Where is home? Diaspora and hybridity in contemporary dialogue

Abstract

Diaspora is the first step towards an encounter with the other, forcing a re-negotiation of one’s cultural identity. This quest for the self, known as diasporic consciousness, is thought to be disruptive, having the power to de-essentialize national narratives. While diaspora does shake the core of individuals, this paper differentiates diasporic from hybrid consciousness as two distinct discourses of self. Maintaining a diasporic consciousness means to sustain the idea of a physical ‘home’ that has been forever lost. The constant desire to ‘return’ underscores an unconditional alliance to the homeland and its diasporic footprint. Consequently, the diasporic experience does not necessarily produce transgressive forms of cultural identification. On the contrary, those who dwell on diasporic consciousness reify national discourses abroad. The language of nationalism remains intact, and ‘native’ and ‘other’ constitute themselves through a dialectic but mutually exclusive relationship with devastating consequences for those who cannot cope with the binary. The alternative to diasporic consciousness is Bakhtinian heteroglossia, for it exposes national discourses as ‘epic,’ and de-territorializes ‘home’ to find it in language. Hybrid narratives of self connect diverse memories, images, and experiences into individual stories of identity that ultimately transform official discourses of national, gender, religious, and racial identifications.