I didn’t get to read the whole thing, but got through most of the introduction- here are a few of my thoughts! I liked Canclini’s focus on the processes of hybridization over hybridity as a useful tool for thinking about the mixture of cultures. Looking at ‘processes’ of hybridization over the sealed off concept of hybridity implies that there are many ways this is expressed and many ways people willingly or unwillingly participate or resist processes of cultural mixture. To me, it’s similar to the difference between transculturation and mestizaje- one (hybridity and mestizaje) is too simple or limited and overlooks different structures of power and the contexts in which these mixtures occur and ( like we discussed in class and as Canclini mentions) is almost too optimistic or “overly pleasant” -skimming over the conflicts that exist in these different contexts. I’ll try and add more as I read more… just a little tidbit for now!
Monthly Archives: March 2017
Canclini reading
From the introduction, I was reminded a lot of Roger Keesing’s “Theories of Culture Revisited” in that hybridization could provide an angle through which anthropologists could still maintain their field of study. Canclini describes that “The emphasis on hybridization not only puts an end to the pretense of establishing ‘pure’ or ‘authentic’ identities; in addition, it demonstrates the risk of delimiting local, self-contained identities or those that attempt to assert themselves as radically opposed to national society or globalization” (xxviii). In this way, hybridization deals with both the issue of the coral reef approach to cultural identity as well as the concept of radical alterity that Keesing was concerned with.
The concept of “audiovisual democracy” from page 211 resonated with me. Canclini defines audiovisual democracy as a phenomenon in which “the real is produced by the images created in the media” (211). In the reading, Canclini uses the term in the context of electronic technologies stepping in to take the place of what he calls “urban culture,” which is created by direct in-person interactions. He explains that “mass mediatization” (209) represents a more efficient way of organizing the public than these interactions since it allows information to be spread to from urban to rural areas (and potentially vice versa) through the television. This causes a shift in individuals’ perceptions of reality from something to take part in and experience firsthand, to something that is to be received. Reality thus becomes defined as something made up by public opinion polls, and “the citizen becomes a client, a ‘public consumer'” (211).
I can see two very clear applications of this phenomenon of audiovisual democracy today. The first is in the public opinion polls during the 2016 American election. Many public opinion polls predicted that Hillary Clinton would win. Reports of these statistics circulated heavily on television and in the echo chambers of social media to people who wanted to hear such statistics, thus creating an illusory reality in the mind of many Americans that Clinton’s prospects were better than they really were. Donald Trump’s election then came as a massive shattering of “reality” (granted, Clinton did win the popular vote but her lead was not significant enough to match perceptions created by polls). The second relevant application of audiovisual democracy I see is in climate change denial. I learned in one of my classes this past week that 97% of climate scientists agree that global warming exists and that humans are the cause of accelerated warming. Of the 3% that disagree, 2.8% disagree with the clause that humans are the cause of accelerated warming (not with the phenomenon of global warming itself). But due to the proliferation of political rhetoric in the media, only 47% of Americans perceive that there is consensus in the scientific community on the existence of climate change. Both of these examples demonstrate that when the citizen is turned into a mere consumer, the media is granted reign over what is reality (kind of scary!!!).
Response to Theories of Mixture III: Hybridity
Hybridization describes the cultural mixing that occurs in Latin America, and that process is a result of modernization. Latin America remains inundated with new influences as development spurs global communication and urbanization creates more space for people to access the global market. Hybridization started and created mestizaje, but the process continues and there are still more influencers being introduced. As Latin America becomes more modern, it gains more access to the global community. It is a beneficial relationship (i.e. Latin America and the global community’s relationship) because it means more access to information, technology, and goods. In some ways this improves the national market and provides locals with more resources, and in other ways this globalization can exacerbate the pre-existing inequalities and chip away at the local culture.
The global market means access to cheaper goods, which takes money away from locally sourced products. It also motivates people to become part of a “global culture”, and buy into what is popular and “cool” at that time. That can be disastrous to the local culture because it will be pushed to the side so that locals can accept global standards, practices, and ideas. In other words, globalization has its benefits, but it has a darker side. The increasing number of opportunities is supportive of this process, but it also creates the commodification of local cultures. When mass production demands for mass consumption, everything becomes something that can be sold. Culture and local experiences become commodities to sell, and slogans to increase the number of tourists.
So is hybridization good or bad? The term itself seems to be more fitting, in that it captures the modern patterns of acculturation and transculturation. Heterogeneity seems to be unavoidable, as corporations seek to expand and modernization grows to more areas. Hybridization might create a scientific frame through which to understand the transformation of Latin American culture; the article mentions that urbanization intensifies cultural hybridization. That urbanization means that the international community also access into these different ways of thinking and being. Previously sheltered communities are becoming easier to access and learn about, as such it becomes easier for these cultures to interact with and pick up traits from other cultures. On the one hand that might mean that certain cultures become more open and tolerant, but it is also means the deterioration of the places that we considered exotic. And if our wish for the “exotic” becomes a never-ending practice then everything community will be forced to open up, and nothing will ever be unique as it used to be.
