Hybridity in Cultural Globalization

Abstract

Hybridity has become a master trope across many spheres of cultural research, theory, and criticism, and one of the most widely used and criticized concepts in postcolonial theory. This article begins with a thorough review of the interdisciplinary scholarship on hybridity. Then it revisits the trope of hybridity in the context of a series of articles on cultural globalization published in the Washington Post in 1998. This series on “American Popular Culture Abroad” appropriates hybridity to describe the global reception of U.S. American popular culture. Due to the controversy surrounding hybridity, the discourse woven into these articles invites a critical deconstruction. A discussion of the implications of hybridity's conceptual ambiguity follows. Finally, this article makes the case that hybridity is a conceptual inevitability, and proposes an intercontextual theory of hybridity, which comprehends global cultural dynamics by articulating hybridity and hegemony, providing an initial theoretical platform for a critical cultural transnationalism.

Intercultural Communication and Dialectics Revisited

“…How people navigate identities within the historical contexts of EuroAmerican domination around the world is reflected in this scholarship whether these people have migrated to new places or not. For example, Darling-Wolf's (2004) exploration of how Japanese women negotiate notions of attractiveness/ beauty within forces of US colonialism and cultural imperialism, Kraidy's (2002) and Kraidy and Murphy's (2008) discussion of cultural hybridity and Hegde's (1998aHegde's ( , 1998b) studies of Asian women and immigrants, as well as Hall's (1985) study of hybridity and Caribbean identity underscore the complex ways that new subjectivities are (re)produced and deployed. Whereas Hall relies more on Foucault, Supriya's work rests more on Spivak, but both are concerned with questions of identity and hybridity in the aftermath of the forces of colonialism and imperialism.…”

Rediscovery of the Malay ‘local:’ youth and TV fiction in Malaysia

“…Thirdly, and what is argued as the thrust of this study, is cultural hybridity of globalization that signifies power distribution between the periphery and centre from the viewpoint of postcoloniality (featherstone, 1995; Kraidy, 2002;Kusno, 1998;Shim, 2006;Shome & Hegde, 2002;Srivastava, 1996;Yeoh, 2001). In this sense, it maintains that the complex relations between being local and global may result in one way or another, forms of rediscovery of Malay 'local, ' resisting the global forces.…”

Disney’s successful adaptation in Hong Kong: A glocalization perspective

“…According to Kraidy (2001), glocalization refers to a new cultural hybrid and change of norms and practices aimed as adjusting to local mindsets (Kraidy, 2002). Glocalization is not merely another take on niche-marketing, now global.…”