Is the blending of cultures leading towards the concept of nationality becoming extinct? Naomi Smith OUIL502 - Context of Practice 2 People of today have more freedom than ever before and this has meant that people from different cultures have been allowed to meet and consequently blend. From an educational view, the sharing of ideas, knowledge and beliefs has all resulted in a vast change in cultures and societies worldwide. We are so much more aware of what it is like to live in other parts of the world because we seem to have adopted aspects of these varying lifestyles within our own cultures. Procreation between people of differing nationalities and cultures has led to a significant percentage of the world’s population not distinctly fitting in to a certain nationality or culture. As the world continues to progress, cultures continue to blend, boundaries continue to be broken down, it raises the question whether we are becoming more of a ‘human race’ rather then separating ourselves into our own subcategories. The argument of whether the concept of nationality will exist in the future is dependent on how people choose to define themselves and whether the label of their nationality actually has any effect on their identity at all. The two main opposing concepts are the idea of essentialism and the idea of post-modern identity which divide people into those who believe identity comes from within and those who feel identity is constructed from your experiences. Essentialism is the traditional approach to identity, the theory being that it is our biological makeup and soul that makes us who we are. It means that we have an essence within us that is unaffected by our surroundings, we are born with it and it stays with us for life. Phrenology is an unproven idea which speaks about how a person’s character is due to the proportions and balance of the sections of their brain. Physiognomy is about how people’s facial features can teach us about their level of intelligence. The pre-modern approach to identity was determined by the institutions; the church, the monarchy and the state, for example. People were secure in their place and society was reliant on people staying where they supposedly should be. Modern identity developed in the 19th century alongside the industrial revolution as a wider range of social roles began to exist, people’s perceptions of identity became based around the class system within society. There became the possibility of starting to choose who you were and people became more conscious of who they were. Finally, this moved on into post-modern identity which poses a total contradiction to initial essentialist approach as it speaks of a fragmented self. The post-modern approach is based on the idea that a person’s identity is constructed from numerous discourses. Examples of these include, age, gender, class and education. The postmodern theory is about identity being constructed through social experiences and the encounters and performances of everyday life. It is seen as something that can be built and it continues to develop as your life goes on. (Beighton, 2015) Stemming from the postmodern theory is an argument supporting the idea that the blending of cultures is leading towards the nullification of nationality. As Taiye Selasi says, ‘all experience is local, all identity is experience’ (2014) which supports the idea that identity is constructed. Of course our experiences depend on our surrounding environment and past environments and situations and this clearly has an impact on people through their memories, traditions and beliefs. She believes that this is what builds your identity as a person, what you have been through and how you have lived your life so far. In terms of nationality, she agrees that the location of your upbringing and/or the rest of your life has a big influence on your identity. With
ever increasing numbers of people being brought up in a country different to the country of their supposed home nation, her argument claims that the nationality stated on your birth certificate has no impact on your identity unless it matches the environment you exist within or have existed within for a significant part of your life. This is best described through an analogy, for example, an English man living in Central London, England may have more in common with an American man living in New York City than a man who is also of English nationality but lives in a remote village in the countryside. The point is that it is the experience and environment that people exist in that gives them similarities and common ground, not their nationality or home country. Similarly, another English man might have emigrated to Africa and immersed himself in a totally different culture, learnt a new language and adopted a new lifestyle. Does the label that he is English have any standing now that the only thing he has left of England itself is memories? This depends on whether the individual defines himself by his past or by his present, whether he values his heritage enough to allow it to define him or whether he believes his current situation in life has the most impact on his identity. Barthes says that we accept the ‘doxa’ which is a common belief and the general acceptance of the way the world functions and we accept this as natural (1977 : 47). By accepting these beliefs as a matter of course, we are subconsciously being influenced by our society even from the very beginning of our lives before we are able enough to make decisions for ourselves. This creates a blurred boundary between what people think comes from within and what society has actually has an effect on. In terms of nationality, children may grow up to fit in well with their country’s society and they may perceive this to be a built in part of them as a person, however, if the same person was raised in a different country