Abstract:
An industrial township, which has only its employees as its inhabitants, though drawn from different cultures, is a cradle which nurtures hybridization of the culture of their children. Though the employees themselves are drawn from multiple cultures, on account of their job in one organization, develop a sense of a mono-culture which is the culture of the organization. This mono-culture combined with democratic values practiced by the company, being a participative style of management and with only company sponsored schools in the campus, allows the child to internally develop its own culture which is different from the culture of its parents and the culture of the place. An exposure of about 15 years, in the formative stage, which is free from bias, supports the hybridization process, which is actively supported by the parents at home and the teachers at school resulting in a ‘township culture’. Such hybridization is not seen in the colleges and schools in the towns and cities where groupisms are rather common. Because of hybridized ‘township culture’ children develop value systems of tolerance, universal brotherhood and empathy for fellow human beings. The hybridized “township culture” enables creation of medical practitioners, engineers and other professionals in large scale. Keywords: Hybridity, Culture, Cultural Hybridization, Industrial Township Cultural Hybridization in an Industrial Township – A Case Study Introduction “Hybridity[1] in its most basic sense refers to a ‘mixture’ – a cross between two separate races or cultures”. “Cultural hybridization[2] refers to the production of new cultural identities through merging of previously separate antecedents. Cultural Hybridization allows a process, fluctuation and negotiation of identity rather than giving birth to a new ‘hybrid’ form of identity that is a sum of distinct parts”. Study Location This case-study is presented from the personal experience of the author. The author’s early life was in the Industrial township of BHEL, Ranipet, located 120 Kms. south-southwest of Chennai where he was brought up throughout his juvenile life. Background The author’s mother a keralite born and brought up for 23 years in Kerala married his father who was working in BHEL, Ranipet. After marriage she transplanted herself to the township offered by the company. After his birth in his mother’s ancestral place in Kerala, the author’s life started in the township. The company township had about 1000 apartments and the dwellers were only the employees of the company (executives, supervisors and employees), drawn from different backgrounds across the country. The Hybridization of the Young in the township For them who have been brought up in the township where they have spent their early years ranging from 12 to 15 years. (till they leave the township for their college studies), the culture is not that of either of their parents, but is what that has happened by the cross-pollination of the different cultures imbibed in the school, the township environs and home. The (new) culture of the township young is neither that of the dominant local (Tamil) culture nor their own practiced at home, but lies in the third space, which the young impressionable minds have formed - an hybrid between the culture practiced at home and that at the school, where the child spent most of his productive time in a day, with his teachers most of whom are steeped in the local culture. In the Independence Day and Republic Day functions held in the company, the “cultural events” presented by the children are the evidence of the amalgamation of the local culture and the culture brought from home. Both the (imported) culture prevalent at home and the local culture get subsumed into the new hybrid that arises out of the joint efforts of the parent and the school teacher. Some of the parents take the initiative to display the cultural wares of back home by working along with the teachers to mould a group of participants, not limited to their own circle, in the presentation of dance and songs done by a mixed bag of students, starting from the pre-school crèche. Thus starts the learning for the young where the local starts mixing with the outside each enriching the other as the hybridization process commences right at the tender age. And in the process, the stand-alone purity of both the cultures – local and that at home gets decimated holding true what Rosaldo (1995: xv) says: “hybridity is an ongoing condition of all human cultures which contains no zone of purity”. The mere presence of families of different culture in the township, where the elders form their own groups, perhaps as a part of their solution for their identity-crisis and their yearning for the roots that they have left, coming to Ranipet for their job (as seen from the Kerala Samajams, the Odhisha community etc. in the township) has in no way precluded the interaction of their progenies in the school and beyond, which has lead to generation in the young minds a hybridization of a culture which is neither that of their home nor that of where they live, which they able to carry productively beyond their township life into their adult hood. Whatever is the creed or religion or background, for the township child, Pongal meant sugarcane, Karthigai month meant lit earthen lamps displayed in the house front, the English New year to exchange cakes and greetings, Deepavali for crackers, the Independence Day and the Republic Day for gathering in the township stadium - the sinking of individual cultures and practices into one which only they understood. Such hybridization has not come through any coercion or oppression by the local dominant culture but has been brought about by the osmotic assimilation by the child through the interaction and marriage in their minds - of their own home culture with that of the local culture. There was no struggle, visibly present either to impose or to oppose the culture where the youth grew, but it has been a healthy hybridization, which has led to a more egalitarian value system in them where there is no hate towards both the cultures to which the child was exposed to. Long after they have left home, they still fondly reminiscence of the times that they grew up in the township, passing on the values obtained to the next generation. One manifestation of the hybridity as seen by the author is the life-partner selection by the product of the hybridity. Whereas the parent found the spouse from his or her own culture, the preference of the “hybrid-culture” person has been to lean strongly away from such practice, with many of them finding themselves partners on their own from other cultures including partners from out of the country. Analysis As one delves into this phenomenon of widespread hybridization in the township culture, one can detect the genesis coming out of the organization culture. Though the population