressive patriotism, nationalistic liberalism maintains that the appropriate non-exclusionary basis for national unity is a thin culture of liberal values and not a particular political unit. Finally, unlike civic nationalism, nationalistic liberalism recognises that shared values are not a sure enough basis for a strong sense of national unity. Consequently, nationalistic liberalism acknowledges that national unity with respect to basic liberal values will always exist amongst a specific group of individuals (i.e., unity with respect to basic liberal values will always be temporally and spatially situated). 8. Nationalistic Liberalism and the Ideology of Shared Values Before concluding our chapter, it is essential to address a particularly pressing concern about our nationalistic liberalism. More specifically, it might be objected that values are not a sure enough foundation for national identity. It may well be accepted that, as Ernest Renan argued, ‘man is everything in the formation of this sacred thing that we call a people. Nothing material suffices. A nation is...a spiritual family.’34 This implies that ethnic, religious, linguistic, etc., commonalities are not sufficient to make a group of people a nation. 35 However, the leap from the idea that, as Renan famously put it, ‘a nation is a soul, a spiritual principle,’36 its ‘existence...is...a daily plebiscite,’37 to the idea that a nation can consist in nothing more than a shared commitment to values is indeed great. More specifically, it might be argued that our nationalistic liberalism is nothing more than another variant of what Wayne Norman has dubbed ‘the ideology of shared values.’38 According to the ideology of shared values, to quote Norman: in a pluralistic, multi-ethnic state, national unity is based in some sense on shared values. And its politics thus aims to promote national unity by identifying and reinforcing such values. 39 Given that our argument for nationalistic liberalism essentially amounts to the claim that, so as to avoid the stifling imposition of homogeneity and protect ethnic, cultural, linguistic, etc., diversity we should seek homogeneity with respect to liberal values, the parallels between the ideology of shared values and nationalistic liberalism are striking. The problem for our nationalistic liberalism is thus that, as Norman argues, ‘shared values or principles are neither necessary nor sufficient for national unity.’40 According to Norman, evidence of ‘[t]he spectacular irrelevance of shared values to national unity’41 can be found in the fact that ‘shared values, do not necessarily give peoples and polities a reason to share a country.’42 Instead,


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__________________________________________________________________ what generally provide the impetus for the creation of a nation are ‘shared identity of some sort’43 and ‘myths, symbols, and ethnicity.’44 The upshot of this is that our nationalistic liberalism will not be able to achieve its chief goal of guarding against the stifling imposition of homogeneity and protecting ethnic, cultural, linguistic, etc., diversity. Due to the impotence of shared values as a source of national identity, liberal values will not be able to replace traditional exclusionary conceptions of national identity which centre on ethnicity, culture, language, etc. By way of a counter-argument, it suffices to build on a claim made earlier. As we have already pointed out, nationalistic liberalism is not a general affirmation of liberal values. Rather, it is the advocacy of temporally and spatially situated liberal values. The significance of this is that nationalistic liberalism is always concerned with the existence of liberal values here and now. This means that what is important for the nationalistic liberal is not the existence of shared values per se, but rather the existence of shared values amongst these particular people in this particular time and place. This essentially amounts to arguing that to describe our nationalistic liberalism as an example of the ideology of shared values is a category mistake. Like Norman, we accept that shared values are not enough to provide a sense of national identity. Consequently, our nationalistic liberalism is not concerned with shared values tout court. Our nationalistic liberalism will be able to achieve its chief goal of guarding against the stifling imposition of homogeneity and protecting ethnic, cultural, linguistic, etc., diversity because it replaces traditional exclusionary conceptions of identity that centre on ethnicity, culture, language, etc., with a conception of national identity that has as its focus temporally and spatially situated liberal values. 9. Conclusion The attempt to avoid the stifling imposition of homogeneity and protect ethnic, cultural, linguistic, etc., diversity has led us to argue in favour of homogeneity with respect to basic liberal values. Indeed, we have claimed that it is only by means of nationalistic liberalism in the form of the cultivation of a thin culture of liberal values that we can ensure that society remains open to diversity. To put it differently, nationalistic liberalism achieves diversity through cohesion because it is only through unity with respect to a thin culture of liberal values that we can overcome the demand for unity with respect to ethnicity, culture, language, etc. In short, we must close national identity to keep it open. To borrow Henri Bourassa’s turn of phrase, we can say that it is precisely because it unifies us around a thin culture of liberal values that nationalistic liberalism provides us with the basis for a form of national unity that is not fused to particular ethic, cultural, linguistic, etc., traits.45

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Notes 1

A Wagener, ‘Representations and Defence Processes in Cross-Cultural Conflicts: France and The Case of its ‘National Identity’’, in this volume, A Wagener and T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2011. 2 For instance, conservative Hindu nationalists often espouse a three part narrative which is, incidentally, heavily influenced by early British historians. First there were the great and ancient Hindu civilisations, second came the intolerance and despotism of the Muslim invaders and finally came British colonial rule. The ultimate aim of the Hindu nationalist is thus to restore India to its ancient and glorious Hindu past. See Chapter 9 of B D Metcalf and T R Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008. 3 G Orwell, ‘Notes on Nationalism’, in Collected Essays, 2nd edition, Secker and Warburg, London, 1961, pp. 281-303, p. 281. To be fair, Orwell states that he is not using the word ‘nationalism’ ‘in quite the ordinary sense.’ See ibid. There are two important things to note here. Firstly, Orwell is clear that the emotion he is speaking of can attach itself to a church, class, etc. Of initial interest is thus the fact that he would choose to call this emotion and peculiar loyalty ‘nationalism’, as opposed to coining a new term or using an alternative one. Secondly, although this emotion can attach itself to the nation it is not logically necessary that it should. This is because if having this peculiar loyalty was the only form of attachment to a nation, then it would cease being peculiar and would become ‘ordinary’ because no other attachments would be possible. 4 This may be partly explained by the fact that many national mythologies look to the mystical and primordial past as a way to establish legitimacy and authenticity. Nationalists attempt to establish that the nation has existed from time immemorial. 5 For example, in §66 of the Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein says ‘To repeat: don’t think, but look!’ See L Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 3rd edition, G E M Anscombe (trans), Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, 2001, p. 27 e (Part I, §66). 6 W Kymlicka, ‘Liberal Culturalism: An Emerging Consensus?’, in Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Citizenship, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001, p. 45. Cf. A D Smith, Theories of Nationalism, 2nd edition, Holmes and Meier Publishers, New York, 1983, p. 13 (Chapter 1). 7 Metcalf and Metcalf, op. cit., p. 233. 8 It may be asked how our liberalism is different from anarchism. One salient difference is that some anarchist thought aims at the eventual dissolution of the state, whereas our liberalism does not. Nevertheless, our position is related to anarchism insofar as modern anarchist thought has its roots in classical liberal thought. On this connection see the section entitled ‘From Classical Liberalism To