The last thought I have is whether hybridization, globalization, and modernization should be celebrated. The good that it does is unavoidable, but there is a question that is left to answer: how much do damage do these processes inflict?
Response to Theories of Mixture III: Hybridity
Hybridization describes the cultural mixing that occurs in Latin America, and that process is a result of modernization. Latin America remains inundated with new influences as development spurs global communication and urbanization creates more space for people to access the global market. Hybridization started and created mestizaje, but the process continues and there are still more influencers being introduced. As Latin America becomes more modern, it gains more access to the global community. It is a beneficial relationship (i.e. Latin America and the global community’s relationship) because it means more access to information, technology, and goods. In some ways this improves the national market and provides locals with more resources, and in other ways this globalization can exacerbate the pre-existing inequalities and chip away at the local culture.
The global market means access to cheaper goods, which takes money away from locally sourced products. It also motivates people to become part of a “global culture”, and buy into what is popular and “cool” at that time. That can be disastrous to the local culture because it will be pushed to the side so that locals can accept global standards, practices, and ideas. In other words, globalization has its benefits, but it has a darker side. The increasing number of opportunities is supportive of this process, but it also creates the commodification of local cultures. When mass production demands for mass consumption, everything becomes something that can be sold. Culture and local experiences become commodities to sell, and slogans to increase the number of tourists.
So is hybridization good or bad? The term itself seems to be more fitting, in that it captures the modern patterns of acculturation and transculturation. Heterogeneity seems to be unavoidable, as corporations seek to expand and modernization grows to more areas. Hybridization might create a scientific frame through which to understand the transformation of Latin American culture; the article mentions that urbanization intensifies cultural hybridization. That urbanization means that the international community also access into these different ways of thinking and being. Previously sheltered communities are becoming easier to access and learn about, as such it becomes easier for these cultures to interact with and pick up traits from other cultures. On the one hand that might mean that certain cultures become more open and tolerant, but it is also means the deterioration of the places that we considered exotic. And if our wish for the “exotic” becomes a never-ending practice then everything community will be forced to open up, and nothing will ever be unique as it used to be.
The last thought I have is whether hybridization, globalization, and modernization should be celebrated. The good that it does is unavoidable, but there is a question that is left to answer: how much do damage do these processes inflict?
Reaction to Hybridity reading
I explain in this blog my reaction to the readings of the week: two extracts from Néstor García Canclini ‘s Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity.
A thought I found interesting in the introduction is the fact that we have to nuance the idea of hybridization when it is understood as a fusion of two cultures. First of all, the idea of a peaceful fusion is too optimistic, in most cases hybridity is in fact a form of violence and of conflict. This is why names such as syncretism, mestizaje and creolization allow to describe more specifically the kind of process involved. Secondly, as the author takes the example of the hybrid language called Spanglish, we can say that the two components mixed in the process (here, English and Spanish) are pure themselves: each culture is itself the result of past hybridizations, and the idea of pure, absolute essence of one culture is in fact a biased vision of the process, when one observes the culture at a precise moment in time. The author suggests that better understanding the process of hybridization is a way to relativize conflicts between cultures, and to prevent conflicts predicted by Samuel Huntington in Clash of Civilizations.
With globalization, increased economic exchanges and economic segregations imply more phenomena of hybridization but with newer conditions. For instance, in Latin America, Spanish investments are considerably increasing, which represent both an opportunity and a challenge for Latin American culture to express itself. This doesn’t mean global and national cannot be reconciled: the process of glocalization hopefully manages to do it.
The chapter 7 lists several ways in which modernity challenges the way to see culture. It addresses urban culture in Latin America, evolving with the political situation (dictatorship, populism…), with globalization, with social protests,… “New” technologies (the author writes in the 1990s) endanger the very idea of collection (precious, unique, physical items). Deterritorialization and reterritorialization are other new processes that heavily modify the traditional way to perceive culture in Latin America, as some places lose a cultural trait that was attached to them or regain it or gain a new one (such as the maquiladoras along the border between the Mexico and the US). And even Latin American comic strips can now tackle with humor social problems.
Response to Hybridity
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.
Hybridity
This reading was one of the more dense readings we’ve done all year and I think at points the complexity of the language takes away from the points Canclini is trying to make. There were points where I knew I was reading something important, but with Canclini’s jargon I had no idea what I was reading. The way Canclini justifies the use of the term ‘hybridization’ remind me of Ortiz’ justification of using ‘transculturation’ to describe a more nuanced, complex process than the words ‘hybridity’ or ‘mestizaje,’ respectively. A few ideas below:
– Hybridization transcends ‘hybridity’ in that it describes a process that is continuously happening so that there are never any static products, whereas hybridity describes the product of that process. In many ways, I think Hybridization is the culmination of a lot of what we have been talking about in class, combining every aspect of a culture while also recognizing its constantly shifting identity.