with a different culture, with no knowledge of their biological roots, they would most likely grow to fit with the culture they live amongst. Referring back to the concept of essentialism, the idea of nationality losing its meaning due to cultural blending would be opposed by this because essentialism would suggest that neither nationality nor the blending of cultures in society would not have any effect on identity at all. This image (Fig. 1.) by Saul Steinberg reinforces the concept of essentialism as it depicts a portrait of a man constructed from fingerprints, suggesting that a person's biological makeup is the primary contributor to their overall identity. Apart from the suit and tie that the figure appears to be wearing, there is very little suggestion of any external factors which may have had an influence on this individual. The way that the external view of this person is being shown through fingerprints, a symbol of genetics and inbuilt characteristics, implies that this person is channeling their inner qualities they were born with through to the way they present themselves to the rest of the world. It is as if Sternberg is trying to get to the root of true and honest identity but by showing the man in a suit and tie, we start to make presumptions about this character which might be a suggestion that even the people who feel totally true to themselves are still influenced by the society they exist within. Society has power over us and as cultures blend and societies evolve, we do too as people. People take influence from many places and factors and these feed into our everyday lives, often without us consciously choosing for them to. As cultures and subcultures blend, merge and evolve, it is inevitable that some things will start to lose meaning or adopt new implications. A prime example of this would be within the music industry when jazz music, which was originally a huge part of black culture, was ‘fed into mainstream popular culture during the 20s and 30s’ (Hebdige, 1979 : 46) and it began to change. Jazz opened out and evolved into white swing, it was a modified version of the original genre which had been altered and toned down to appeal to a wider audience and it now had ‘none of the subversive connotations of its original
black sources’ (Hebdige, 1979 : 47). This example shows how transitions like this can occur over time and if we adopt certain things into our lives, we are continuing on their influences too. It is a never ending process or change. If this is happening with musical influences, culinary influences, fashion influences, entertainment influences, the list goes on, there will become a point where the roots of all the things we deem to be part of our individual identity is so far in the distance that we can no longer identify and acknowledge them. This idea illustrates the postmodern self, ‘what the postmodern did was deprive the modern of its idea of a single anchoring centre’ (Hutcheon, 2013 : 124) which means that it is numerous factors that contribute to the identity of one person. Although society clearly does have an impact on us as individuals, heritage also plays a part in how we choose to define ourselves. Hutcheon speaks of how ‘one’s particular national culture and history had a determining effect on one’s theorising’ (2013 : 125) which suggests that the way we think about things and have opinions on topics is influenced on some level by our history. This could be argued both ways because some people choose to value their heritage more so than others. For some, their heritage is something they want to distance themselves from, for others it is something to uphold and be proud of and for some they may feel no particular connection to their heritage as they feel like they have built their own identity solely on their own life experiences, not the experiences of their bloodline. When writing about heritage in relation to identity, Howard (2003 : 147) states that its ‘common purpose is to make some people feel better, more rooted and more secure’ which suggests that people find it comforting and have some kind of reliance on it. Using the phrase ‘making people feel better’ suggests that Howard sees this approach as quite weak and those who base their identity solely on their heritage may be struggling to find other significant things in their life to use to build on this. Later on, Howard speaks about how people would see nationality as a ‘natural feature’ and very few would accept that nationality did not come from within. People talk of the blood of their country as if the location in which they were born has some genetic effect on their body and their character which is an absurd concept. As humans with conscious minds, we get to choose which aspects of our national heritage we want to carry with us as part of our own personal heritage, we do this through selecting what we want to remember and what we want future generations to remember and this is often shown through our chosen interests, belongings and experiences we choose to participate in. (2003 : 166-169) There is also the argument that race is merely a concept invented by society a long time ago and therefore has very little standing in modern day as education has improved and societies have progressed. It has been said that ‘race turns out to be a false idea that has had, and continues to exert, powerful global consequences even after its fundamental falseness has been recognised’ (Amoko, 2013 : 132) which supports this idea and goes on to mention how this has a detrimental effect on the human race as a whole even though people have realised the underlying downfalls of the concept. It is difficult to adhere to the rule system of race because ‘its boundaries are notoriously unreliable and its identity categories … are internally incoherent’ (Amoko, 2013 : 132) which becomes an issue of increasing concern as cultures continue to develop and blend making it even more difficult to fit people into these existing, disjointed boxes. This disorganised method of categorising people has clear, root downfalls which makes its consequential effect on the world questionable indeed. Amoko goes on to say that ‘the inventedness and falseness of race’ can be described as ‘reactionary’ (2013 : 133) because these boundaries of race invented by man are inhibiting the
