Towaken Raterfonk, thor. Tent Commanity Cate, Dpuene octet Loon inte (ee Ct oFe for contin pebliatsn) Cultural Identity and Diaspora STUART.HALL rCatbean nd a est i enon fe the new post-colonial subjects. All these cultural practices and forms seek elite nee Cyc penn tral ho cetera mga eemuey tte Chek ent very juthority and authenticity fo which the term, Praltaal lent fre mtn SFO tena Wears 202 (Cultural identity and Diaspora was born nto and spent my shildhood and adolescence in slower trols family in Jaman, T have tive all my adult Men Enelan, in the shadow of th black diaspora ~ inthe belly of the breast ete agains the background of fates workin cltural studies, the paper seems preoezapied wit the daspora experience fi narratver of displacement, ti worth remenbering that all scoure ir placed, andthe heat has its easons. “There are atleast two different ways of thinking about ‘cultura ident: The frst postion deine ‘saltural Wnty ta terms of one, Shared culture sore of collective ‘one tre self, hiding inside the many oie, mov pesca or rt imped sees, which people with a shared history and snoestry hal in common. Within Te termsof this definition, our cultural Gentes rect the common Histor! experiences and shared ealtural cade which prove us, as ‘one people, with sable, unchanging and continuous fares” of referznce and meaning, beneath the shifing division and vil ‘tudes of our actual story This ‘oneness underlying al the other, Inore superficial difference, isthe rath, the esvene, of Caribbean ‘eas ol te blackexpertence Is this tentty which a Cartbbean o Uk daspora mat dlcove, excavate, bring to ight and express ‘Gyough cma representation acts conception feutual deny played a cra ole nalltbe post-colonial strugales which have o profoundly reshaped our word Try at the cone ofthe vision athe poets of Negri, ike ime eave and Leopold Senghor, and of the Pan-Avcan pola po. Jeet earlier inthe century, It continues to bea very powerful and Crest fen emergent om of ropresentton ang her ‘nargnalied peoples. In postelonialsodeties, he rediscovery of Uhisidentty soften the object fwhat Frans Fenon once called a pusionate research, «directed by the seer hope of dicovering Beyond the misery of today. beyond selfcontompt, rosignation and ‘bjuation, soune very besulil and splendid ee: whose exitence ‘ehablitates us both in egard to oureelver and in epard others ities address themselves 5 Fanon pats iin the New forms of cultural practice in these s to this project fr the very good reason t recent past, 220Identity Caloisation 08 aise merely with holding people nts wip and enpying the naives bln of fm and ctnts By tnd fevered logit ara fo the pet of pprenied pepe, und dst, Eisigeres and destroyer! ‘The question which Fanos observation possi what ithe ature ofthis profound researc which river the nev ms of vial and cinematic representation? Ts i only a matter of unearthing that ‘hich the colonial experence buried and sverlid, bringing tight the hidden eomtinities it suppresed? Or i a quite iferet apes ena atthe edcney ut he preaton of eaity, Not an tdntty grounded in the echaelogy, bt in the retelling ofthopast? worn We should not, for a moment, underestimate or neglect the importance of the ac of imaginative rediscovery welch. thi anception ofa redicovered, extent! SJentiy ental. "Heddon stores have plved mesial oem the emergence of many fe Ia part sac omvements fur tie-in, ttttcslonial and anteacit The photographic work of a generation stm tn oat alas me ancl (a Janalcan-bom photographer who has lived Bran slice the ge of eight tk testimony tothe contin creative pave icocetn fet th te ong rat tepresentation. Frances photographs of the people a The Back Trlnnge, taken in Aca, the Carbean, the, USA and the UK, attempt to reconseuet in visa term the underyingwnty ofthe Black people whom colonisation snd sliver dstiouted acas the AMeatapra iste anol mag reeatn cally. such images afr x wy of inpoxing an nagina ehereace the experince of dispersal and Ragmetation. Wack See history