Hybridity and Identity Performance in Diasporic Context: An Autoethnographic Journey of the Self Across Cultures

Abstract

In this autoethnographic article, I am interested in theorizing about how hybridity illuminates my lived experience of identity performed across cultures, and more specifically in diasporic context, at the intersections of various facets of my selfhood: Black, female, postcolonial, African, bi-tribal, diasporic, immigrant, nonnative English Speaker, “French native speaker,” and so on. I use personal narrative as a locus of subjectivity to recount critical moments of my lived experience as a hybrid subject navigating at the borderlands of two cultural worldviews: Congolese and American. My cross-cultural journey reveals a series of challenging and triumphant episodes from my childhood back home to my life in the United States, a journey during which I have experienced both privilege and oppression. My process of identity construction results in the creation of a third space that celebrates difference through new ways of being, encompassing cultural values from both the United States and the Congo. This process is articulated through different ways of being/not being “American” and/or “African” and just being “different.”

Exploring hybridity and identity negotiation of young Tamil Canadian women: an autoethnographic study

“…The objective is to theorize and creatively illustrate how the concept of hybridity illuminates my lived experience of identity performed across cultures, and more specifically, in a diasporic context. I explore my hybrid selfhood as a "critical nexus" (Alexander, 2014), blending various layers of my identity simultaneously: Tamil, female, second generation immigrant, daughter, and so on to assess the impact of my choices on familial/community relationships. I demonstrate how the complexities of my intersectional identity expand on and/or challenge the preservation of Tamil cultural practices within the Canadian context.…”

“…This autoethnography will give voice to factors that control my personal development, educational and life trajectory due to the high responsibility to learn and carry my culture in a city where Tamil immigration was newly emerging, and its culture was being reborn. Using creative analytic practice, and specifically vignette writing, the goal is to accessibly communicate processes of identity construction and the negotiation and creation of a 'third space' that celebrates new ways of being, encompassing cultural values from both the Canadian and Sri Lankan Tamil spectrum (Pindi, 2018).The process of creating a third space is articulated through different ways of being/not being "Canadian" and/or "Tamil" enough and/or just being "different. "…”

“…Grossberg (1996) contends that "images of a 'third space' see subaltern identities as unique third terms literally defining an 'in-between' place inhabited by the subaltern" (91). For second-generation immigrants, the third space can operate as a space of difference celebrated by challenging "the notion of assimilation versus rejection which essentializes immigrants' experiences in terms of sameness, wholeness, and homogeneity (Pindi, 2018). As noted by Bardhan (2011), "working through the lenses of diaspora and hybridity can also help deconstruct old binary maps of cultural difference that follow the Us/Other negative logic of the West and the Rest" (45).…”

“…For example, immigrants can use transnational space to perform difference as a way of interrupting sedimented/repetitive ways of doing and being in everyday life (Warren, 2008). Furthermore, Bhabha (2015) defines the "third space" as "cultural hybridity -committed to the practice of empowering minorities by envisioning forms of agency" (as cited in Pindi, 2018). Such celebration of difference is dialogically productive and useful "in the service of agentic and communicative identity building which can aid in healing identity trauma and (cultural) transformation angst experienced by young Tamil Canadian females in Toronto.…”

“…Such an approach to difference evolves in the in-between space of two or more cultures/worldviews that valorize a conception of Self/Other as unique (Pindi, 2018;Bardhan, 2012;Godiwala, 2007).…”