tund examples from 1 understanding of erm ‘ethnicity’ here vy 38 New Ethnicities STUART HALL* I HAVE CENTERED my remarks on an attempt to identify and characterize a significant shift that has been going on (and is still going on) in black ‘altural politics. This shift is not definitive, in the sense that there are two Clearly discernable phases ~ one in the past which is now over and the new ‘one which is beginning ~ which we can neatly counterpose to one another. Rather, they are two phases of the same movement, which constantly overlap and interweave. Both are framed by the same historical conjunc- ture and both are rooted in the politics of anti-racism and the post-war black experience in Britain. Nevertheless I think we can identify two different ‘moments’ and that the difference between them is significant. Itis difficult to characterize these precisely, but T would say that the first moment was grounded in a particular political and cultural analysis. Politically this is the moment when the term ‘black’ was coined as a way of referencing the common experience of racism and marginalization in Britain and came to provide the organizing category of a new politics of resistance, amongst groups and communities with, in fact, very different histories, traditions and ethnic identities. In this moment, politically speaking, “The Black experience’, as a singular and unifying framework based on the building up of identity across ethnic and cultural difference between the different communities, became “hegemonic” over other ethnic/racial identi- ties — though the latter did not, of course, disappear. ‘The struggle to come into representation was predicated on a critique of the degree of fetishization, objectification and negative figuration which are so much a feature of the representation of the black subject, There was ‘concern nor simply with the absence or marginality of the black experi: ence but with its simplification and its stereotypical character, The cultural politics and strategies which developed around this critique had many facets, but its two principal objects were first the * From ‘New Ethnicities? Black Film, British Cinema ICA Documents 7, London: foseute of Contemporary Arts, 1989.STUART HALL question of access to the rights to representation by black artists and black cultural workers themselves. Secondly the contestation of the marginality, the stereotypical quality and the fetishized nature of images of blacks, by the counter-position of a ‘positive’ black imagery. These strategies were Principally addressed 1 changing what 1 would call the “relations of representation’ have a distinct sense that in the revent period we are entering a new phase. But we need to be absolutely clear what we mean by a ‘new" phase because, as soon as you talk of a new phase, people instantly imagine that what is entailed isthe substitution of one kind of politi for another. Fam uice distinctly not talking about a shift in those terms. ... There is no sense in which a new phase in black cultural polities could replace the earlier one. Nevertheless, it is true that as the struggle moves forward and assumes new forms, it does to some degree displace, reorganize and reposition the different cultural strategies ia relation to one another. The shift is best thought of in terms of a change from a struggle over the relations of representation to a politics of representation itself. Ie would be useful to separate out such a ‘polities of representation” into its different clements. We all now use the word representation, but, as we know, itis an extremely slippery customer. It ean be used, on the one hand, simply as another way of talking about how one images a realty that exists “outside™ the means by which things are represented: a conception grounded in a mimetic theory of representation. On the other hand the term can also stand for a very radical displacement of that unproblematic notion of the concept of representation. My own view is that events, relations, structures do have conditions of existence and ceal effects, outside the sphere of the discursive, but that itis only within the discursive, and subject to is specific conditions, limits and modalities, do they have or can they be constructed within meaning. Thus, while not wanting to expand the territorial claims of the discursive infinitely, how things are represented and the ‘machineries* and regimes of representation in a culture do play a constitutive, and not merely a reflexive, atter-the-event role. This gives questions of culture and ideology, and the scenarios of represe ~a formative, nor merely an expressive, place in the constitution of social and political life, 1 think itis the move towards this second sense of ation ~ subjectivity, identity, politics epre- sentation which is taking place and which is transforming the politics of representation in black culture This is a complex issue. First, it is the effect of theoretical encounter between black cultural politics and the discourses of a Eurocentric, largely white, critical cultural theory which in recent years, has focussed so