fal enforced daspores. They doth by representing or Bring’ Alri a the mother of hese diferent cht Ths ‘Tenge i, afterall, ‘centeed’ in Area. Aiea isthe name ofthe ising rm, the gra apr, whch tes atthe cere of. oor cells deny and iver Rn swaning which, ntl recently lacked, Noone who looks a these textural ages wow nthe Rght ofthe story of transportation, slavery and ngrton eat fae snderstand bow the ft fseparton, the lox of enti which bas 224 Cultural Identity and Diaspora Sari ements Shim iiemacrae org nd ds wy ebay cree en eens Gee aeen tera tic sees ante Cine ee Kaba irimea atest eens rg arate memes ‘Bent without acknowledging tater ide the ruphirs and place, time, history and culture, Cultural identities come from sale bien te eoaioeta ries i’ of Kntoy,cltre and power. Far from belg grounded in 1 tity eee ele ee Birdie feces ee ‘positioned by, and position ourselves within, the narratives of the only frum this second position that we can properly understand the tasmate character ofthe colonial experience, The ‘eas in which blac people, bck experiences, were postoned and Injected in the dominant regimes of representation were the Hfcts ofa crt exerts of cultural power and normalisation. Not Only, n Suis ‘Orientals sense, were we constructed as diferent td other within the estore of rowed af the Westby those Feuimes. They had the power to make Us see. and experience dursloes as “Other. Every rege of representation i regione of 225aentty wer formed, ag Foucault reminds us, by the fatal couplet, ‘power/knovledgo", But this kind of knowledge i internal, not external It's one thing to position a subject or set of peoples asthe Other of a dominant discourse. It s quite another thing to subject them to that knowledge’, not only at a matter of imposed will and domination, by the power of Inner compulsion and subjective ‘conformation tothe norm. Thats the lesson ~ the sombre majesty = Gf Panon’s insight into the colonising experience in Black Skin, White Masks. ‘This inner expropriation of cultural identity erippes and deforms. Mit silences are not eesisted, they produce, in Fanon’s vivid phrase, individuals without an anchor, without horizon, colourless, stateless, rootloss ~ a race of angele ® Nevertheless, this idea of ‘otherness asan inner compulsion changes our conception of altura entity. In this perspective, cultural entity ie nota fixed esrence at al, Iying unchanged outside history and culture, Tt isnot some ‘universal and transcendeatal spirit inside us om which history has ‘made no fundamental mark. ts not once-and-for-all. Tes nota ted Grigin to which we can make some final and absolute Return, OF couse, itis nata mere phantasm elther Its something not amere trick ofthe Imagination. Ithas its histories ~ and histories have thee real, material andl symbolic effects. The past continues to speak to us, But tno longer addresses usa a simple, factval past since our ‘elation tot lke the child's relation to the mother, is svays-aveady ‘after the break. Its alvays constructed through memory, fnkesy, ni vd myth. ‘Cultural identities are the points of Identification, the unstable points of identification or suture, which sre made, within the discourses of history and culture. Not aa, essence but positioning, Hence, there is always a polities of fdentity, a poltes of postin, which has no absolute guarantee in a Lnproblematic, transcendental law of origin ‘This second view of cultural identity is much less familiar, and ‘more unsetling. If identity does not proceed, in a. straight, unbroken lin, from some fixed origin, how are we to understand iy formation? We might think of black Caribbean identities as framed by two ates or vectors, simultaneously operative: the vector of similarity and continaity; and the veetorofaiference and rupture. Caribbean identities always have to be thought of in terms of the 228 Cultural ident and Diaspora ilo relationship between these two aes, The oe gives ws some actos ony wih, the pst The send remind Bare wea i precisely the