The last “Theory of Mixture”, hybridity. I always thought that we talked about hybridity because in my notes, hybridity meant the combining of two cultures. However, it might have just been me taking the wrong notes. Anyways, I do know that hybridity is something we’ve talked periodically in class. Rowe and Schelling talked about it in “The Faces of Popular Culture”, Mark Millington talked about it in “Transculturation: Contrapuntal Notes to Critical Orthodoxy” and now we have Nestor Garcia Canclini talk about it in “Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity.”

In “Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity”, Nestor Garcia Canclini unpacks the meaning behind the hefty word, hybridization. The reason why hybridization is heavy is because people group everything that involves mixing under the umbrella of hybridization. That is why some authors warned about grouping everything under one term. Furthermore, it should be emphasized that hybridity is not limited to the biological dynamics from which the concept is derived from. In the article, Nestor talks about how hybridity at times occurs in an unplanned manner or is the unforeseen result of processes of migration, tourism, and economic or communicational exchange. However, he notes that hybridity often emerges from individual and collective creativity. Either through the arts or technological development in everyday life. Nestor further explains this by saying hybridization is a way “one seeks to reconvert a heritage or resource in order to reintegrate it to new conditions of production and distribution.” I found this definition to be particularly true because in my view, hybrids exist to be something better than the original. For example, hybrid cars are meant to be more fuel efficient than normal gasoline cars, hybrid fruits are made to be more fresh and better tasting than the original.

I haven’t gotten a chance to read the entire article yet but these are my two cents. It was definitely an engaging article and it did demystify the difference between hybridity and hybridization.