02 en — Multidimensional grids

So yeah, I started to read. Not that I wasn’t reading before but I then focused my readings on this « thing » I was unable to name nor understand. Here are some of those lectures and the key concepts that helped me form a richer and more appeased understanding of issues relating to « identity ».

Amin Maalouf — Dangerous Identities

I started with a small book found in my parents library : Amin Maalouf, Dangerous Identities. It first made me realize that identity does not have to be unique. What a relief ! He states that we are all the result of multiple influences, our parents, where we live, who we are connected to. I realized that contrary to mainstream belief, choosing one excluding the others made no sense.

Anthropology

I followed with some basic anthropology. First the historical development of the discipline, from the gradation of differences by comparison with the Occident as the most advanced, inevitable and desirable form of development, to the idea that each and every form of culture is the most adapted to its environment. It didn’t helped me that much to understand my subject but definitely made me reflect about what I was trying to avoid (without understanding what it was until then).

I pursued with Descola’s « Beyond nature and culture ». This book opened my mind to the idea that nature was after all a very occidental concept, hard to define in many other languages, and that very occidental was also the idea that there once was an untouched “nature” in which humans would take place and build their “world of culture”. Using examples of many “cultures” that were including what we call “nature” in the social life, he made me realize that looking for “pure nature” wasn’t much more than an occidental romantic fantasy. Then he completely lost me in his attempt to re-categorizes relation between humans and non-humans. I mean I understand what he wants to do, but couldn’t see the point.

Raphael Liogier

Raphael Liogier is a French philosopher whose name I heard in a cafe I used to go. Fine observer of religions in Europe, it gave him a great view on the complex dynamics of identities in the world. He wrote a book about what he calls “Individuo-globalism”, depicting how we articulate the relation between the self and the other in a globalized world.

Fantastic reading ! I’ll try to summarize how I received it :
Global warming and ultra-connection led us to « think » the world as a whole.

My « way of life » can and will affect the climate in the whole globe, affecting each and every species living on earth. Through internet I’m now influenced by the whole world, and myself « broadcasting » information that could potentially reach anyone on this planet. That’s for “globalism”.

At the same time, culturally speaking, I have the liberty to chose based on my personal tastes, much more than having to chose in what’s surrounding me. This ability to « choose my culture » also lead to individualism (the term here is used without judgment). I’m then much less « culturally tied » with my surroundings, cause each of us makes his proper path in this overcrowded informational/cultural arena. Therefore, it also makes me more unique, less « identical » to my surroundings, and therefore I’m more inclined to « think myself » as an individual than as a community. It just gives me more freedom to think of me that way. That’s for “individuo”.

Liogier describes this shift as a new « mythical ground » emerging from late modernity. One should not see a rule applied to everyone but a general tendency, particularly observable in occidental countries.

He uses this framework to explain the tension between modernity, identity and tradition. The liberty I gain in this process, I loose it in « identity coherence » or « homogeneity », hence the desire to « come back to traditions » for some, or the fear of loosing a « cultural coherence » exploited by populist and nationalist movements.

It made me understand a bit more my appeal for « traditional » music, seen as the only response to crude and brutal « modernity », as well as my desires to travel, explore the nature : the ultimate « tradition ».

Finally, in his small book « Manifest of metaphysics », he questions Platon’s « Theory of forms », which poorly summarized would be that : in the world of ideas, concepts exists in a pure, absolute essence form and that everything existing in the real world are mere imitations of concepts from this « world of ideas ». A simple example would be the mathematical concept of a point, that is absolute and cannot be represented in real world because one could « zoom » bigger and crop it to a smaller « point ».

Liogier, question this way of approaching the reflexion and quoting a palette of thinkers, he appeals to a new way of approaching ideas in which ideas would not be absolute essences anymore. There would be a continuity between concepts. A stupid example would be to « think » the continuity between the idea of a chair and the idea of a table. Both are classified as furnitures, both have four legs, and one could sit or eat on each of them. Focusing on the similarities rather than on the differences help to draw a « continuity » between concepts instead of thinking them as completely isolated. Furthermore, each concept is in then defined in relation to other concepts.

It was groundbreaking for me. I found it much easier and smoother to think and talk about real world phenomenons in that framework. Indeed, there is no such Platons’s absolute point in the world accessible to our senses.

I find it very interesting that Liogier came up with those ideas after working for so long on religions, themselves being so closely related to identity. Indeed, popular identity lexicon is full of « purity », absolute, binary and borders, whereas as Amin Maalouf relates, real world situations are often very complex and mixed states.

