Cultural Identity and Diaspora- Stuart Hall

the following write up on 'Cultural Identity and Diaspora' is by Inchara BR

Stuart Hall beings his discussion on Cultural Identity and Diaspora with a discussion on the emerging new
cinema in the Caribbean which is known as Third Cinema. This new form of cinema is considered as the
visual representation of the Afro-Caribbean subjects- “blacks” of the diasporas of the west- the new post
colonial subjects. Using this discussion as a starting point Hall addresses the issues of identity, cultural
practices, and cultural production.

There is a new cinema emerging in the Caribbean known as the Third Cinema. It is considered as the visual
representation of the Afro-Caribbean in the post colonial context. In this visual medium “Blacks” are
represented as the new postcolonial subjects. In the context of cultural identity hall questions regarding the
identity of this emerging new subjects. From where does he speak? Very often identity is represented as a
finished product. Hall argues that instead of considering cultural identity as a finished product we should
think of it a production which is never complete and is always in process.

He discusses two ways of reflecting on cultural identity. Firstly, identity understood as a collective, shared
history among individuals affiliated by race or ethnicity that is considered to be fixed or stable. According to
this understanding our cultural identity reflects the common historical experiences and shared cultural
codes which provide us as “one people.” This is known as the oneness of cultural identity, beneath the
shifting divisions and changes of our actual history. From the perspective of the Caribbean’s this would be
the Caribbeanness of the black experience. This is the identity the Black diaspora must discover. This
understanding did play a crucial role in the Negritude movements. It was a creative mode of representing
the true identity of the marginalised people. Indeed this act of rediscovery has played crucial role in the
emergence of many of the important social movements of our time like feminist, ani-colonial and anti-
racist.

Stuart Hall also explores a second form of cultural identity that exist among the Caribbean, this is an
identity understood as unstable, metamorphic, and even contradictory which signifies an identity marked
by multiple points of similarities as well as differences. This cultural identity refers to “what they really are”,
or rather “what they have become.” Without understanding this new identity one cannot speak of
Caribbean identity as “one identity or on experience.” There are ruptures and discontinuities that
constitute the Caribbean’s uniqueness. Based on this second understanding of identity as an unstable Hall
discusses Caribbean cultural identity as one of heterogeneous composites. It is this second notion of
identity that offers a proper understanding of the traumatic character of the colonial experience of the
Caribbean people.

To explain the process of identity formation, Hall uses Derrida's theory ‘differance’ as support, and Hall sees
the temporary positioning of identity as "strategic" and arbitrary. He then uses the three presences--
African, European, and American--in the Caribbean to illustrate the idea of "traces" in our identity. A
Caribbean experiences three kinds of cultural identities. Firstly, the cultural identity of the Africans which is
considered as site of the repressed, secondly, the cultural identity of the Europeans which is the site of the
colonialist, and thirdly, the cultural identity of the Americans which is a new world- a site of cultural
confrontation. Thus the presence of these three cultural identities offers the possibility of creolization and
points of new becoming. Finally, he defines the Caribbean identity as diaspora identity.