Author Archives: Syndicated User

Transculturation

Ortiz:

Ortiz illustrated the importance of words in regards to the process of acquiring/transition/losing culture(s). He describes the history of Cuba as a mixing of many different processes; from the arrival of white immigrants to the slaves forced into a new life from across the ocean. He describes a history of colonization and struggle, and the subsequent emerging culture can only be described through analysis of the very term transculturation. To understand this term, one must understand the term acculturation, which is the “process of acquiring another culture”. One must also know the term deculturation, which is the “loss or uprooting of a previous culture”. He also throws in the term neoculturation, which is the “consequent creation of new cultural phenomena”. He explains that transculturation embodies all of these definitions, as a culture is continuously moulded and reshaped in response to its given environment. It is not a concrete concept; rather, it is the transition of one culture to another with respect to all its phases of transition.

Millington:

Millington takes a critical stance on Ortiz’s work, posing a great deal of uncertainty around the use of the term “transculturation”. What Ortiz had done was use this as a blanket term, but Millington is wary of its overuse and states that the combination of meanings under this one term leads to a lack of a clear definition. Transculturation as a term has become too general – it undermines the importance of the historical, political, and cultural contexts of Latin America. In class we discussed that the formation of Latin American culture can also be seen as a form of resistance. Millington does not argue that one culture was more influential than another; rather, he attests that for cultures such as the Indigenous or the Blacks, even from positions of “inferiority” they still have a great impact on the budding culture.

 

The Incompetence of Words

Sorry this is really late! I have been busy and kind of forgot but I’m still going to say some things

I think the issue both of these essays fundamentally try to solve or at least explore is the inability of a single word to describe ALL processes of cultural interaction- regardless of context- and I don’t think that can be done. I found Ortiz’ writing to be lovely for the most part he takes special care to detail the trauma and shock and suppression experienced by the native people of what is now Cuba and the African slaves uprooted to there. However, I think his advocation for the sufferings of different groups of people was ultimately futile. he basically just explains how vastly different the experiences of groups of people in Cuba are and why acculturation cannot encompass all of them and then replaced one catch all term with another. It is arguably better or “more attractive” like we discussed in class but is there a real solution or way to improve our specificity that we won’t disregard a history of dominance and imposition so vulgarly?

In his critique of Ortiz’ writing Millington explains why implementing an secondary term to describe the experiences of subaltern groups (victims of violence & oppression) vs. the experiences of those who are uprooted from an original culture in hope of seeking something better (and not to escape violence or oppression.) Not to mention, it cannot take into account the effects of the experience of the individual and the context which surrounds their transition from one cultural experience to another. He says:

“There has been some emphasis in recent discussions of transculturation on interaction, but I think that we need to be clear about what we take that term to mean, because interaction may not imply equality and mutuality. Influences may operate back and forth between cultures but be asymmetrical in quantity and quality, be highly imbalanced and still take place with well oiled efficiency. Above all, therefore, and recalling elements in Ortiz, we need to try to understand how these processes affect people’s lives and the social relations in which they live.” (267)

To conclude: the specific experience of the individual (on whichever side of the power structure they may lie) is transformed and continually influenced by forces of cultural “interaction” yes, but what we should focus on attempting to understand and describe is the forces of influence which have shaped and continue to shape their experience on a more individual level. Instead we tend to want to group people together and use words which can describe our “Globalized” world, but maybe in this instance that may be incredibly difficult. There are definitely patterns and similarities one can find in all groups of people and their daily lives but I think the urge to create one, or even 2, 3, terms to describe the relationships between cultures and on a micro level, people, is impossible but we will definitely keep trying, it’s what we do. What do you think?

The Incompetence of Words

Sorry this is really late! I have been busy and kind of forgot but I’m still going to say some things

I think the issue both of these essays fundamentally try to solve or at least explore is the inability of a single word to describe ALL processes of cultural interaction- regardless of context- and I don’t think that can be done. I found Ortiz’ writing to be lovely for the most part he takes special care to detail the trauma and shock and suppression experienced by the native people of what is now Cuba and the African slaves uprooted to there. However, I think his advocation for the sufferings of different groups of people was ultimately futile. he basically just explains how vastly different the experiences of groups of people in Cuba are and why acculturation cannot encompass all of them and then replaced one catch all term with another. It is arguably better or “more attractive” like we discussed in class but is there a real solution or way to improve our specificity that we won’t disregard a history of dominance and imposition so vulgarly?