As I stated before, I have family in Bosnia, near the Serbian border. Living with them, I realized how much people are influenced by each side of the border, have relatives and interest in both sides.

Last time I was there for a wedding. I assisted a fantastic scene in which after the church ceremony, with hundred of guests, decorated cars and super loud traditional music, we crossed the Bosnia -> Serbia border to attend the banquet in a reception room in Serbia (which was simply the nearest available).

Sometimes I wonder if the catastrophic 90’s in the balkans are just the result of trying to create absolute borders in an area that was so mixed. Some other times I’m struck by how strong the feeling of identity can be, to divide so deeply people who share the same « reality ». My grandmother told me how she grew up in a muslim village, and how they were like brothers and sisters before everything blew up. It doesn’t stops her to put the full responsibility on the muslim side when evoking the darkest period.

Anyway, this way of « thinking » things, described by Liogier, played a big role in helping me approaching identities dynamics with a complex perspective. It was way more easy to approach and felt much more natural using the words and concepts as “approximations” for ideas, without definitely excluding other ideas/characteristics.

I keep wondering if it is self evident for many other people ? It certainly brought me a lot of peace when approaching real world phenomenon such as social sciences and music.

By defining « what something is », based on accointances with other concepts rather than by defining it with « what it is not », was for me a radically new approach to « thinking » the world.

Stuart Hall — Races, ethnicities, nations.

This was big revelation for me. I think I bought like four or five of this book, offering it to friends and family because of the importance it had to me. It all seemed so self evident as I was reading but so complicated to articulate clearly. This book is a transcript from three conferences Hall gave in 94, and his heavily related to his paper « Cultural identity and diaspora » available here.

It is divided in three parts, each of them focus on a term of the title.

In the first part, he start describing races as a classification system that associates physical traits and cultural, social, intellectual or cognitive characteristics. He observes that even if it is accepted in academic community that races have no scientific basis, it still forms the common framework for thinking differences outside of the universities, be it by racists or anti-racists people.

He then describes races as a way to class and hierarchize existing differences among humans, acting as a discourse that « naturalize » the superiority of one group on another. It is a discursive act in the sense that you give a meaning to a difference or a similarity (be it color of skin, forms of the eyes, physical traits of face).

He explains that if we consider that races are not a biological essence but a discourse to keep a symbolic border between the « self » and the « other », thus consolidating one’s identity, then it must be evolving given place and time. That’s why he names it a « floating signifier ».

In conclusion of the first part, he states « Orienting ourselves toward a discursive conception of race is recognizing that each tradition is a re-articulation, a new product, a transformation of an identity that is unique to a time, a location, a situation, and that it can’t be just the preservation and reproduction in time and space of a « same », essential, original ».

The second part is about ethnicity, viewed as an evolution to race. He explains how the notion was born, from the illusion of assimilation in UK and the re-affirmation of discriminated identities in the 50’s and 60’s, to open identities in the 70’s where « black » was now embodying all who had suffer the colonial domination from Britain, that would later be particularized among communities. He observes that as with races, ethnicities act as « floating signifier » who evolves with time and space, given the dynamics of each situation.

I thought this could apply to any cultural expression, and music especially. For example, in France, rap was groundbreaking as it gave a voice to immigrant’s childs in a moment when they were consolidating as an entity (seen as immigrants from banlieue), and suffering discriminations. Worldwide, the Hip hop movement successfully « transfigured » these values so that people of these neighborhood could be « proud » of where they were from. It reconfigured what was embodied in this identity.

He explains how the location plays a big part in defining and « enabling » identity as self evident : « The location is one of the important representational coordinates of cultural identity. Its role is important as a local site, dense and unique — where many relations sediments across time, producing a rich and consistent feeling of how space is anchored in a singular way of life — a symbolic guarantee of stables cultural schemes, continuous, systematically reproduced through traditions that ressemble the stability of blood and parenting relationships ». Hall states that this feeling of ethnos, even if constructed discursively, is then inherited naturally.

He explains how globalization, weaken the imaginary « borders » of identities, and deeply affect how identities are built and told, because it forces us not to think of the places as closed spaces with internal coherence, but meeting locations between people in a given situation.

Finally, he responds to people saying that globalization standardizes cultures, saying that on the contrary, he finds that it is extremely creative of new identities (new localisms), more open, more hybrid (as our societies).