experienee of «profound {Ipcotinatyy he peoples dragged. ita slavery, transportation, Connon” mig, ame pretninanls Fo Af and when Sar aug euch, wer temporary relesbed by indent ItShur Bn the Asian subcontinent: (Fis neglected fact explains ‘tips when you vit Guyana or Tiida, jou see, symbol Tree in'the fas their peoples, the. predoical rath of Ghrstopher Columbus’ stake you am nd Asi by sling est, {Foon tow wire tooo I the history ofthe modern wold there Ie few more tnumatie roptores to match these eoforeed tcp pnAlfa~ nad, wed othe. Euope Imginay, as tre Dark Continent But the 3 also om fenton, bal sgn, vile reno ‘rien. celigion, cen 30, prooundly. formative Caeibbean Spal ie, i. precely Aijerene fom Christan ‘ronal in believing that Cod se powertl hate can only be own throug paieration of spitoal mabiferatlons, present Srepywhere nthe naturel and sotal worl. Those gd lve on, an Sdevpound:exitene, othe hyidted religous universe of Tat voodoo, pacemania, Native penton, Black pti, Fisuiarapsm a the lack Sint Latin American. atl ‘he proc nha ts he prong sary a tarpon Ira the tnsertn foto the plantation economy (wel a the Symbolic eeanamy ofthe Western world at anid these penpes ‘Gus thelr dfeyences inte sme moment a teat thers of om ee ase to thee “ire, thrtn pers —n and aloe conta, To retur tote Caribbean ter any ing aseace st experence again {he chock ofthe doubonese of sft ad ference. Vising th Pench ine ao ya ese ho dierent Starcg fs om sy, Jamaica and thls tno mere difercnce of topoprphy or climate. Its « profound diference of Sule ted top And the diference ‘mater. 1€ positions Sri nd nat bah te "ae nd der Mareonr: the boda of ference ae contnilly repositioned Ink to dierent pot of rlrence. Viskos the developed 227Identity Mt oo eh i ee gh aa Tabata hice Me poet ml he wae Pe Rha tah Mate peeleuesate Ae de ot sd nb mn atin fe wae ail a a Seco sty naming gH Bs nein “sce Pane Sie peng en oh sto adr’ a theese ar real Rana cemtin of ey oA Eigen care Nott i ad hl, open tie oka See al eh Toe ate yf iene? wn nyt se cna Ar Sega cae in ent Freebie yep se gain hs scaler ame etter eng seepage acta esata ge ie Pager lan ey ion rtm teeny hanes (ete range coh eo eee met nth and cniil Onfagerar cloner ers ata gre re wig he ea enema eke to oi ean cat ol deren pe cent mp Sa ii ata l Prope a ate ce re ie ean flr es es Sa ating aps fb do este thy ran lice ying rant Satara tems reheat he nie uh nd “yah oe amt bh ad 8 ‘cece nested aso erat ter on ti To ee mh a a ay lsh on oy fashion” in an Anglo-African and Afro-American way ~ for those who 228 Cultural identity and Diaspora cig can only be deserted in tors of that spel and eclar apolomnt whieh the black and tala san esto the ree eee erty: of Pruien dented hace cutare Meee ahitaton whieh bemase 1 bc eae aati . ee gtr th see of diference whichis at purestheree, ve need to deploy the pny on words ofa theort lke aequet Deere eshaeetheatomtous fa his way of rng BBeetoe Uptrnee aa maker whch oa datarbnce RPI cntSeantg or woston sf ho mordomaep et Meets ln neh mecangs in ring be ace os tio meas ass of difernee as Chater Nor pate ites ech ver ofa and 0 ‘eo supende betwen th tw ie aw re ee nua ck tcl sete ha ly cp ming Cn open Saeeees tsete 8 a ee etches oh kc ety Where Dene es ‘prank Met Ee ae a Ta farce toe heey spat elon sete nt epost smn ter ge i icicle ve hen ee ently nest ste postponement Cueto is onehemreet cpscer asia teva mene ee ee encnmaam etait See een uot: cektraton of roa ayn whi elevates the of th aterm nate tas 220identity instance, depends on the contingent snd arbitrary stop ~ the neces: sary and temporary rel nthe Infite semion of language Tas doesnot dtr rom the orginal aight tony threatens todo soit ve ite this ‘at of identity ~ this postioning, which make Ineaning possible ~ asa neural and permanent father thm ah swbitary td contingent ending = wheres understand very seh Position as ‘strategic’ and arbitrary, in the sense that there is no permanent equvalence between te prtclnrsentene we cove, fn te true meaning. as