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__________________________________________________________________ Libertarian Socialism’ in N Chomsky, Chomsky on Democracy and Education, C P Otero (ed), RoutledgeFalmer, New York, 2003. 9 C Sim, ‘The Cheongsam: A Site of Wonder and Contestation for Canadian Women of Chinese Heritage’, in this volume, A Wagener and T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2011. 10 R Geuss, ‘Liberalism and Its Discontents’. Political Theory, vol. 30, no. 3, June 2003, pp. 320-338, pp. 320-321. 11 W Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, Oxford University Press, New York, 1995, p. 175 (Chapter 9). 12 We should be wary of using terms like ‘nation-state’ as it suggests to us that a state should belong to a single nation. As mentioned in §2, this monolithic conception is untenable on several grounds. In reality we should be thinking about multinational-states. 13 M Bhattacharyya, ‘Writing New Identities: South Asian Women, North America and three Asian-American Novels’, in this volume, A Wagener and T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2011. 14 Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, op. cit., p. 207 (Chapter 9). 15 R Tagore, Nationalism, Penguin Books, New Delhi, 2009, p. xxxi 16 D Miller, On Nationality, Oxford University Press, New York, 1995, p. 187 (Conclusion). 17 Kymlicka, ‘Liberal Culturalism: An Emerging Consensus?’, op. cit., W Kymlicka, ‘The Paradox of Liberal Nationalism’, in Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Citizenship, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001, pp. 254-264., D Miller, ‘In Defence of Nationality’. Journal of Applied Philosophy, vol. 10, no. 1, April 1993, pp. 3-16. and Y Tamir, Liberal Nationalism, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1993. 18 Cf. Kymlicka, ‘Liberal Culturalism: An Emerging Consensus?’, op. cit., p. 40 (§1)., Kymlicka, ‘The Paradox of Liberal Nationalism’, op. cit., p. 258. and Tamir, op. cit., p. 12 (Introduction). 19 T Soutphommasane, Reclaiming Patriotism: Nation-Building for Australian Progressives, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009, p. 9 (Introduction). 20 T Soutphommasane, ‘Let’s Celebrate Our Sense of Belonging’. The Australian, Tuesday 26th January 2010, p. 12. 21 Soutphommasane, Reclaiming Patriotism: Nation-Building for Australian Progressives, op. cit., p. 138 (Chapter 6). Cf. ibid., pp. 11-13 (Introduction). and p. 36 (Chapter 2). 22 Ibid., p. 9 (Introduction). 23 Ibid., p. 40 (Chapter 2). 24 Alasdair MacIntyre posits that the value at the heart of patriotism is ‘the nation conceived as a project,’ which entails that ‘allegiance to particular governments or

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__________________________________________________________________ forms of government or particular leaders will be entirely conditional upon their being devoted to furthering that project rather than frustrating or destroying it.’ See A MacIntyre, ‘Is Patriotism A Virtue?’, in Debates in Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology, D Matravers and J Pike (eds), Routledge and The Open University, London, 2003, pp. 286-300, p. 295 (§IV). and ibid. Though this seems to be a form of patriotism that comes with certain values, our suggestion is that insofar as it does, it is better understood as a form of nationalism. The necessarily cultural nature of nationalism is highlighted by Anthony D Smith when he notes that ‘we cannot understand nations and nationalism simply as an ideology or form of politics but must treat them as cultural phenomena as well.’ See A D Smith, National Identity, Penguin Books, London, 1991, p. vii (Introduction). Perhaps the tendency of political theorists, such as Soutphommasane and MacIntyre, to advocate patriotism instead of nationalism is simply a result of the unfortunate connotations that the term ‘nationalism’ has for many. Cf. Tamir, op. cit., p. 5 (Introduction). Not surprisingly, we reject Orwell’s essentially positive conception of patriotism and his vilification of nationalism. See Orwell, op. cit., p. 282. Cf. A Solzhenitsyn, ‘Repentance and Self-Limitation in the Life of Nations’, in From under the Rubble, A M Brock, M Haigh, M Sapiets, H Sternberg, H Willetts and M Scammell (trans), Regnery Gateway, Chicago, 1981, pp. 105-143, p. 120. 25 Having said that, Soutphommasane does in fact acknowledge that ‘[t]he reality is that a purely political form of patriotism will never be enough. Insisting on a strict separation between patriotism and nationhood can end up leaving a love of country emotionally hollow.’ See T Soutphommasane, Reclaiming Patriotism: NationBuilding for Australian Progressives, op. cit., p. 42 (Chapter 2). Indeed, he additionally concedes that ‘[p]atriotism [...] is an attitude that almost inevitably draws on a sense of cultural affinity. The dividing line between the political and the cultural is a blurry one at best.’ See ibid., p. 40 (Chapter 2). However, far from extricating Soutphommasane from his difficulties, this suggests that he is caught in significant terminological confusion. On the one hand, he disavows the label ‘nationalism,’ and yet on the other hand, he is aware that his progressive patriotism will in fact draw on cultural values, which is precisely what nationalism does. At any rate, for our purposes, the important point to keep in mind is that a nonexclusionary basis for national unity needs to come, not from a form of potentially value-neutral patriotism, but from a form of nationalism. 26 M Ignatieff, Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism, BBC Books, London, 1993, p. 3 (Introduction). 27 Ibid. Cf. ibid., pp. 3-4 (Introduction). and Kymlicka, ‘Liberal Culturalism: An Emerging Consensus?’, op. cit, p. 41 (§1). 28 MacIntyre, op. cit., p. 292 (§III). Cf. J Habermas, ‘Citizenship and National Identity: Some Reflections on the Future of Europe’. Praxis International, vol. 12, no. 1, April 1992, pp. 1-19, p. 7 (§I). and R Scruton, ‘In Defence of The Nation’, in


