CULTURAL HYBRIDIZATION: PROCESS, TYPES AND EXAMPLES - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2024

The cultural hybridization is the process that occurs after mixing two different cultures. The concept was introduced by the Argentine anthropologist Néstor García Canclini in 1990. It appears for the first time in his work entitled Hybrid cultures: Strategies to enter and exit modernity.

Culture is the set of beliefs, traditions, art, language and habits that social groups adopt; These can identify from a small group of people to entire nations that share these characteristics. The term hybridization refers in science basically to a fusion or mixture.

Canclini takes up this term and applies it to social studies. Explain that, just as in nature, societies also adapt and change.

Canclini worked in countries such as Argentina, the United States, Spain and Mexico, where he has lived since 1976. These constant changes guided him in his lines of research on cultures and globalization.

Cultural hybridization in Latin America

Néstor Canclini mentions that cultural hybridization has occurred extensively throughout history, but his studies are essentially focused on Latin America, a region formed by the mixture of two peoples after the Conquest and that, at present, must adapt to the modernization.

Then, the author calls these sociocultural processes cultural hybridization where two different structures, which existed separately, are now combined and thus created a new dynamic, either for survival or to adapt to the new environment.

Cultural hybridization process

It is often thought that modernity brings about the disappearance of ancestral practices and folklore, but Canclini observes that hybridization, rather than changing some customs for others, transforms them.

Favorable exchange

This process of "miscegenation" that occurs between cultures is particularly visible in Latin America, where Canclini focused his observations. Be it from an ethnic, religious, linguistic and even gastronomic point of view, this region went through innumerable adaptations.

These can be seen as exchanges that positively affected both sectors (native peoples and conquerors), as was the case with the introduction of wheat to the cuisine of the American peoples and cocoa being brought to Europe for the first time, changing thus the gastronomy of both continents.

As a survival measure

However, the process can also be carried out as a measure of adaptation and survival, as happened in the religious aspect at the time of the Conquest.

Faced with the resistance of the American peoples, the first missionaries chose to adapt indigenous religious customs to Catholicism and thus not completely disappear them.

The rites and ceremonies were allowed to continue as long as they were adapted to Christianity, thus giving rise to the Mexican pre-Hispanic celebration of the Day of the Dead, now celebrated with crosses and masses.

In the same way, the sacred figure of the Virgin of Guadalupe was conceived dark and this was widely accepted by the mestizos, thus facilitating the exchange.

Types of cultural hybridization

Hybridization does not have a single reason for being, its triggers can be many. In the study of the social sciences, different types of cultural changes can be identified, which can lay the foundations or be compared with cultural hybridization.

Endoculturation

It is about the process by which the new generations adopt the culture of their environment. When you are born, you enter an already established scenario of norms and behaviors, to which we adapt consciously or unconsciously in order to function in society.

Assimilation

It occurs when an external group, be it migrants or an ethnic minority, becomes part of a new community. Cultural assimilation is the adaptive process they must go through to guarantee an optimal coexistence with their new environment.

Transculturation

It is the type of cultural change notorious in the conquests; There is a notion of “lower culture” and another “higher culture”, and it is about the lower one adapting to the uses and customs of the higher one, which perceives itself as a better option for the recipients. This occurs to the extent that the original culture is lost.

Relationship between cultural hybridization and interculturalism

Unlike cultural hybridization, which makes changes between two cultures and alters them so that they can adapt to the modern panorama, interculturality seeks to make the least amount of alterations between them.

Interculturalism is an interactive process that tries to respect the differences between different cultures. While seeking mutual enrichment, it positions two totally different cultures as equals, completely rejecting the notion of superior and inferior cultures.

An example of this relationship can be seen in North America: while the United States government seeks to ensure that its migrants fully adapt to their customs and language (transculturation), the Canadian administration promotes plurality among its new citizens (interculturality).

Examples of cultural hybridization

No culture in contact with the outside world remains unaffected by the influences of others. However, there are examples - especially in the American continent - of cultures totally molded around these exchanges.

Christmas traditions

One of the most visible examples of hybrid cultural demonstrations is the December celebrations in Latin America.

The tradition is adapted considering the birth of Christ, the pagan rites to end the year and the western custom of the figure known as Santa Claus. For example, in Colombia these celebrations last up to nine days.

Identity defined by areas

Hybridization becomes such that it is even part of the identity of a people, as is the case in New Orleans in the United States; Anglo-Saxon, African and French cultures are connected in this area.

In South America something similar happens with Argentina: in this country indigenous peoples, mestizos and the descendants of Spanish and Italian refugees who arrived in the area at the end of the 19th century coexist.

In both examples, the inhabitants of these regions do not separate their mestizo characteristics from those of Europe, for example, and this hybrid culture comes to be perceived simply as “Argentine”.

So, hybridization is one of the most important cultural aspects of America, a region long known as the “new continent”. The mix is ​​such that it is impossible to conceive of the region and its people as anything less than a hybrid of different cultures.

References

1. Barbero, M. (2001) Hybridization and Interculturality. Néstor García Canclini. Recovered from Nestorgarciacanclini.net
2. Canclini, N. (1990) Hybrid Cultures: Strategies to enter and exit modernity. Debolsillo: Mexico.
3. EcuRed (sf) Endoculturation. Cultural Anthropology. Recovered from Ecured.com
4. EcuRed (sf) Transculturation. Cultural Anthropology. Recovered from Ecured.com
5. Lugo, J. (2010) Cultural Hybridization: an escape from globalization. Contratiempo Magazine. Recovered from Revistacontratiempo.wordpress.com
6. Valencia, A. (2013) Cultural Hybridization. Theoretical Schools of Communication. Recovered from web.udlap.mx
7. Whalen, H. (2017) Cultural Hybridity. What is Cultural Hybridization? Retrieved from Open Education Sociology Dictionary.