In his critique of Ortiz’ writing Millington explains why implementing an secondary term to describe the experiences of subaltern groups (victims of violence & oppression) vs. the experiences of those who are uprooted from an original culture in hope of seeking something better (and not to escape violence or oppression.) Not to mention, it cannot take into account the effects of the experience of the individual and the context which surrounds their transition from one cultural experience to another. He says:

“There has been some emphasis in recent discussions of transculturation on interaction, but I think that we need to be clear about what we take that term to mean, because interaction may not imply equality and mutuality. Influences may operate back and forth between cultures but be asymmetrical in quantity and quality, be highly imbalanced and still take place with well oiled efficiency. Above all, therefore, and recalling elements in Ortiz, we need to try to understand how these processes affect people’s lives and the social relations in which they live.” (267)

To conclude: the specific experience of the individual (on whichever side of the power structure they may lie) is transformed and continually influenced by forces of cultural “interaction” yes, but what we should focus on attempting to understand and describe is the forces of influence which have shaped and continue to shape their experience on a more individual level. Instead we tend to want to group people together and use words which can describe our “Globalized” world, but maybe in this instance that may be incredibly difficult. There are definitely patterns and similarities one can find in all groups of people and their daily lives but I think the urge to create one, or even 2, 3, terms to describe the relationships between cultures and on a micro level, people, is impossible but we will definitely keep trying, it’s what we do. What do you think?

Theories of mixture II: Transculturation

Ortiz, Fernando & Millington, Mark. 

Reading Ortiz was interesting as it advocated for a liberated, more all encompassing perception on the social, cultural, historical and political aspects of colonisation in Latin America (more specifically Cuba) yet it still exhibits a ethnocentric perception.  This slight racism reflected the common thought in anthropology at the time which was sociocultural evolution. As a result of this context,  I felt slightly suspicious of Ortiz but not as bad as  with Vasconcelos. Ortiz refers to the palaeolithic Indian as having an “inability to adjust himself to the culture brought in by the Spaniards” (99) as well as referring to people as Mongoloids and Negroes and comparing their cultures as less  “advanced” in comparison to Indian and European.  But other than those contextual semantics, Ortiz was arguing for a more attentive perception! Ortiz vouches for a better, more respectful and aware way to address the convergence and collisions of culture throughout Latin America.

Although in theory and on paper this is a positive thing, as seen in Millington’s article it brings up much criticisms as well. Millington critiques Ortiz by bringing up the point that it is not possible to encompass the intricacies of culture in Latin America and instead it just becomes a generalised term, commonly used but not really understood in its historical, political, social and cultural contexts.

Transculturation

In his article, Ortiz focusses on the concept of transculturation in the context of Cuba’s political, economic and social history.

Cuban history is a history of ‘intermeshed transculturations’. All immigrants that arrived in Cuba were of diverse origins – Spaniards, Africans (Senegal, Guinea, Congo, Mozambique – each with from own cultures and social groups), Indians from the mainland, Mongolians, French, North Americans, Jews, etc – each torn and uprooted from their own cultures and native lands and transplanted to a New World, where everything, from nature, to people to customs, were new and where they had to readjust themselves to a ‘new syncretism of cultures’. Ortiz describes how almost every race/culture of origin paid a price for immigrating, but the price paid by the Africans far supersedes the others’. When the Indians of America “collided head-on” with the white Europeans, they got wiped off “as though struck by lightning”, but they died their native land, believing that they were passing over to the invisible regions of their own Cuba. However, the Africans were brought across the oceans against their will, by brutal force, and they “arrived deracinated, wounded, shattered, like the cane of the fields, and like it, they were ground and crushed to extract the juice of their labour”. Even in death, they bore the agony of separation from their ancestors and ancestral lands.