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__________________________________________________________________ Debates in Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology, D Matravers and J Pike (eds), Routledge and The Open University, London, 2003, pp. 271-285, p. 272. and Ibid., p. 273. 29 As a case in point, though ‘The Australian Citizenship Pledge’ refers to shared values, it emphasises that these values are shared by particular individuals: ‘I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I will uphold and obey’. See ‘The Australian Citizenship Pledge’, viewed on the 9th April 2010, http://www.citizenship.gov.au/ceremonies/pledge/. Emphasis added. 30 B Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Revised edition, Verso, London, 1991, p. 6 (Chapter 1). 31 Ibid., p. 7 (Chapter 1). 32 Miller, ‘In Defence of Nationality’, op. cit., p. 11. Cf. Ignatieff, op. cit., p. 9 (Introduction). and Miller, On Nationality, op. cit., p. 184 (Conclusion). 33 Cf. MacIntyre, op. cit., p. 299 (§IV)., Miller, ‘In Defence of Nationality’, op. cit., p. 9., Miller, On Nationality, op. cit., p. 185 (Conclusion)., E Renan, ‘Qu’estce Qu’une Nation ?’, in Discours et Conférences, 10th edition, Calmann-Lévy, Paris, 1887, pp. 277-310, p. 309 (§III). and Smith, National Identity, op. cit., p. 176 (Chapter 7). 34 Our translation from French: ‘[l]’homme est tout dans la formation de cette chose sacrée qu’on appelle un peuple. Rien de matériel n’y suffit. Une nation est...une famille spirituelle.’ See Renan, op. cit., p. 305 (§II). 35 Ibid. 36 Our translation from French: ‘[u]ne nation est une âme, un principe spirituel.’ See ibid., p. 306 (§III). 37 Our translation from French: ‘[l]’existence d’une nation est...un plébiscite de tous les jours.’ See ibid., p. 307 (§III). 38 W Norman, ‘The Ideology of Shared Values: A Myopic Vision of Unity in the Multi-nation State’, in Is Quebec Nationalism Just?: Perspectives from Anglophone Canada, J H Carens (ed), McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal and Kingston, 1995, pp. 137-159, p. 137. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid., p. 141. Cf. ibid., p. 147. 41 Ibid., p. 148. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid., p. 138. Cf. ibid., p. 142. 44 Ibid., p. 155. 45 Bourassa, a notable proponent of pan-Canadian nationalism, advocated ‘a more general patriotism that unifies us, without fusing us, to ‘the other elements that make up the population of Canada.’’ See J-P Tardivel and H Bourassa, ‘A

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__________________________________________________________________ Controversy’, in French-Canadian Nationalism: An Anthology, R Cook (ed), The Macmillan Company of Canada, Toronto, 1969, pp. 147-151, p. 149.

Bibliography ‘The Australian Citizenship Pledge’. viewed on the 9th April 2010, http://www.citizenship.gov.au/ceremonies/pledge/. Anderson, B., Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Revised edition, Verso, London, 1991. Bhattacharyya, M., ‘Writing New Identities: South Asian Women, North America and three Asian-American Novels’, in this volume. A. Wagener and T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2011. Chomsky, N., Chomsky on Democracy and Education. C. P. Otero (ed), RoutledgeFalmer, New York, 2003. Geuss, R., ‘Liberalism and Its Discontents’. Political Theory, vol. 30, no. 3, June 2003, pp. 320-321. Habermas, J., ‘Citizenship and National Identity: Some Reflections on the Future of Europe’. Praxis International, vol. 12, no. 1, April 1992, pp. 1-19. Ignatieff, M., Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism. BBC Books, London, 1993. Kymlicka, W., ‘Liberal Culturalism: An Emerging Consensus?’, in Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Citizenship. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001, pp. 39-48. ———, ‘The Paradox of Liberal Nationalism’, in Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Citizenship. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001, pp. 254-264. ———, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. Oxford University Press, New York, 1995. MacIntyre, A., ‘Is Patriotism A Virtue?’, in Debates in Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology. D. Matravers and J. Pike (eds), Routledge and The Open University, London, 2003, pp. 286-300.


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__________________________________________________________________ Metcalf, B. D., and T. R. Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India. 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008. Miller, D., ‘In Defence of Nationality’. Journal of Applied Philosophy, vol. 10, no. 1, April 1993, pp. 3-16. ———, On Nationality. Oxford University Press, New York, 1995. Norman, W., ‘The Ideology of Shared Values: A Myopic Vision of Unity in the Multi-nation State’, in Is Quebec Nationalism Just?: Perspectives From Anglophone Canada. J. H. Carens (ed), McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal and Kingston, 1995, pp. 137-159. Orwell, G., ‘Notes on Nationalism’, in Collected Essays. 2nd edition, Secker and Warburg, London, 1961, pp. 281-303. Renan, E., ‘Qu’est-ce Qu’une Nation ?’, in Discours et Conférences. 10th edition, Calmann-Lévy, Paris, 1887, pp. 277-310. Scruton, R., ‘In Defence of the Nation’, in Debates in Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology. D. Matravers, and J. Pike (eds), Routledge and The Open University, London, 2003, pp. 271-285. Sim, C., ‘The Cheongsam: A Site of Wonder and Contestation for Canadian Women of Chinese Heritage’, in this volume. A. Wagener and T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2011. Smith, A. D., National Identity. Penguin Books, London, 1991. ———, Theories of Nationalism. 2nd edition, Holmes and Meier Publishers, New York, 1983. Solzhenitsyn, A., ‘Repentance and Self-Limitation in the Life of Nations’, in From under the Rubble. A. M. Brock, M. Haigh, M. Sapiets, H. Sternberg, H. Willetts and M. Scammell (trans), Regnery Gateway, Chicago, 1981, pp. 105-143. Soutphommasane, T., ‘Let’s Celebrate Our Sense of Belonging’. The Australian, Tuesday 26th January 2010, p. 12. ———, Reclaiming Patriotism: Nation-Building for Australian Progressives. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009.