such. Meaning continues to wnfl, 30 0 speah, beyond the arbitrary closure whlch makes, a any nomen, Dowie, IIs always thr over or underdeterinined, ether a ‘ress ora supplement Theres alvaysymething Te over TC possible, with this conception of ilerence’ to rethink the vosiionings and repestontgy af Carbhean cultural lenis tention atleast three presences to boro Aimee Conve ad Leopold Senghors metaphor. Prétence” Afonine, Presence Evropdenne, andthe third, most snus, preence of el the sliding tern, Présence American. Ofcourse am cllpsng or the Inoment, the many ether cultural prevencts which const te ‘omplenty of Caribbean itty Undan, Chin tnean America, ere, not ins -Rrstoworié sense =the big couse to ‘he North wos rm wecccapy ut the second, bree sense, ‘Ametic, the New Word Tere incognita, TréseceAfricaneis the te ofthe repressed, Apparently silenced beyond memory by the poweroftheexperienceo ser. Aen we, inl eet earner ithe eed ean atone a he slave quarters in thelanguages and patos ol the plantations, names inl eden Sac om ter ‘monomer in iy sere ‘yntactel structures trough which other languages were spn in the stories and tales told to eildven, in eligi races and bell in the spital lie, the arts, eas, musics and fythms of slave and Bost-emanclpationsotty. Afi the signified which could not be ‘epresented drety slavery, eaaind ad remains he rapoken tinpeakble ‘presence’ in Caiobeun ultre: Is hiing Peed every verbal infection, every narrative twist of Caribbeat cultural litte the secret code with which every Western text ase rend Ieistheground-buss of evry rhythm end body movernent. Theas ~te~the' Aletha salve and well the daspor= 230 Cutural identity and Diespore When 1 was growing, up in the 1840s and 2950 es, «child in Kg, 1 wa uu bythe ig mn and yn of th ‘Alcea of the diaspora, which only existed asa result ofa Tong an ‘continuous series” of transformations. But, although most fveryone around me was some shade of brown or black (Arca ‘speaks, never ance heard a single person refer fo themselves or toothers 3s, n some way, or as having been at some time inthe past, ‘Afican 1 was only inthe 1970s that this Afo-Caribbean identity Seeame historically available to the great majority of Jamaican people, st home and abroad, Io this historic moment, Jamaicans ‘Sisovered themaelves to be ‘black’ ~ just as, tn the seme moment, they dicovered themselves tobe the soos and daughters of slavery “This profound cultural dicovery, however, was not, and could not ae dey wot nit 1 could ly be made through the impact on popular life ofthe post-colonial revolution, the cl rights ln oe ai tod the muse of reggae ~ the metaphor, the figures or signifies of e new contraction of Jamaicatnest These ipa anew Alvca ofthe ‘New World, grounded in an ‘old Afien ~ a spiritual journey of liscovery that ed, im the Caribbean, to an indigenous cultural ‘evolution; this is Affe, as we might say, necessarily deferred” ~ as ‘spiritual, cultural and polite! metaphor itis the presencefabsence of Afra, in tis form, which has made {tthe privileged signifier of new conceptions of Caribbean ident Everyone in the Caribbesn, of whatever ethnic background, most fooner oF later come to terms with this Abean presence, Black, town, mulatto, white ~all must lok Frésence Africane inthe face, speak it namie But whether fi, in this sense, an origin of our identities, unchanged by four hundred years ‘of displacement, dismemberment, tansportation, to which we could in any fal ot literal sense return. is more open to doubt. The original ‘Ain is no Tonge there It too has been transformed. History is, in that sense, reve, We mast not cole with the West whch, ordi normalses and appropriates Africa by freezing I into some tees zone of the primitive, unchanging past. Africa must at last be retloned wily Carian people, but w cannot im any singe Sense hy merely reve Tt belong irevoably, fr us, to what Edward Said once called an 2stWdentity imaginative geography and history, which tsps the mind to fntenay its own