He then proposes that the word ‘acculturation’, defined as transition from one culture to another and the associated social consequences, does not adequately describe the process of transition that takes place in Cuba. In Cuba, the different populations not only acquired a new culture but were abruptly uprooted from and lost their previous culture (not a gradual transition). Therefore, the term ‘transculturation’ is more fitting. I agree with Ortiz here; the kind of cultural transition that took place in Cuba (accompanied by upheaval, violence, and subordination) is very different than the type of cultural transition that immigrants today go through in Canada/USA (gradual loss of native traditions and slow, peaceful assimilation into North American culture). Therefore, a distinction must be drawn between the two processes.

In response to Ortiz and other writers, Millington suggests that the term ‘transculturation’ needs to be more closely examined due to the recent overuse. According to Millington, any term that is overused “[degenerates]  into orthodoxy and so [produces] a devaluation, which may be but one step away from obsolescence. He dislikes the word hybridisation because of the ambiguity attached to the term (lacks a precise definition, carries the implication that “what went into the cultural mixing was in some way pure (or not already mixed)”, etc).

The reasons he doesn’t like the term ‘transculturation’ is because Ortiz bunched the terms ‘deculturation’ and ‘acculturation’ under one master term which lends further to the confusion regarding the precise definition of the term ‘transculturation’. His explanation of the term makes no mention of   ‘neoculturation’ (creation of new culture), and therefore no longer seems to to replace ‘acculturation’ but subsume it.

The most interesting point raised by Millington (quoting Beverly), however, is whether “the idea of transculturation expresses in both Ortiz and Rama a fantasy of class, gender and racial reconciliation”. I’m not sure how true this is, given that Ortiz does point out the violent history of how the transculturation process came out to be, making it seem no more than a ‘survival technique’. The natives that were perished and the Africans who were enslaved as a result of cultural collision likely do not see it “embracing” different cultures.

 

 

Transculturation

In his article, Ortiz focusses on the concept of transculturation in the context of Cuba’s political, economic and social history.

Cuban history is a history of ‘intermeshed transculturations’. All immigrants that arrived in Cuba were of diverse origins – Spaniards, Africans (Senegal, Guinea, Congo, Mozambique – each with from own cultures and social groups), Indians from the mainland, Mongolians, French, North Americans, Jews, etc – each torn and uprooted from their own cultures and native lands and transplanted to a New World, where everything, from nature, to people to customs, were new and where they had to readjust themselves to a ‘new syncretism of cultures’. Ortiz describes how almost every race/culture of origin paid a price for immigrating, but the price paid by the Africans far supersedes the others’. When the Indians of America “collided head-on” with the white Europeans, they got wiped off “as though struck by lightning”, but they died their native land, believing that they were passing over to the invisible regions of their own Cuba. However, the Africans were brought across the oceans against their will, by brutal force, and they “arrived deracinated, wounded, shattered, like the cane of the fields, and like it, they were ground and crushed to extract the juice of their labour”. Even in death, they bore the agony of separation from their ancestors and ancestral lands.

He then proposes that the word ‘acculturation’, defined as transition from one culture to another and the associated social consequences, does not adequately describe the process of transition that takes place in Cuba. In Cuba, the different populations not only acquired a new culture but were abruptly uprooted from and lost their previous culture (not a gradual transition). Therefore, the term ‘transculturation’ is more fitting. I agree with Ortiz here; the kind of cultural transition that took place in Cuba (accompanied by upheaval, violence, and subordination) is very different than the type of cultural transition that immigrants today go through in Canada/USA (gradual loss of native traditions and slow, peaceful assimilation into North American culture). Therefore, a distinction must be drawn between the two processes.

In response to Ortiz and other writers, Millington suggests that the term ‘transculturation’ needs to be more closely examined due to the recent overuse. According to Millington, any term that is overused “[degenerates]  into orthodoxy and so [produces] a devaluation, which may be but one step away from obsolescence. He dislikes the word hybridisation because of the ambiguity attached to the term (lacks a precise definition, carries the implication that “what went into the cultural mixing was in some way pure (or not already mixed)”, etc).