much analysis of the polities of representa cult, if not dangerous encounter, (I think particu ion. This is always an extremely diff of black people ering the discourses of post-structuralism, — post-modernism, an only call ‘the end of innocence’, of the end of the innocent notion of the essential black Psychoanalysis and feminism.) Secondly, it marks what 24artists and black f the marginalicy, ines of blacks, by € strategies were the ‘relations of ‘e entering a new by a ‘new’ phase ntly imagine that for another. Lam There is no ‘ould replace the moves forward +, reorganize and ne another. na struggle over on itself. Te would into its different 18 we know, it is hand, simply as, at exists ‘outside 1 grounded in a ve term can also tic notion of the ations, struceures he sphere of the iect co its specific y be constructed territorial claims che ‘machineries titutive, and not 's of culture and identity, policies tution of social d sense of repre g the politics of ‘tical encounter centric, largely reussed so much extremely diff of black people rost-mode an only call “the 2 essential black NEW ETHNICITIES sbject. Here again, the end of the essential black subject is something Sich people are increasingly debating, but they may not have fully tkoned with its political consequences. What is at issue here isthe reco: ‘tein of the extraordinary diversity of subjective positions, social exper: ces and cultural identities which compose the category “black’s that is, ‘he recognition that “black’ is essentially a politically and culturally vamstructed category, which cannot be grounded in a set of fixed trans GGinural or transcendental racial categories and which therefore has no fquarantees in| Nature. What this brings into play is the recognition of fhe immense diversity and differentiation of the historical and cultural txperience of black subjects. This inevitably entails a weakening or fading Gf he notion that ‘race’ or some composite notion of race around the term black will either guarantee the effectivity of any cultural practice or deter mine in any final sense its aesthetic value. ‘We should put this as plainly as possible, Films are nor necessarily good because black people make them. They aee not necessarily ‘right-on by virtue of the fact that they deal with black experience, Once you enter the polities of the end of the essential black subject you are plunged headlong into the maelstrom of a continuously contingent, unguaranteed, political argument and debate: a critical politics, a polities of criticism. You eon ao longer conduct black politics through the strategy of a simple set of reversals, putting in the place of the bad old essential white subject, the new essentially good black subject. Now, that formulation may seem to threaten the collapse of an entire political world. Alternatively, it may be greeted with extraordinary relief at the passing away of what at one time seemed to be a necessary Fiction. Namely, either that all black people are good or indeed that all black people are the same. After all, itis one of the predi cates of racism that ‘you can't tell the difference because they all look the same’. This does not make it any easier to conceive of how a polities can he constructed which works with and through difference, which is able to build those forms of solidarity and identification which make common struggle and resistance possible but without suppressing the real hetero: geneity of interests and identities, and which can effectively draw the political boundary lines without which political contestation is impossible, ‘withour fixing those boundaries for eternity. It entails the movement in black polities, from what Gramsci called the ‘war of manoeuvre’ t0 the ‘war of position’ ~ the struggle around positionalities. Buc the difficulty of conceptualizing such a politics (and the temptation (0 slip into a sort of endlessly sliding discursive libe ask lism} does not absolve us of d -phu of developing such a politics. The end of the essential black subject also entails a recognition thar the central issues of race always appear historically in articulation, in a ies and divisions and are constantly crossed formation, with other cat and recrossed by the categories of class, of gender and ethnicity. (I make a dlistinetion here between race and ethnicity to which I shall return.) To me 2sSTUART HALL films like Territories, Passion of Remembrance, My Beautifidl Laundrette and Sanamy and Rosie Get Laid, for example, make it perfectly clear that the shift has been engaged; and that the question of the black subject cannot be represented without reference to the dimensions of class, gender, sexuality and ethnicity Jam familiar with all che dangers of cthnicity as a concept and have written myself about the fact that ethnicity, in the form of a cultueally constructed sense of Englishness and a particularly closed, exclusive and regressive form of English national identity, is one of the core characteristics of British racism today. I am also well aware thac the polities of anti-racism has often constructed itself in terms of a