sense of self by dramatisng the difference Seinen wha hose to and what ar amay har aed topmntve or fpuntve soe we ean neve and fel Our itegngress tok canter wat Benedkt Andere ells SSogineg omens To te Aachen pat Canina wan erly go nena Sie character ofthis dapsoed “homeward Jone length ant tommlonty— comes ays vty vary of ets Toy Stalls documentary hia potgeaghe, Cavey Chdeo the cy of rc Carvey, tl te Hoy of wlur to an An ‘Sey wich went nein byte longosterogh odon toi thy United Sater enn in Eton Gt ith Garey sae in omt of the St Ann Fr Lira fea not th 2 {lta al nt but wt tbe seo Bung Spent an Bb ay Redemption Song Tis cng ory home: Derek Binns covngons vil and wetter tr lack Heer Man te oy al the journey oot ghtopepber on the tal of the promised an stare Eagan, an pom, hogh Saremene, $e plce fn Ethiopia wingh many Jamatan eagle have fund {helt way on thelr search for the Promised Land and sla tds in Plana amt, where te ft fasta setlcments wr enablche and “teyond among the daponened of Zeth century Kington and the sees af Hendsorh, where Bison's aya of dtcvey ft bmp, These symbols sce ewan crease Ae sre mst earn buy antes one wht Ae a become ithe New World wat we have me of Abe "Aber we ‘eel trough pte, emery end dese ‘at af the send robling orm the ety equation ~the rope presence’ For many then tert of tole Sat foo chy Where Aca ws at ofthe unipolam, Baro sara exe of that which i enlony speaking "and cals ‘pesing us The European presence neta the nnoene the ‘Tle snore of cron’ ne Crean by intel the {roston of power. "Europe’ belongs ier othe of ower tothe ins offend consent the rl ofthe dominant In Crean cafe. fo tre of clas, under Gevopent (Cultural identty and Diaspora werty aad the racism of colour, the Buropean presences Ut Thich, in visul representation, has positioned the black subject WHSiy ils dominant rogimes' of representation: the colonial seus, the literatures of adventure abd exploration, the romance GPMbe cutis, the ethnographic and aveling eye, the topical fnguages of tourism, tsvel brochure nd Hollywood and. the weet pommogeuphi languages of ganja and urban violence Heute Presenen Européen i about exlution, iapoiton and expropriation, we are on tempted to locate that power a wholly erReebt to ur’ an enrnsc force, whose influence canbe thrown off Thee socpent sheds its skin, What Frantz Fanon reminds ws, 32 Black “Skin, White, Masks, is how this power bas become constitutive element in ur own Kents, “The movements the attudes, the glanes ofthe athe Bred me there, {nthe seme in hich a chemical solution is fixed by a dye, {was ‘lgnane {demanded an explanation. Nothog happened. I burt spar. NN th raiment have been put together gaia by another sell “This ‘lol, from = 40 to speak ~ the place of the Othes, fixes us, aot ‘nly ins violence, hotlity and aggression, but in the ambivalence Of Hs dese. This brings us fice to face, not simply with the dominating European presence asthe site or ‘scene’ of integration sere thse ater presences which Wad actively dsaggreaated Were recomposed ~ re framed, put together in a new way’ but as the Me of profound splitting and doubling ~ what Homi Babs has Galled ‘the ambivalent Identifications of the racist world .. the ‘Geheruess ofthe self inscribed inthe perverse palimpsest of colonial identity.” ‘The dialogue of power and resistance, of refusal and recognition, swith and against Présonce Européenne is almost as complex as the “Ualogue’ with Africa, In terms of popula cultural life, tis nowhere to be found in its pure, pristine state. It is alwaysalready fused, Syneretised, with otver cultural elements. Tt is alwaysalready {reolised ~ mot lost beyond the Middle Passage, but ever preseat: from the harmonies in our mus to the ground bas of Alice traversing and intersecting our lives at every point. How ean we sag ti llogu so hat lly, we cn as hot tes Violence, rather than being forever placed by #? Can we ever 233Identity recognise its irreversible infvence, whit resisting its fmperaising tye? The engin is