Group Three.

In Kraidy's article on hybridity as a concept and a theory, he mentions briefly that some scholars, notably Werbner, indicate that "all cultures are always hybrid...hybridity is meaningless as a description of 'culture,' because this 'museumizes' culture as a 'thing.'... Culture as an analytic concept is always hybrid." I have to say, this is the only sentence in the entire article that I completely agreed with.

Culture can be many things, but the one thing it cannot be is static. Cultures change, they evolve, they influence others, and are influenced. To speak of hybridity in this way is to assume that cultures were at one point pure, complete entities, and that they are somehow now being blended together. Scholars of anything international should be aware by now that cultures have been influencing each other for centuries. When Marco Polo made his journey, he didn't visit and return with postcards. The old trade routes, bringing fruits, silk, and spices from the East to the West, influenced culture. The end of the era of the Samurai in Japan. The culture that the slaves brought with them from Africa to the Americas. The effects of hybridity have been with us for so long (I would argue for as long as man kind has encountered other men)that I don't see how you can study culture without it. Hybridity is assumed. Even the English language is composed of thousands of words taken directly from the French language after it became fashionable at court in England. I think that hybridity is an interesting concept if we approach it from this point. I struggled recently in my Cross Cultural class to describe how student could be taught similarities when learning about other cultures, not just differences. This just might be the key. Instead of pointing out obvious similarities, like school hours and favorite sports to play, why not focus on how the cultures have converged and diverged over the centuries.

I don't mean to say that Kraidy's article has no merit, he certainly raises some interesting point about corporate multiculturism and the way in which what he refers to as hybridity being expressed in the Washington Post articles about American cultural globalization, mostly through media. I feel however, that the point of his article being about hybridization makes this focus a little moot. There are so many articles written every day about this sort of thing, in fact its hard to open the paper and not see something related to globalization- but both ways. What about the influences that other cultures are having here?

I remember that I saw a tv show when I was a kid in which a girl doesn't understand why her mom and her mother's friends were making such a big deal about "feminism." The girl doesn't understand why the women keep insisting that they are equal, because she had been raised to believe it already, so why wasn't it a self-evident truth? At the same time, the mother is upset because the daughter is embarrassed by their activist antics. At the end of the show, the mother says, "I guess its a sign of our success that our daughters don't have to consider whether or not they are equals, they already feel they are so." I feel the same could be said about hybridity- maybe we've reached the point where people no longer realize their cultures are being blended. Then again, maybe we never have.