– Canclini’s theories of Hybridization seems to be a term coined ahead of its time. Much of the technology Canclini identifies has advanced exponentially over the past couple decades, and every way he says that this technology progresses the hybridization of cultures has likewise advanced. Culture and technology are so inseparable at this point in our history that hybridization is now more realized than ever. But I don’t think this is the end of hybridization, or that somehow we will begin to revert to a non-hybrid culture. Rather, I think this is only the beginning of what hybridization could look like.
Big Snakes (Venezuelan Telenovelas) – Ortegas
I didn’t quite understand if telenovelas in general started from Por Estas Calles or if that was only one of the examples leading to the spreading of telenovelas all over Latin America. Anyhow – I find it wuite interesting how the text reported some people defining telenovelas as ‘low class’, ‘popular’ in the sense of ‘not culturated’, and some others recognizing its real life features and connection to the population. It is true: telenovelas have the connotation of being of ‘bad taste’; this text showed me a more historical side linked to the reality of a nation. I wonder how it was like to grow up in those times were Por Estas Calles was going on in the TV and actual political and social turbulences in real life. I also wonder who the majority of viewers were – the whole country, or a specific social ‘class’?
Discussion of Bellos/Ortega Readings
These readings were very interesting (especially the Bellos, partly because I will probably write my paper on similar material, and because of my deep set love for the beautiful game (football, never soccer, please…).
The Nelson Ortega reading was intriguing, for a few reasons…the most important being the importance of the TV, and TV programming in Latin America. However, he importantly emphasises ‘telenovelas’. As he doesn’t directly define what a ‘telenovela’ is, I did some research on it. Indeed, they are very similar to what the Western world would define as soap operas, however they are importantly NOT the same as soap operas. They are much shorter than soap operas (they rarely run for longer than a year), but they are still much longer than most serials. A telenovela is best described as a ‘serial’ drama. On p64, Ortega notes how telenovelas have become ‘much more permeable to the changes in the genre, in the country, and in the audience’ since Radio Caracas Television revolutionised the genre with ‘Por estas calles’ (by Ibsen Martinez) in the early 1990s. Ortega implies that the first wave of telenovelas were slightly less serious than late waves. He notes on p65, how at first, telenovelas customarily ‘avoided references to to contemporary social life and current history’. Ortega then goes on to discuss how these 2 phases of telenovela: the cultural phase, which started in 1973, and the urban phase, which began in 1977. Essentially there isn’t a huge amount of change between the 2 waves, and there is a lot of overlap between the two, which he duly notes. Certainly the 2nd phase built from the first as it contains a lot of the same drama of the first (things such as love, sex, violence, relationships etc.). He emphasises how melodrama is central to telenovelas on p68 too!
What I love about the Bellos reading, is the amount of emotion that is conveyed. Many people will say, football is just a game: I would say to that try going to one of the biggest derbies in the world: for example, Arsenal v Tottenham, Man United v Liverpool, Barcelona v Real Madrid, AC Milan v Inter Milan, Boca Juniors v River Plate: the list goes on and on. For the real, hardcore fans, football is more than just a culture: it’s a religion (to quote one of my heroes Skepta there). Unfortunately I don’t have time to go into more detail here (much as I would love to!) but rest assured I will be writing a football-based paper, so there will be plenty much more to come!
Latin American Telenovelas
Sorry about the lateness on my post, folks (but mostly prof.!).
Ortega’s article really gave me a better idea on what telenovelas mean to the Latin American world. I’ve always heard of the ‘mania’ surrounding this genre in Latin America but never really had a clear reason why it seemed so much more popular there than it does in North America. Even though some soap operas in North America have committed followers they just don’t seem to garner the same attention as telenovelas in Latin America. It seems that the success of the genre in Latin America is melodrama “because it it insists- or tries to insist-on the dignity of the ordinary.”Perhaps that is why many people who could consider themselves as cultural connoisseurs would look down on the cultural form- it is too ordinary and therefore has no place in the realm of what we can call culture. Because it is accessible, because the themes addressed in the programs like Por Estas Calles are perhaps, relatable to the “average joe” (or José…hah) is they’re content somehow less valuable?
The concept that culture should be exceptional rather than accessible has always seemed to be an issue surrounding popular culture and because of this popular art forms such as telenovelas are devalued. I think it’s also super interesting that the folletín (newspaper serials) that lead to the telenovela was one of the first steps in which oral tradition (which we know is extremely important to pre-columbian and indigenous culture) was transcribed to print at the same time that many Latin Americans were becoming literate (p 67). Their popularity was reflective of people seeing themselves and their reality in the cultural products that were being produced and having access to this because of increased access to education. It seems to me that those who view telenovelas as “trash” or “garbage” are those who want to retain a monopoly on cultural expression and maintain a hegemonic elitist cultural narrative. I’ll have to give some of these telenovelas a watch- maybe i’ll get hooked too.