contestation of Ii-ethnicity’ or ‘multi-culruralism’. On the other hand, as the polities of representation around the black subject shifts, I think we will begin to see a renewed contestation over the meaning of the term “ethnicity” itself If the black subject and black experience are not stabilized by Nature oF by some other essential guarantee, then it must be the case thar they are constructed historically, culturally, politically ~ and the concept which refers to this is ‘ethnicity’. The term ethnicity acknowledges the place of history, language and culture in the construction of subjectivity and ‘dentity, as well as the fact that all discourse is placed, positioned, situated, and all knowledge is contextual. Representation is possible only because enunciation is always produced within codes which have a history, a posi tion within the discursive formations of a particular space and time, The displacement of the ‘centred’ discourses of the West entails putting in question its universalist character and its transcendental claims to speak for everyone, while being itself everywhere and nowhere. The fact that thie rounding of ethnicity in difference was deployed, in the discourse of racism, as a means of disavowing the realities of racism and repression does ‘not mean that we can permit the term to be permanently colonized. That appropriation will have to be contested, the term disarticulated from its Position in the discourse of ‘multi-culturalisin’ and transcoded, just as we previously had to recuperate the term ‘black’, from its place in 1 system of negative equivalences. The new politics of representation thercfore also sets in motion an ideological contestation around the term “ethnicity”. But in order t© pursue thar movement further, we will have to retheorize the concept of difference Ir seems to me thar, in the various practices and discourses of black cultural production, we are beginning co see constructions of just such a new conception of ethnicity: a new cultural politics which engages rather the cultural construction of new ethnic identities. Difference, like representation, is also 4 slippery, and therefore, contested concept. There is the ‘difference’ which makes a radical and unbridgeable separation: and there is a “difference! which is positional, conditional and conjunctural, closer to Derrida’s notion of differance, chough if we are concerned to maintain a polities it than suppresses difference and which depends, in part,Bev Lancreng epee ca ae of the black subjecy a concept and have form of a culturally ly closed, exclusive is one of the core ware that the politics of a contestation of hand, as the politics ink we will begin to rm ‘ethnicity’ itself, stabilized by Nature he case that they are the concept which vowledges the place of subjectivity and positioned, situated, ossible only because wve a history, a posi- ar space and time, sst entails putting in I claims to speak for The fact that this in the discourse of nd repression does atly colonized. That articulated from its nscoded, just as we place in a system of n therefore also sets a ‘ethnicity’. But in © to retheorize the discourses of black ions of just such a hich engages rather st, on the cultural presentation, is also, ‘difference’ which are is a “diffe loser to Derrida’s aintain a politics it NEW ETHNICITIES ively in terms of an infinite sliding of the signifier, te den goat deal Of work 10 40 10 decouple esis 38 i Hl vt dominant discourse, fom ts equivalence wth nationalism, ns Jom and the tte, which are the poines of atachent ing yy sine Bish on more accurately, Fnishethrisity ave eet coment). Indeed, ths decoupling, of ethicity from he be defined exclusi vole going On in films hike Passion and Hi worth Songs. We are nine to think about how to represent a non-coercive and a more ‘ set against the embattled, hegemonic me conception of etiictys £0 under Thatcherism, stabilizes so much and which, because itis diver etthe dominant politica ot emnic, does not cepresent itself as ethnicity at all Be tThis marks a real shift in the point of contestation, since it no longer only berween aniracism and multiculturalism but side the notion of ‘What is involved is the splitring of the norion between, on ation and “race 2 of “Englishness” whic and cultural discourses, of t ethnicity itsel hand the dominant notion which connects if £0 0) ‘other hand what [ think is the beginning of 2 positive concep- a the ethnicity of che margins, ofthe periphery. That is 0 sax a recoxs from a particular place, out of a particular history, sition that we all spe: seat a particular experience, a particular culeare, without being contained as ‘ethnic artists’ of film-makers. We are all, in that sense, fe crucial to our subjective the on and on the at position ethnically located nd our ethnic identities ar But this is also a recognition that this is not Englishness was, only by margin- This sense of who We are, thnicity which is doomed to survive, as alizing, dispossessing, displacing and. forgetting other ethnicities ‘ethnicity predicated on difference and diversity precisely is the politics of