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__________________________________________________________________ Tagore, R., Nationalism. Penguin Books, New Delhi, 2009. Tamir, Y., Liberal Nationalism. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1993. Tardivel, J.-P., and H. Bourassa, ‘A Controversy’, in French-Canadian Nationalism: An Anthology. R. Cook (ed), The Macmillan Company of Canada, Toronto, 1969, pp. 147-151. Wagener, A., ‘Representations and Defence Processes in Cross-Cultural Conflicts: France and The Case of its ‘National Identity’’, in this volume. A. Wagener and T. Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2011. Wittgenstein, L., Philosophical Investigations. 3rd edition, Anscombe, G. E. M. (trans.), Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, 2001. Debopriyo Bal plans to begin his PhD in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Sydney in 2011. His other interests include mathematics, economics and bass music. Benjamin Herscovitch is a PhD candidate in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Sydney and a freelance ethics consultant. His research interests lie primarily in political theory, with a focus on federalism and liberalism.

Representations and Defence Processes in Cross-Cultural Conflicts: France and the Case of its ‘National Identity’ Albin Wagener Abstract In 2009, the French Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Solidarity Development launched a national debate with the support of President Nicolas Sarkozy. This debate was supposed to redefine what French people would call their ‘national identity’, but its conflicting intentions quickly turned into a big vent session about foreigners, particularly muslim migrants and French youth of north-African ancestry, despite the fact that they also do participate in the evolution of the country in various ways. The first aim of this chapter is to visualize that this debate is part of a true French exception which tends to remain unchanged, even in a globalizing world; second, the debate led by French minister Eric Besson is a clear utterance of defence processes in the case of perception of threatening acts or behaviors. In this case, such acts and behaviors are seen as cultural aggressions, which might harm a sense of identity, even if the notion of ‘national identity’ remains a social, historical and artificial construct. Still, the notion of ‘national identity’ stays closely linked to emotional reactions and political manipulations, which may cause some foreigners to feel excluded from the modern French society. This problem is deeply rooted in French history, but it also reveals a lot about the fear of identity dissolution in general, not only on a national level, but also in individual cases. We will thus analyze texts produced by the government to ignite and frame this debate between September and December 2009; we will then explore the processes explaining the need for a population to define its identity while it remains utterly pointless. Key Words: Identity, discourse, politics, representations, nation, France, defence. ***** 1. Why a Debate? Why in France? Why 2009? In 2009, the French Minister of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Fair Development Eric Besson launched a national debate with the support of President Nicolas Sarkozy. This debate was supposed to redefine what French people would call their ‘national identity’, but its conflicting intentions quickly turned into a big vent session about foreigners, particularly Muslim migrants and French youth of north-African ancestry, despite the fact that they do participate in the evolution of the country1. This debate merely represents a particular situation which has been developed in France since the 18 th century: the concept of ‘nation’ still remains a core part of French preferences in terms of politics and social decisions. Scientific debates about the question of identity have been going on

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__________________________________________________________________ since the last couple of decades; yet in France’s public debates, identity mainly remains political and forgets the sociological, anthropological and psychological questions and hypotheses proposed by scholars during the last few years. In this sense, the concept of identity represents a multifaceted and sprawling lexeme manipulated for political purposes linked to national and cultural power. To Camilleri, ‘the operation of identity is an ongoing and dynamic management of differences and even opposites; this shaping gives us the feeling that we are not self-contradictory’2. In Camilleri’s sense, any definition of a ‘national identity’ should take this perpetual sense of mutation into account-which could simply mean that there is no possible definition of any national identity at all or that it should be redefined almost every day – not to mention the concept of identity evolves in a political context and, as assessed by Rahimy in the present volume, ‘context can become a multi-usable instrument in order to justify a certain political agenda’.3 In the second half of 2009, when Nicolas Sarkozy and Eric Besson decided to launch this debate, they surely did not have any work on the subject in mind. This decision was obviously political and taken in order to separate the non-French or almost-French from the real-French, thus incidentally addressing the questions of immigration, Islam and remaining elements which would allegedly threaten the ‘frenchness’ or ‘frenchhood’ of the values, habits or behaviors supposedly shared in the country. It is now needless to mention that the result of this debate did combine a startling cocktail of uselessness and social danger, which led the government to bury the project and postpone its conclusions. 2. Identity Studies in National Contexts The aim of this chapter is to show that this debate is part of a true French exception which tends to remain unchanged, even in a globalizing world. But even if this debate was to be triggered in another country, a few dangers should be considered. First, there is a vivid risk of confusing national identity with cultural identity or ethnic identity, which is emphasized by Balibar’s work on the subject: There will never be enough warning about any reduction of cultural identity to a ‘national character’ or all the more to the normative traits given by the institutions of a national state. This is the main pattern of many discussions about the link between ‘cultural identity’ and ‘ethnic identity’; these discussions become more or less insistent, depending on how ethnicity and nationality coincide-or not in a given historical situation.4 Even if Balibar also mentions the role of the State regarding the links between identity and nationality, his position is clear: the definition of the concept of identity should not be limited to the width of national borders. Such reduction almost strictly leads to the construction of various clichés, sterotypes and other

