Review

Reviewed Work(s): Cultural Hybridity by Peter Burke

Review by: Giovanni Porfido
Source: Sociology, Vol. 46, No. 1 (FEBRUARY 2012), pp. 177-178
Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43497244
Accessed: 26-07-2018 06:37 UTC

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 Book Reviews 1 77

approach is needed i
terms like corruptio
interest, but coincide
doors, but rather on
by deep political scep
us all. I strongly rec

Peter Burke

Cultural Hybridity
Cambridge: Polity, 2009, £10.99 pbk (ISBN: 9780745646978), x + 142 pp.

Reviewed by: Giovanni Porfido, Independent scholar

Burke's Cultural Hybridity is the perfect read for anyone who wants to debunk the myth
of cultural 'authenticity' and to challenge oppressive social and political practices predi-
cated on such ideas. In the book, culture is understood in its broadest sense of attitudes,
values and ways of seeing and understanding the world and in forms of embodiment,
affects, artefacts, practices and representations. The book's main tenet is that hybridiza-
tion is not simply the by-product of recent social, economic and technological transforma-
tions. Rather, is just a specific manifestation of an underlying pattern in world history;
cultures have always encountered and changed each other and the lack of exchange has
often meant progressive impoverishment or stagnation. In clear opposition to fundamen-
talist or far-right ideologies, Burke is thus adamant that the process of cultural hybridiza-
tion is something to be treasured rather than feared and opposed. Nevertheless, this book
is not a simplistic celebration of the opportunities offered by the sharing of ideas, bodies,
affects and resources. It is instead a thorough analysis of the micro and macro contradic-
tions and ambivalences triggered by any encounter with alterity and difference. Exchange
and mixing is not, or not only, a positive thing. All encounters happen in fields of power
relations and often take place in uneven and unequal ways. By underlining the difficulties,
contradictions and problems that may arise from cultural encounters Burke does not, how-
ever, condemn the process. The book is a generous exercise in the use of reason to unravel
the inevitable problems that human interaction always entails.
The book is divided into five substantive chapters that look at different, though
intrinsically interconnected, configurations of cultural hybridity. The first, 'Variety of
object', maps out the polymorphous manifestations of hybridity. It focuses in particu-
lar on material things such as artefacts, social practices and people and provides exam-
ples of cultural hybridity in the fields of music, literary production, ritual and in human
experience itself. 'Varieties of terminology', the second chapter, is about language and
the difficulty in describing and defining the question of cultural hybridity. Creolization,
mishmash, hotchpotch, melting pot and syncretism are just a few of the terms that have
been used in recent scholarly debates on this matter. Different authors and schools of
thought have tried to grapple with the proteiform and ever-shifting nature of hybridity
and each of these words represents an attempt to contain the phenomena described in
this book. The point at stake here is not to assess which is the best, but to highlight how
each carries a particular conceptual load. This genealogical analysis of terminologies

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178 Sociology 46(1)

aims to make explicit the

ter, 'Varieties of situatio
speed of the process is n
mented. There are particu
how 'intensify'. Waves o
have inevitably generate
does not mean that the con
speeds and articulated by
gious tolerance in Spain
peacefully absorb deities f
articulate cultural encount
gates in more detail the d
and mixing; for example
European art and design h
the epitome of fashionabi
were enthusiastically welc
nation, has sometimes led
and people. The total repud
one of the most systemat
The last chapter, 'Varietie
ity. The author firmly be
the frequency of encoun
rejects a future whereby
ent from each other. Burk
near future and neither
'Coca-Cola effect' or 'Am
present. But it must be un
of resistance, appropriatio
The book's easy and disc
without losing out on com
only sketched out in parts.
ing their thirst. Yet, in it
issues that deserve scrutin
for further research. Some
leader of the British Natio

Rachel Thompson
Unfolding Uves:Youth, Gender
Bristol: Policy Press , 2009, £

Reviewed by: Femi Adekunle,

This ambitious book gives

and macro into a theoreti
contradictions and par

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