Reading this I felt like it was the framework I needed to understand the astonishing cultural diversity I’d seen traveling in South America : new identities created in each places from the situation between people, be it slavery, post-slavery or mass immigration of the 20th century. Each cultural manifestation being the incarnation of a discourse that was needed at the time. I’ll clarify this with examples in my next posts.

The third and last part is about the concept of « nation ». He talks about how the congruence between politic entity and culture was seen as of big importance, related to the right of the people to self-govern. Nations were then created from a myriad of past events and beliefs, united into a national « myth » that would mask the discontinuities in society to present itself as an « organic » and continuous « stream ».

As culture was so mixed in these soon-to-be nations, dominant one smashed the others to form a « national » culture.

Languages, history, traditions are the symbolic ressources through what identity is built, continuously. Identity is then how you relate yourself regarding those symbolic ressources. For Hall, how we conceive identity (closed, exclusive vs open and plural) is THE major political issue of today (in 94).

Facing mass immigration, a lot of nations chose a closed, defensive and exclusive conception of identity, based on racial purity and religious puritanism. He cites the « Serbian republic of Bosnia » as an exemple of « new entity » aimed at creating a « purified » folk that would replace hybrid local ethnicities (the result being the disastrous « ethnic purification »).

Instead of the « transmission of a same that wouldn’t evolve », Hall defines the « diaspora » as a complex, asymmetric and hierarchized cultural exchange, a continuous « negotiation of difference ». That explains why such a culture can’t repeat « identical to itself » generations after generations. When you then introduce class, genre and sexuality into the equation, it produces a complex « field of positionalities », a multidimensional grid where each one place himself regarding each subject.

Belonging to a diaspora in that sense means inhabiting various identities without focusing exclusively on one. Diaspora subjects bears the trace of their histories and culture (how could they expresse themselves without it?), and they play with them, as someone who speaks various languages would constantly translate and « import » concepts between each language.

Identity is discursive because there is no truth, you choose which differences create the outer space of your own identity, which similarity creates a connection. If you conceive pertaining only to one identity and focus mainly on the borders, you’re more on the « closed » conception of identity. If you focus on the bridges and consider pertaining to various entities, then you’re more on the « open » side. You choose the meaning of a cultural difference, that’s why it is discursive act.

I’m now at my grandmother’s house in Montenegro. As I was writing the previous paragraph, I heard someone coming. It took me a while to recognize an uncle I’d not seen since childhood, what a joy ! My grand mother hug him and tells me « he’s not from me but he’s truly my son ». That same adorable grandma that told me yesterday she never mix juices of fruit, that same tender being who swears by exclusive « Serbian » identity and support war in Ukraine, influenced by the Orthodox Russian pope and YouTube Kremlin propaganda . . . As we share what happened in the last 20 years, I’m day-dreaming about the complexity of her sense of community . . . until I looked at his shirt and smiled. It said « unity is future ».

After reading this book, I really felt like this was the message I wanted to share. Even if I wasn’t able to articulate it, this is was what I had received from the whole trip :

Most of the stories told about identities (and the stories told about traditions and folk music) were full of space and time homogeneity. Whereas when you look closer, reality was much more diverse, full of « mixed-states » situations. But these stories were often conveying a bigger picture, that would place each identity into a nationalist narration. As food, beliefs or myths, music would act as a one of the « emblem » or « symbolic ressources » of one’s identity, whose meaning would be completely different given the location, context or time. By interesting ourselves to real musicians, their stories and discontinuities in their identities, we would see that the notions of « essence » and « purity », be it regarding blood, cultures, traditions, really are a politic statement, that they could or could not make, depending on how they relates their self.

And only through that « pluralist » conception of identity could I find peace of mind regarding my own identity.

Paul Gilroy — Black Atlantic

Finally, enthousiasmed by the lecture of Stuart Hall, I was thrilled to discover Paul Gilroy and his book « The Black Atlantic », who would pursue Hall’s ideas and question them through music. Using cultural items like music and writings, he questions once again the « homogeneity » that form the common « story » that is told by music genre marked by specific identities (black music, Jamaican music, Indian music) and show that most of the icons that are « emblem of purity » are most of the time really mixed identities, « teared » by contradictions. Then its just a choice to notice them or not, to give or not to give them a meaning.

In my next text, I’ll try using this approach to relates the history of a traditional music that evolved greatly through the years : tango (and its related identity).