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__________________________________________________________________ conceptual confusion, thus producing a sheer rejection of what may not fit into the ideal of any ‘national identity’. This confusion between ‘national identity’ and ‘cultural identity’ is to be found in the questionnaire distributed by the French government to the prefectures of the country, which will be analyzed in further in this chapter. Second, according to Thiesse, both the notions of ‘nation’ and ‘identity’ remain social and artificial constructs:5 it is nationalism as a political ideal which recreates folklore, traditions and cultural inheritance; aside of the preconception of nationalism, there is no obvious and clear definition of any massive and uniform identity delimited by geographical and political borders – unless we redefine nationalism as a progressive system, such as proposed by Bal and Herscovitch6 in this volume, insofar as it would be defined as a collective project of which citizens could become members, thus building a philosophical, ethical and social entity in full educated consciousness. Thus, identity as an ongoing process may not be scientifically compatible with the notion of nation as a sheer invention: Nation is posited and invented but it only exists through the collective adhesion to this fiction. There are many abortive attempts: successes are made possible by a sustained proselytism teaching individuals who they are, how they need to comply with it and encouraging them to spread this collective knowledge themselves. National feeling only becomes spontaneous when it has been perfectly internalized; it needs to be taught first.7 Thus, according to these conclusions, nation is closely linked to the notion of mass manipulation and the recreation of an ideal past which would ultimately be bound to the dangerous temptation of the ‘pureness’ of any Nation. Thiesse eventually adds that the concept of nation is mostly linked to a glorious past which should be revived, rather than to a promising future to be built together. Thus, one hypothesis becomes clear: national identity is an intellectual construct created on the basis of two concepts; an ongoing, uncertain and everchanging process called ‘identity’ and an artificial and political invention called ‘nation’, both often reduced to cultural or ethnical shortcuts. In this perspective, any debate on a clear definition of the national identity of a country remains utterly anchored in fantasy or, even worse, false yet steady representations of reality. In this case, the French debate on national identity may be analyzed as a massively organized and misdirected defence process pointing out various aggressors. This suggestion is to be discovered in official discourses which have launched the national debate.

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__________________________________________________________________ 3. Political Discourse Analysis: Alleged Enemies and Real Retorts The question of the French national identity is deeply rooted in French history, but it also says a lot about the fear of identity dissolution in general, not only on a national level, but also in individual cases. According to critical historical works, the French situation is influenced by its 18th century revolution and remains somehow similar to the situation which has evolved in the United States of America; its republican model is based on citoyens or citizens and has always been respecting the same principles, even if their historical declension remains quite unstable: As can be seen, the question ‘what is a Frenchman?’ is not easy to answer. Over the years, from the French Revolution to the present day, the legal and official response wavered considerably from the most open and liberal views to the extreme harshness of the Vichy regime during Second World War. What is most striking however is that the Republic – the most representative regime over the years – maintained as far as possible the basic principles on which it was built, including liberty, equality, fraternity, and one could also add, hospitality. The specific situation of France, similar to the United States and different from almost all European countries, was, starting in the 19th century, very soon to become a land of immigration where a multicultural society would eventually emerge, creating the conditions of a melting pot à la française.8 Berdah clearly states that the French model of national identity has hardly evolved since the bright ontological birth of the Revolutionary Republic. Modern values and citizenship still thrive on this traditional national myth, which may bring up another question: is this hagiography still imaginable in the contemporary society? Moreover, is it reasonable to define an actual ‘national identity’ based on embellished inheritance? In this very case, the access to French citizenship, may it be social (as recognized by other members of the group) or institutional (as recognized by the national State) depends on the political interpretation of this national narrative and of the collective fiction it does create and maintain. Still, the notion of ‘national identity’ stays closely linked to emotional reactions and political manipulations, which may cause foreigners to feel excluded from the modern French society. Texts produced by the government to ignite and frame this debate between September and December 2009 clearly underline this state of affairs. These writings can be found on a website especially designed for this national event9 and give the basic reasons leading to the emergence of the debate. One of the most interesting texts is apparently written by French minister Eric Besson and has a very paradoxical point of view:10

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__________________________________________________________________ Through centuries, our Nation has been built up through the welcome and the integration of people of foreign origin. This great debate has to promote the contribution of immigration to the national identity and to propose actions in order to shape a better sharing of the values of this national identity at every step of the integration process. How to stimulate a better sharing of the values of national identity towards foreigners which come and spend time on the national territory? (…) How to stimulate a better sharing of the values of national identity towards foreigners which then want to be part of our national community? We may sum up the first part of this text with the following couple of key elements: -

the French nation has been build thanks to foreign influences and immigrants which have helped shape the country and its social model; yet a definition of the French identity has to be delimited in order to help new migrants fit right into the country’s supposed values.

Thus, the French debate on national identity somehow represents a sort of zero point of integration and cultural evolution. If Eric Besson voluntarily admits that foreigners are needed in order to assure a true social and cultural evolution of the country; the whole History of the country shows that the French territory has been an utter thoroughfare, thus leading to a mixing of population. Even the French language shows traces of English, German, Arabic, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Sanskrit or Breton, to name but a few. In this sense, a different debate on ‘national identity’ could be shaped: its aim would be to focus on the original multiculturalism of the country in order to maintain this ‘national identity’ in a tradition of exchanges, mixing and mutual influences, which may help appease the existing tensions within contemporary France. However, the ongoing debate is trying to freeze the definition of an alleged ‘homo frenchus’ in order to reverse the process; foreigners should no longer participate in the evolution of France after the definition of a national identity but would only have to adapt and adopt the national habits in order not to destabilize the country. While it is clear for any sociologist to observe that such reasoning is simplistic to say the least, it is also trying to go against the flood of social, demographic, cultural and historical tendencies. Again,