The reasons he doesn’t like the term ‘transculturation’ is because Ortiz bunched the terms ‘deculturation’ and ‘acculturation’ under one master term which lends further to the confusion regarding the precise definition of the term ‘transculturation’. His explanation of the term makes no mention of   ‘neoculturation’ (creation of new culture), and therefore no longer seems to to replace ‘acculturation’ but subsume it.

The most interesting point raised by Millington (quoting Beverly), however, is whether “the idea of transculturation expresses in both Ortiz and Rama a fantasy of class, gender and racial reconciliation”. I’m not sure how true this is, given that Ortiz does point out the violent history of how the transculturation process came out to be, making it seem no more than a ‘survival technique’. The natives that were perished and the Africans who were enslaved as a result of cultural collision likely do not see it “embracing” different cultures.

 

 

Transculturation

Both readings took on the term transculturation to further describe it and to challenge how it is commonly used. Both readings were rather pessimistic to their approach of their term, and seemed to consider that the white European culture that the Spaniards brought to Latin America won out over the local, indigenous cultures. The readings argued that acculturation was not the correct term to use when describing the culture in Latin America, but that transculturation was a better representation of the cultural effects of the Spaniards arrival to the Americas. As Millington points out, the cultural phenomena occurring in Latin America cannot be completely described by transculturation. It seems an easy conclusion to reach that the cultural processes that took place in Latin America were more complex than any one word can summarize. More than anything Millington seems to be saying that people should be more critical of the processes that took place in Latin America; this is a job that hopefully most people will complete when trying to describe Latin America.

It is difficult to argue against or agree with the depictions presented by Ortiz and Millington. Ortiz’s comparison of the black and indigenous people’s treatment seemed to be a strange thing to discuss—saying that black slaves suffered more than the tainos appears to be an unfair way to compare the black and taino experience. Both groups faced struggles and hardships by the white Europeans, but neither group’s suffering should be wiped away because they did not “suffer” the same amount as another group. After coming across this section, it became nearly impossible to continue an unbiased reading of Ortiz’s work.

It was refreshing to see that Millington did not rank two discriminated groups’ experiences, but it seemed clear that Millington was not convinced that the indigenous or black population was able to be more culturally influential than the Spanish. Through Millington’s writings it appeared that the white Europeans had won, and that the cultures of the indigenous and black people had been successfully tamped down. This seemed to be the reason why Millington had a problem with using transculturation; to Millington the term did not effectively capture the continued hegemonic structures that exist in the varying Latin American cultures. But I would argue that the very fact that people are discussing the effects of the Spanish on Latin American culture is proof that people do not consider transculturation lightly. The indigenous and black people have not been forgotten, and their presence in the public’s mind means that they were not completely pushed aside by the Europeans.

Transculturation

Both readings took on the term transculturation to further describe it and to challenge how it is commonly used. Both readings were rather pessimistic to their approach of their term, and seemed to consider that the white European culture that the Spaniards brought to Latin America won out over the local, indigenous cultures. The readings argued that acculturation was not the correct term to use when describing the culture in Latin America, but that transculturation was a better representation of the cultural effects of the Spaniards arrival to the Americas. As Millington points out, the cultural phenomena occurring in Latin America cannot be completely described by transculturation. It seems an easy conclusion to reach that the cultural processes that took place in Latin America were more complex than any one word can summarize. More than anything Millington seems to be saying that people should be more critical of the processes that took place in Latin America; this is a job that hopefully most people will complete when trying to describe Latin America.

It is difficult to argue against or agree with the depictions presented by Ortiz and Millington. Ortiz’s comparison of the black and indigenous people’s treatment seemed to be a strange thing to discuss—saying that black slaves suffered more than the tainos appears to be an unfair way to compare the black and taino experience. Both groups faced struggles and hardships by the white Europeans, but neither group’s suffering should be wiped away because they did not “suffer” the same amount as another group. After coming across this section, it became nearly impossible to continue an unbiased reading of Ortiz’s work.