impossible, so lar, to resolve. It requlres the ‘most complex of cultural strategies. Think, for example, of the Gelogue ‘of every. Caribbean filmmaker or writer, one say oF nother, withthe dominant cinemas and literature of the West ~the complet relationship of young black British fmamakers with the ‘oant-gardes' of European and American flmmaking. Who could describe tis tense and tortured dialogue as ‘one way trip? “The ‘Third, ‘New World” presence, is not so much power, a around, plat, terror. It the juncture-poit where the many Cultural fibutaries meet, the ‘empty’ land (the European colonsers mpi 1) wher strangers fam every other ar of the lobe collided, None of the people who now aecupy the islands ~ black, brow, white, African, European, American, Spanish, French, East Indian, Chinese. Portugese, Jew, Dutch ~ originally “pelonged there itis the space where the creotsations and assimiations and _syncretisms were negotiated. The New World isthe third term ~ the primal scene ~ where the fatfalfatal encounter was staged between ‘sea and the West. abo has to be understood as the place of ‘any, continuous displacements: of the orignal pre-Columbian inhabitants, the Araweks, Carlbs and. Amerindlas, pecmanenty isplaced fiom their homelands and decimated; of other peoples displaced in diferent ways from Alien, Asin and Europe: the ‘tisplacements of shvery, colonisation and conquest. Tt stand forthe tmaless ways In which Carbbean people have been destined to “ingrate' tis the signifier of migration itself of revelling, vo suf rtur att, destiny fe Aatons nthe rosy pe a the ‘modern or postmedem New World nomad, continually moving tetscn cnc and gerihery, Ths preosevptin with povenent and vgeation Caribbean cinems sires with many other "Thied inemas bat eof our deiing themes andi destined © ‘ros the narrative of every film seript or cinema me Trétnce “Anericne continuet to. have te slences, te suppressions. Peter Hulme, in his essay on ‘Islands of Enchante sent" reminds ws that the word ‘Jamaica’ s the Hispanie form of the indigenous Arawak name ~ land of wood and water’ ~ which ‘Columbus's re-naming (Santiago) never replaced. ‘The Arawak presence remains today a ghostly one, visible inthe islands mainly 234 ‘Cultural Identity and Diaspora sn museum, and archeologists, part ofthe barely krowable ‘able past. Hue notes tat it ft represented in the emblem ihe junta National Hentage Test for example, which chose ited the igure of Diego Patents, an Alcan who Fought for his Spanish masters sgaint to gl invasion ofthe slanain 1655 older mete, iy and cldig ropresentation of Jars tig aver tore was cue! He secbunte the story of how Prime Miniter Edward Seas tied to alter the Jamaican coat of arm Shih conite of tro Arawak igores holding shield with Boe Dincapstos surmounted by. an slgator. ‘Can the crashed and itncAravao represent the dnanless character of Janacans? ‘Bou the loestung. seus extinct crocodile, «ead blooded epi ‘Roelte the wat, surg spin of Jacana? Prime Minster Senay asked shetoially Thre canbe few political statement stitch So slaquony testify tothe complenites entaled nthe Jjsess of ylagto represent adverse people wih diverse history Tirangh a single, hegemonic identi Fortunately. Me Sexga® Inttaion to the Jamaiey poopie, who sre overebelingy of Aircast sa th tomembenag. by Bt ration something ke, gt the comeuppance itso neh deserved “The Now Word presence = Amcricn, Terre incognita ~ is thorelore sel the beginning of daspora, of vrs, of bibsdty tiene, hat kes Abe Carer one deny el of Phispore T use ths term here metapborialy, not erally: laspo doesnot refer us fo thre watered tribes whose identi, fan only be secured in esto to sme sacred homeland to which Shey masta al cts tur, even st means poshing other people into the sen. Thig ste of, the inperiaising, the hegemoniing, tiem af etic We have nen the ate ofthe people of Palestine WY the band ofthis bconare ooking conception of dlaspore~ aod the Sampliaty of the West wih I The daspora experience aT Intend here is