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__________________________________________________________________ the ‘demonized stranger’ has to ‘adapt and adopt’; if they refuse this functioning, they might threaten the whole nation and its alleged cultural unity. Furthermore, the couple of questions asked by French minister Eric Besson clearly underline that in the end, the definition of a proposed ‘national identity’ is not the core matter at all; the goal of this debate is to lead to a better sharing of national values for strangers, in order to work for a better ‘integration’ or ‘dissolution’. Thus, the question of the ‘national identity’ remains in the shadow of an alleged threat of misled integration, while it remains crucial to take into account the feelings and thoughts experienced by those who have to live through this integration, according to Bhattacharyya11 in the present volume. In order to help define this ‘national identity’, an intriguing questionnaire has been distributed to French prefectures12. This questionnaire has been submitted to citizens during public evening sessions organized to trigger discussions about the national identity. In this perspective, different choices are available and already give directions to the content of the debate; the second item of this questionnaire asks the following question: ‘what are the elements of the national identity?’. Here are the possible answers: -

our values our universalism our History our heritage our language our culture our territory our landscapes our agriculture our culinary art our wine our art of living our architecture our churches and our cathedrals our industry our high technologies what we have been doing together what we want to do together etc.

I already have worked on a critical analysis of these possible answers13, still I posit that it is necessary to focus on these items in order to understand the utter problem of this national debate. I therefore wish to take the time to comment the previous elements in order to embrace the details of the question of ‘national identity’:

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__________________________________________________________________ - ‘our values’: what is a value and how to define ‘our values’? What are these famous national or republican values quoted in political discourses, yet remaining to be defined? - ‘our universalism’: how can an ‘our’ be ‘universal’ anyway? How could a nation or a country, delimited by geographical and/or linguistic borders, claim to be universalistic? Would this be the ultimate goal of France, i.e. imposing a universalistic model to other nations? - ‘our History’: it is clear that History has a crucial part to play if we try to define the values of a country; yet it should not be forgotten that the past of a nation also comprises dark times and utterly positive myths or optimistic hoaxes. - ‘our heritage’: again, the question would be to define ‘heritage’ and how a country or nation could delimit its own ‘heritage’; is it about historical buildings, castles and museums or about something else which remains to be narrowed? - ‘our language’: in many countries, this item would be plural, yet French history and politics have always been close to the saying ‘one country, one language’. However, a language is never the property of a State or a country; moreover, French is spoken in different places all over the world and does not have to be bound to one single nation. Furthermore, what about French regional languages which barely see the light after years of political discrimination? This example distinctly highlights the French definition of ‘plurality’. - ‘our culture’: the very concept of ‘culture’ is plural and hard to define, thus triggering crucial debates among scholars. It is still confused with ethnicity, nation, behaviors, habits and religions. It would be necessary to be cautious about this concept in order not to dive into the fantasized depth of collective idealization. - ‘our territory’: defining a ‘national identity’ within the boundaries of a delimited territory is perhaps not the most accurate way to deal with this concept. There are many identities coexisting within the same space, without any narrowed borders. Furthermore, do we only speak about European France or French DOM-TOM, which gather territories in the Caribbean Islands or in South America, to name but a few? - ‘our landscapes’: even if ecological environments do have an influence on the development of societies, it would be absurd and naïve to link identity to pastoral references solely;

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-

-

-

-

-

-

emotional memories do play a crucial part in the perception of identity yet it may be dangerous to believe that they are this important in the definition of a collective social project. ‘our agriculture’: this item still has to be understood, defined and thoroughly linked to the main subject. ‘our culinary art’: this item still indicates that France and French people in general feel a very particular pride when it comes to their cuisine. The irony of this item comes to mind when acknowledging the fact that this ‘culinary art’ is more a marker or regional pluralism than national uniformity (Alsatian sauerkraut or cassoulet from Toulouse, for instance). Furthermore, is it reasonable to put kitchen receipts and universalism on the same level? ‘our wine’: again, do wine and values have to share the same space in terms of collective definitions of society? The French Minister is actually producing an odd self-parody instead of solving a very crucial problem. ‘our art of living’: is this questionnaire about reviving selfstereotypes or about a serious collective project underpinning the French contemporary society? ‘our architecture’: it would almost completely wrong to state that a ‘French architecture’ does exist, insofar as different types of architecture have developed in many European countries throughout various times. ‘our churches and our cathedrals’: France being a so-called secular country (this secularity may in fact be counted in the values mentioned at the beginning of the questionnaire), it is weird to put an emphasis on churches and cathedrals. This subtle sign may be clearly directed towards other religions, especially the French Muslim community. ‘our industry’: is the private transnational sector linked to national identities? Is it the case for Renault or maybe Airbus? Or have technical skills become transcultural and transnational, thus becoming the property of humanity through business exchanges? ‘our high technologies’: technologies are not the property of nations, they are used in many industries and countries all over the world. ‘what we have been doing together’: do French people have to think about parts of what they have been doing together or all of these parts? What happened during the Algeria war? What happened in the country under Nazi occupation? What