progress of the world, in this case socially, politically and culturally. Amoko and many others are able to see that putting people in a certain racial category causes so many world issues, yet the idea of this method of labelling people is wholly unnatural and totally constructed by society itself. The way the world discusses race is with ‘lousy language’ (Smith 1991 : 66), almost proving that there is no clear cut way of defining it. Cultural diffusion and blending meet a sticking point when the topic of appropriation arises. Cultural appropriation occurs when elements of one culture are used by people of another culture, usually without a proper understanding of the true meaning and connotations of this product or tradition. It can often lead to offence being caused as it shows ignorance towards learning about other cultures and their values. Cultural appropriation exists on many different levels, but in relation to the blending of cultures, it raises the question of whether this is a fair exchange of cultural values or whether people have adopted certain aspects to suit the image they wish to create for themselves. Consumer culture plays a big part in this as fashion label in particular often adopt symbols and items of high value to some cultures and sell them back to us as cheap, factory made products. McRobbie speaks of consumer culture as being ‘an arena of female participation and enjoyment’ which ‘runs the risk of inducing a sense of political complacency’ (McRobbie, 1999 : 31) which suggests that the experience of browsing and buying is an enjoyable and leisurely activity of finding products that people feel suit their personality and character. The issue is that people don’t really look beneath the surface of what is presented to them in a commercial environment, they are complacent and are willing to accept what they see at face value and deem it to be sufficiently fair, however, if they were to educate themselves about the influences of the products they are to buy, use and wear, they may think differently about how the initial meanings behind these products have been warped to appeal to a wider market and to entice them into parting with their money. This becomes an issue as it may seem at a glance that some people are in support of different cultures and have adopted traditions into their own lifestyles, however they are actually unaware of the connotations of the products they own and have been caught up by capitalism which manipulates people to conform to ideals. The world continues to progress and social boundaries continue to be broken. In recent times gender and identity have been at the forefront of campaigns as a lot of people feel that the person they are inside does not match their actual human anatomy. This has resulted in the idea of being gender neutral which at the moment is not understood or known about on a wide scale, but the fact that you can identify as having no gender shows that our freedom as humans is being granted by society. We do all have the right to identify as what we want to be seen as, whether this be a chosen label or a total lack of one. Barthes writes "to give a text and author is to impose a limit on that text” (1968) so in the scenario of an individual being the text and the author being the nation this person supposedly belongs to, the individual is limited by the label of this. Consequently, connotations of that country may feed into our perception of the individual giving us a potentially false idea of their character. For this reason, avoiding labels of nationality altogether would be the only way that we would see that person for who they really are and not focussing on the preconceptions that come with a label. In conclusion, it is clear that the concept of nationality has less meaning than it has in previous years because the way people are distributed across the globe nowadays is far less structured as it used to be before travel was so easy. The real blending of cultures takes place over a long period of time, so in the distant future it is possible that the idea of having a nationality will be non existent because there will clearly be no need for it. In the close future though, it may become necessary for people to be able to choose their nationality more freely and easily and the concept will remain for legal, political and documentation purposes as nationality is an
invented social concept which is now deeply ingrained in politics and the way that countries work with and against each other. After all, we are manipulated ‘into mass conformity in the name of democratic ideals’ (Adorno 1978 : 280) meaning that are personal qualities are continuously controlled. On some level, it is down to the opinions of each individual person as to whether nationality means anything to them at all. Some people may identify internally, believing that essentialism is the root of your true identity, and these people are unaffected by the label anyway as it means nothing to them. People who identify themselves with external factors may be more inclined to dispute the label they have been given and feel more free to define themselves with the termination of nationality as a concept.
Fig. 1.
Figure 1. Steinberg, S. (1951) Fingerprint Man. [Illustration] At: http://insolacion.tumblr.com/post/60371112524/fingerprint-man-1951-by-saul-steinberg (Accessed on 30.01.16)
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