is multi-cultural, they get unified into one organizational culture. This office mono-culturism seeps into the township which is also monolithic in the sense that the inhabitants are one-hundred percent of the organization with no other outsiders staying in the township. With only the organization sponsored school in the campus, the child of the CEO could be the neighbor to the last grade worker in the class-room. The status of the parent is not a matter in the school, where what that matters is purely the academic performance. The participative style of management spills over into the township where work-men representatives also have a say in the functioning of the township (through various committees like the Road safety committee, the Township committee and the Hospital Apex committee). Such democratic functioning has led to developing a collaborative culture in the school, which in turn has nurtured the hybridization of the next generation. The result of this is has been more numbers of engineers, doctors and other professionals emerging from the township (almost every family has one in this profession and 1 in 3 has a son or daughter settled abroad). Through development of the hybrid culture, the language barrier, the food barriers that the parents faced are no more obstacles for the second generation which is much more comfortable with the vernacular chatter that goes around him or her and with Idli, Dosai and Sambar than with what he or she would get on their annual trip to back-home as much as the locals have loved to flavor the Rotis and Hindi songs and music now. While it may be an alien culture for the parent, for the off-spring it is a hybrid of home and school. The new characteristics is neither that of ‘home’ nor that of the ‘school’ on a stand-alone basis, but that which has been adopted, modified and blended by the youth to form the hybrid culture which the author terms as the ‘township culture’. This can be seen in the context of Bhaba (1990: 211) who says “the importance of hybridity is not to be able to trace two original moments from which the third emerges; rather hybridity to me is the “third space” that which enables other positions to emerge”. In contrast, in college, away from the ‘township culture’, the author has witnessed cultural groupism, for example keralites, telugus being a separate group, the Hindi speakers keeping to themselves. Such –isms have been eliminated in the mind of the author on account of the hybridization that occurred early in his life, when learnt biases were non-existent. Conclusion It may be a mistake to think that the social production – the process by which societies maintain themselves over time presupposes some sort of consensus with regard to dominant values or norms (Appiah, 1992:179). The ‘township culture’ is a testimony to this that there is no dominant culture, not the one learnt at home, not the one at the school and but that which is new and beyond, hybrid - which has been learnt, absorbed, transformed and used to develop one’s own positive own value system, with which the author has been enriched with. Hybridity is not a reference to the multi-cultural population (Hall, 2000). Its formation is a continuing process of negotiations that is always in transit, travelling between cultural spaces and different identity vectors (Munoz, 1999). This process of negotiation has been helped mostly by the Schools in the township and the management of the company which has consciously and unconsciously brought in the concept of equality in life in the township. As Papasetrgiadis (2005) says it is the hybridization that promotes diversity over uniformity, inclusivity over exclusivity, merit over privilege and dialogue over dogma. The concepts of merit over privilege and inclusivity over exclusivity are firmly entrenched in the products of this township, which has been possible only through the cultural hybridization. According to Hooper (2007:146), by facilitating hybridization, globalizing processes have the potential to undermine the case of all who insist upon cultural and civilizational distinctiveness. The Indianization (treated as mini-globalization here) where people from different parts of the country have come together for making a living in the township have furthered the cause of hybridization through conscious and unconscious adoption of the different cultures through various forms of language, melding of ideas and by what has been seen by the children in the township. The township culture is a model that can be replicated across our country when there is no political interference and the child is free to learn by exposure to the multitudinous cultures that make up the Indian society to imbibe oneself with the values of concepts of tolerance, universal brotherhood, empathy for fellow humans, collaborative and constructive competition, for as Chan (1995) showed hybridity cannot be institutionalized. Let hybridization occur spontaneously, nurtured by itself and not influenced by external (negative) forces - where the mind grows free from bigotry and stands free to explore and develop value systems by itself through the process of hybridization. Hybridization creates a whole which is other than the sum of its parts (Gestalt). References Appiah, Anthony Kwame (1992). In my Father’s house: Africa in the philosophy of culture, Oxford University Press. Bhaba, Homi (1990). “The Third Space: Interview with Homi Bhaba,” in J. Rutherford (ed.), Identity: Community, Culture, Difference (pp. 207 -237) Lawrence and Wishart. Chan, K.B., and Tong C.K. (1995). “Modeling culture, contact and Chinese ethnicity in Thailand”. South east Asian Journal of Social Science. V 23(1), (pp: 1- 12). Hall, S. (2000). “Conclusion: the multicultural question” B. Hesse (ed.) Un/settled multiculturisms: diasporas, entanglement, transruptions. (pp: 209 – 241). Zed Books Hooper, Paul (2007). “Understanding Cultural globalization” (page: 146). Polity Press Munoz, J.E. (1999). “Disidentifications: Queers of color and the performance of politics”. G. Yudice, J. Franco and J. Flores (eds.) Cultural Studies of the Americas. Vol. 2 University of Minnesota Press. Papastergiadis. N. (2005). “Hybridity and ambivalence: Places and flows in contemporary art and culture”. Theory, Culture and Society, V 22(4), (pp: 39-64) Rosalda, Renato (1995). “Forward”, in C. Garcia (ed.), “Cultural Hybridity: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity” (pp. xi – xviii), University of Minneapolis Press. Shimoni, Baruch (2007). “Ethnic demonstration and cultural representation: Fro, multi-culturism to cultural hybridization, the case of Mizrahi-Sabras in Israel”. www.academia.edu/4056835 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybridity [2] From the call for conference in May 2013 organized by the Canadian Studies Student Circle, “One Coin, Two Sides: Hybridization of cultures in Canada.”
0 Comments
|