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__________________________________________________________________ happened when French Huguenots got killed during the Saint-Barthélémy? - ‘what we want to do together’: the collective project is only mentioned at the end of the questionnaire. Furthermore, if the aim of this debate is to build a vision of the French contemporary society, this attempt seem to be a failure underpinned by poorly defined notions, self-caricaturing clichés and a clear lack of citizenship education. - ‘etc.’: to be continued. Our aim is simply to state that this very questionnaire symbolizes the absurdity of this political debate; it confuses History, philosophical values (like the sacrosanct French laïcité or secularity), churches, culinary art (a pretentious expression for ‘food’), landscapes and so-called universalism of the French project, directly rooted in the republican ideologies of the 18 th century. Moreover, various projects are proposed by Eric Besson (and probably Nicolas Sarkozy) in order to formalize the integration of foreigners and make it sacred, like a solemn ceremony. While this discourse remains far from sociological perspectives, it unveils a significant trait of the general atmosphere of the country by the end of 2009: ‘something should be defended’ because ‘something is threatening the nation’. French president Nicolas Sarkozy himself has published his own point of view on the subject when minister Eric Besson was criticized for the content of this strange debate.14 In December 2009, Sarkozy posits in French newspaper Le Monde that the main threat for European countries is globalization: European people are welcoming, tolerant; it’s in their nature and in their culture. But they don’t want their life environment, their way of thinking and their social relations to be altered. And the feeling of identity loss may be a cause of deep pain. Globalization contributes to the intensification of this feeling.15 In this discourse, Nicolas Sarkozy does not explain what people’s nature might be; this concept is puzzling, to say the least. Furthermore, in this bold statement, the French President seems to think that a certain trait has to be taken from granted for European people-which may mean that other people might not share this quality. Moreover, if we follow Nicolas Sarkozy’s position about European people, it would be needless to add that European History has not always shown the good sides of this ‘welcoming’ or ‘tolerant’ nature: religious persecution, racial discrimination, genocides, violent colonization and brutal warfare are all part of European History and may not constitute a culture (or ‘nature’) of tolerance. To this extent, many events throughout the European continent may be quoted and analyzed in order to show that this alleged concept of ‘nature’ is inaccurate if not

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__________________________________________________________________ completely inappropriate. A welcoming and tolerant Europe, in the natural sense of the words, has never existed and will never exist; it will not be the case for any other part of the world either. In other words, according to Sarkozy, it is an illdefined globalization which threatens the integrity of the French nation. But by globalization, as we have already seen it in other official discourses, Sarkozy means the development of behaviors linked to some groups of the French Muslim population. In the same discourse, Sarkozy even addresses French Muslims and tells them that they remain able to practice their religion but that they should not forget that they live in a country ‘where Christian civilization has left such a deep imprint’,16 whereas the questionnaire distributed to French Prefectures indicated that secularity and churches or cathedrals might be part of the ‘national identity’. Eventually, globalization is only a false threat chosen out of sheer politeness, when the ultimate threat seems to be lurking in the country itself and nurtured by French citizens. 4. National Manipulation of Defence Processes and Cultural Representations According to Keil,17 the concept of nationality or national identity only functions because it mixes cognitive and emotional influences on a given population; this collective manipulation has to be organized at various levels of the state in order to produce anticipated effects on people. Other works on the subject led by Kelman18 even posit that this manipulation is based on a psychological definition of a country’s national identity elaborated by the nation’s leaders. In other words, the adherence to any ‘national identity’ is underpinned by an advanced form of emotional, cognitive and psychological formalization shared collectively and driven by orientated policies. This very process magnifies the past of the nation, revives its founding myths and activates dangerous self-stereotypes; in this case, it would generate a vibrant cocktail of Napoleon’s warfare, Jeanne d’Arc’s well-known legend and an ingenious alliance of red wine and hypocritical secularity sold to an ambiguous perception of Christianity. Thus, the debate led in France is a clear utterance of defence processes in the case of perception of threatening acts or behaviours.19 In this case, these acts and behaviours are seen as cultural aggressions which might harm the feel of identity. Meanwhile, there is indeed a French exception when we observe the evolution of national identities in modern Europe; French history has to be taken into account when analyzing and criticizing the actual debate on national identity. Three different points may be clarified in order to understand the ins and outs of the debate which has been stirring up the nation’s newspapers: - first, the notions of unity and indivisibility underlined by the French government have always been present during the History of the French Republic:20 in this perspective, national identity is seen as a necessary bond for the Republic’s

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__________________________________________________________________ existence, insofar as it embraces a political project based on collective belief and engagement; - second, the notions of unity and indivisibility are actually deeply rooted in revolutionary Jacobinism:21 they remain based on an extremist and violent interpretation of French history which is still very vivid in the country’s political life and its interpretation of the role of French Republic; - eventually, the republican unity remains nonnegotiable and does not allow any preferential treatment: this preconception of the country’s republican unity also infects the spheres of culture, identity and state of the nation. In other words, Republic may be considered as the national religion, demanding a certain level of orthodoxy to its members, with no place for an empathy of coexistence.22 In this sense, multiculturalism and cross-cultural relations become hardly compatible with the French revolutionary concept of republic. Furthermore, if this revolutionary republic remains a historical and cultural product, any other political or social culture has to be cast away in order to maintain the purity of this particular regime. The French political model is unable to adopt multiculturalism because its humanist universalism remains above social choices and cultural inheritance: in this perspective, multiculturalism clearly evolves against the basic principles of the revolutionary republic. The government’s debate on national identity is feeding on these basic principles and is therefore excluding any behavioural or cognitive difference in order to maintain its extreme ideology: since the 18th century at least, France has hardly paid attention to social pragmatism and glorifies the golden imprisonment of its political project: French universalism is in fact national particularism as it is one form of cultural and historical identification that is promoted above and beyond a plethora of potential models in multicultural France. (...) It is important (...) to understand that national multiculturalism is fundamentally argued to be displacing the smooth running of republican national cohesion, whereas international multiculturalism as the defense of French language and culture is positive.23 This paradox of multiculturalism clearly exposes the situation of France: the country’s political project is designed for cross-cultural conflicts inside and outside the nation’s territory. In other words, republican universalism allows France to defend its culture and its language beyond the national boundaries. Still, Jacobinist tradition states that the republican message has to be spread in the whole world like a religious word, whereas globalization is actually seen as an enemy of the French

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__________________________________________________________________ political project. French republican values are the rigid pillars of the nation’s society yet have to earn international recognition through emblematic texts such as the Declaration of Human Rights. Even if this particular political project is based on a singular History, its aim is to stand above human differences, thus competing with the huge variety of social codes, cultural habits and philosophical beliefs. To some extent, the French paradox is bound to the painful pride of its cultural exception: while universalism tends to promote freedom and equality in a worldwide sense of humanism, the very country suffers from a lack of tolerance and recognition of foreign cultures by making the political choice of assimilation.

