By Miggy Cruz
Stuart Hall, in “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” detailed changing
identities with respect to diasporic experiences of the Afro-Caribbean group by
introducing two ideologies for ‘cultural identity.’ First, cultural identity as
influenced by ethnic and cultural similarities. The group is seen as “one,” “cultural
identities reflect the common” (223). The second idea of cultural identity Hall
referred to was the way history changed the identities of these people, and how
there is now “a matter of ‘becoming’ as well as of ‘being’” (225). Hall did a
more in-depth analysis of this point by discussing the changed histories of the
peoples displaced from their homeland.
I found it most interesting that our identities, how we see
ourselves, can never truly be the same as other view us no matter how we change
or not change who we are. Having learned about social constructs in my
sociology course, I think cultural identity, or identity in general, does not
have one point of origin. No one has just one identity anymore because it is always
changing as our surroundings change, and how we respond to those changes around
us.
Question: What can we do now to determine our cultural
identity as we would like it to be?
Sources:
Hall, Stuart. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.” Identity: Community, Culture, Difference.
Jonathan Rutherford. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1990. p. 222-237. Print.
No comments:
Post a Comment