Gelined; ot hy estencs or puny, but by the "Scunton of 4 ness. heterogeneity ant diversity, by “Snception of dently’ which lve wth and through, not despite, Aiferonce by hybrid. Diaspora identes are those which are onstanl producing and reproducing themssives anes” hog ttansbrmtion and difeesee. One can oly think bere of hati Uniquely = essential’ Caribbean: prety the mines of exlur, 205Identity entation, physlognomie type: the “bends of tastes that is Exabean existe the aothtir of the ‘arotovers, of fevtend inf, to borrow Dick Hebdige's telling pare, which the heart tod soul of bck must. Young black citral precitoners and ‘is fn Britaln ave inereningly coming to acknowledge. and fplore in thelr work tis ‘Gaspor asthe and it formations Ih the postcolonial experience ‘Acots a whole range of caltral fons here a synerei’ dynam ‘whi ements fom the mater codes af the Aorninant calte and ‘eeoises them, diartinlating given signs and earticulating thelr symbolic meaning. The robversive force of this Iybridising tendency 8 mst apparent atthe level of lngoage ell where crvoles, patois and black Bnglsh ecentre, destablise and ‘arnialse the inguaie dination af Engi the ation lng of “astersiscourse ~ through strategie flection, reacrentstone and osher performative moves in seman, stati and Tesi codes 1s brug hs New Wl scone fr oa ae, trative of displacement, that gives reso profoundly to acertan imaginary plenitude, recreating the endless dese to return toast ain 1 bone agai with the mother, go back fo the ginning. Who can ever forget, when once deen Tsing up out of thn Ble green Cartan ow sandy of eaten, Who has not now atthe moment, the surge ofan overwhelming nostalga for lost rigas, for “umes past? And. ye, this ‘return tothe trgining i ike the smaginay p Lacan it can neither be alle sor requied, and hence is the beginning uf the synbl, of Fepresentaton, the infinitely renewable suree of deste, memir, smyth, search, discovery ~ ih shor, the eeservoir of our cinematic mentives ‘We have been trying, na series of metaphors, to putin play a diferent sense of our relationship tothe past, and this diferent ‘vay of thinking about cultura deat, leh might constitute new Doints of rection inthe discourse of the emerging Caribbean ‘Snema and black British einem, We have been trying to theorise ‘entity's consttated, not outale but within representation and hence ofcinema, not a8 second-order miror held upto reflect ‘what already exist, Duta thet for of representation which able 238 Cultural identity and Ofaspora to constitute us as new kinds of subjects, and thereby enable us to discover places from which to speak. Communities, Benedict Anderson argues in Imagined Commuuntis ae to be distinguished, not by thelr falsity/genaineness, but by the style in which they are imagined.§* This is the vocation of modern black cinemat) by allowing us to see and recognise the diferent parts and histories of ourselves, to construct those points of identification, those positionalities we callin retrospect our ‘cultural identitier ‘We must not therefore be content with delving into the past of «people In ender to find coherent elements which wil conteret colonialism sStempts to fast and hapm.. A atonal cultre tno a folklore, nor ‘ar abatract populism tat believes i ean discover a peope's true nature, ‘Avationl culture the whole dy of efforts made by a people i the sphere of thought to dese, Josey and prs the action Shoo ‘Which tat people has eeated efand keep tellin exitence. Notes "Frantz Fanon, "Op Nato Cultre The Wretched ofthe Earth, London 1989, rn Hal Resin Trough tual, Londo 187, {Ei One ton 58. ‘ Bene Andere, tage Commoner: eesti nthe Orin ond sof tonlion Lando ee {Fats ae lc Stn, Whe Mass, onden 108, p00 “tom Blab, Porcoed to Pana i. Itai Foto, Wer wt 38 famaten Hamar a kD pH Quoted Hull * obese Dao Clee ad the op oghaton f 8. Cham se © Wain (dh eclrona Cal orpeiees on Bask Independent Eine. 1988 981 earn opt. Tis ce set aid nthe oral roman 0 38) nd eroded iat permton bm tron i, . 27