Notes 1

C Wihtol de Wenden, ‘Multiculturalism in France’ in International Journal on Multicultural Societies: Multiculturalism and Political Integration in Modern Nation-States, 5 (1), G Singh and J Rex (eds), UNESCO, 2003. 2 C Camilleri, ‘La culture et l’identité culturelle: choc notionnel en devenir’ in Chocs de cultures: concepts et enjeux pratiques de l’interculturel, C Camilleri and M Cohen-Emerique (eds), L’Harmattan, Paris, 1989, p. 44; ‘L’opération identitaire est une dynamique d’aménagement permanent des différences, y compris des contraires, en une formation qui nous donne le sentiment de n’être pas contradictoire’, my translation. 3 T. Rahimy, ‘The Battleground of a Milieu: on the Concept of Flight and its Political Milieu’, in this volume, A Wagener and T Rahimy (eds), InterDisciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 4 E Balibar, ‘Identité culturelle, identité nationale’. Quaderni, 22 (1), 1994, p. 58; ‘On ne cessera de mettre en garde contre toute réduction de l’identité culturelle au ‘caractère national’ ou, a fortiori, aux traits normatifs que lui confèrent les institutions de l’État national. Tel est notamment le schéma de bien des discussions sur le rapport entre ‘identité culturelle’ et ‘identité ethnique’, plus ou moins insistantes selon que, dans telle situation historique, ethnicité et nationalité semblent ou non coïncider’, my translation. 5 A-M Thiesse, La création des identités nationales, Seuil, Paris, 2001, p. 162. 6 D Bal and B Herscovitch, ‘From Liberal Nationalism to Nationalistic Liberalism: Liberal Values and the Prospects for Progressive Nationalism’, in this volume, A Wagener and T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 7 Ibid., ‘ [La] nation naît d’un postulat et d’une invention. Mais elle ne vit que par l’adhésion collective à cette fiction. Les tentatives avortées sont légion. Les succès sont les fruits d’un prosélytisme soutenu qui enseigne aux individus ce qu’ils sont, leur fait devoir s’y conformer et les incite à propager à leur tour ce savoir collectif. Le sentiment national n’est spontané que lorsqu’il a été parfaitement intériorisé ; il faut préalablement l’avoir enseigné’, our translation.

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J-F Berdah, ‘Citizenship and National Identity in France from the French Revolution to the Present’ in Citizenship in Historical Perspective, S G Ellis, G Halfdanarson and A K Isaacs (eds), Pisa Plus University Press, Pisa, 2006, pp. 151152. 9 All texts can be verified by visiting http://debatidentitenationale.fr. 10 Source: http://www.debatidentitenationale.fr/propositions-d-eric-besson/faireconnaitre-et-partager-l.html. 11 M Batthacharyya, ‘Writing New Identities: South Asian Women, North America and Three Asian-American Novels’, in this volume, A Wagener and T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012. 12 This questionnaire can be found on the website of the prefecture of the Somme department: http://www.somme.pref.gouv.fr/medias/09/md2_44/q_identite.pdf. 13 A Wagener, Le débat sur l’identité nationale: essai à propos d’un fantôme, L’Harmattan, Paris, 2010, pp. 35-40. 14 One of Sarkozy’s discourses on the subject has been published online by French journal Le Monde: http://www.lemonde.fr/opinions/article/2009/12/08/m-sarkozyrespecter-ceux-qui-arrivent-respecter-ceux-qui-accueillent_1277422_3232.html. 15 Nicolas Sarkozy, ‘Respecter ceux qui arrivent et respecter ceux qui accueillent’. Le Monde, 8th December 2009; ‘Les peuples d’Europe sont accueillants, sont tolérants, c’est dans leur nature et dans leur culture. Mais ils ne veulent pas que leur cadre de vie, leur mode de pensée et de relations sociales soient dénaturés. Et le sentiment de perdre son identité peut être une cause de profonde souffrance. La mondialisation contribue à aviver ce sentiment’, my translation. 16 Ibid.; ‘où la civilisation chrétienne a laissé une trace aussi profonde’, my translation. 17 S Keil, Staatsangehörigkeit, nationale Identität und Fremdenfeindlichkeit. Deutschland, Frankreich und Grossbritannien im empirischen Vergleich, PhD Thesis, Justus-Liebig Universität, Giessen, 2006, p. 61. 18 H C Kelman, ‘Nationalism, patriotism and national identity: social-psychological dimensions’ in Patriotism in the lives of individuals and nations, D Bar-Tal and E Staub (eds), Nelson-Hall, Chicago, 1997. 19 A Wagener, ‘L’émotion dans l’émergence du désaccord interculturel’ in Langue, langage et interactions culturelles, B Pothier (ed), L’Harmattan, Paris, 2009. 20 A Cole and G Raymond, Redefining the French Republic, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2006. 21 D Howarth and G Varouxalis, Contemporary France: an Introduction to French Politics and Society, Hodder Headline Group, London, 2003. 22 S Adachi, ‘Undermined Empathy, Undermined Coexistence: Japanese Discursive Formations Related to Empathy’, in this volume, A Wagener and T Rahimy (eds), Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, 2012.

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J Reed, France for the (Naturalized) French? Multiculturalism and French National Identity, Magister Thesis, Lund University, Lund, 2008, pp. 5-6.

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__________________________________________________________________ Wihtol de Wenden, C., ‘Multiculturalism in France’. International Journal on Multicultural Societies: Multiculturalism and Political Integration in Modern Nation-States, 5 (1), G. Singh and J. Rex (eds), UNESCO, 2003, pp. 77-87. Wodak, R., R. De Cillia, M. Reisigl, and K. Liebhart, The Discursive Construction of National Identity. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1999. Albin Wagener is Dean of the Institute of Living Languages (IPLV) at the Université Catholique de l’Ouest, Angers, France and President of the Observatory for International Stability and Conflicts (OISC).