It was refreshing to see that Millington did not rank two discriminated groups’ experiences, but it seemed clear that Millington was not convinced that the indigenous or black population was able to be more culturally influential than the Spanish. Through Millington’s writings it appeared that the white Europeans had won, and that the cultures of the indigenous and black people had been successfully tamped down. This seemed to be the reason why Millington had a problem with using transculturation; to Millington the term did not effectively capture the continued hegemonic structures that exist in the varying Latin American cultures. But I would argue that the very fact that people are discussing the effects of the Spanish on Latin American culture is proof that people do not consider transculturation lightly. The indigenous and black people have not been forgotten, and their presence in the public’s mind means that they were not completely pushed aside by the Europeans.

Ortiz and Millington (transculturation)

I read Ortiz and most of Millington but I just focus on Ortiz here because I have more coherent thoughts:

I did not know that Ortiz coined the term “transculturation”.  To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t totally sure what transculturation was explicitly supposed to mean until looking at this reading.  I thought that it was cool that we were looking at an examination of the word in the text in which it was first used by the person who created it since many words are assimilated into the English language over time and it can be difficult to identify their exact origins.  Ortiz defines transculturation as the process of transitioning from one culture to another that “necessarily involves the loss or uprooting of a previous culture” (102).  I was intrigued by Ortiz’s analysis of the painful process of transculturation for Africans in Cuba.  While both black and native labourers were subjected to harsh treatment under the status of slaves and both experienced cultural oppression under the newly dominant Spanish culture, the “Indians suffered their fate in their native land, believing that when they died they passed over to the invisible regions of their own Cuban world” (102).  While being forced to adapt to a new culture would be difficult under any circumstance, for the Africans it would have been many times worse, having just been “torn from another continent” and facing the prospect of having to “recross it (the ocean) to be reunited with their lost ancestors” (102).

Ortiz also nuanced that “To a greater or lesser degree whites and Negros were in the same state of dissociation in Cuba” (102).  Regardless of status in the master-slave dynamic, the process of relocating and re-establishing one’s sense of identity in a new place can be a difficult and sometimes painful process.  Obviously, having had some form of conscious say in the decision to relocate would have made things easier for the Spaniard.  The fact that some brought their families with them also would have eased the transition.  But the bottom line is that uprooting and re-rooting in a new environment where one faces an intersection of culture(s) is hard.  To an extent, I feel like many university students face a similar challenge when first arriving at school, since for many people it represents their first time not living in their family home and many travel outside their province or country.  I live in the United States which is about as close of a country to Canada as you can get.  The independence and exposure I have gained within UBC’s diverse population has been one of my favorite parts of this year.  However, even coming from somewhere as close as America, I still occasionally felt a sense of cultural isolation in the first semester and resonated with what Ortiz described (thinking about it once over, I’m not totally sure if what I experienced was culturally related or just college angst??)

Theories of Mixture II

Part two of Theories of Mixture! So, in the first part, we talked about mestizaje and its implications. What it meant, how it was achieved and how it was important to Latin American culture. Now, in the second part, we are introduced to a somewhat new topic. Transculturation. We somewhat touched upon this topic in class in which we said transculturation was how two cultures (e.g. indigenous and Spanish) assimilated various elements of each other’s culture to make something fresh.

In Mark Millington’s readings, he mentioned how mestizaje has now become generally confined to discussions of racial mixing while transculturation and hybridization where more in favor nowadays. However, he drew a clear distinction on how while transculturation and hybridization are similar, they mean different things. Transculturation, he said had a distinct Latin American identity and was rarely employed outside that context. On the other hand, hybridization had a more global reference to it. Although I have yet to fully unpack the difference of the two meanings in a way that I can understand, I definitely find this area of topic interesting. Maybe because the length of the readings were a bit more manageable.

I found that this reading had a few similar ideas that Rowe & Schelling talked about in their “The Faces of Popular Culture”. For example, Rowe & Schelling talked about how Mexico had their process of acculturation be more complete. I will need to reread the two readings but this is what I have for now! Thanks for reading guys!