Ethnicity Is Defined by Our Cultural Differences and Identities - Essay Example

Ethni is defined by our cultural differences and Identities. Discuss. Ethni is defined by our cultural differences and Identities. Discuss. Dated: ____________________ Professor Name: ___________________ Ethnicity is limited by way of particular geographical areas and nation states, such as South Asia, the Middle East, East Asia, Latin America, and countries of Africa, then for cultural studies, the information target field is called 'culture' or 'ethnicity'. It is often seen that differences within ethnic groups inclusive of gender and class along with mobilisation of ethnicity for differing political purposes further challenges the notion of 'community representative and leaders', uncritically accepted in ethnic mobilisation discourse. If we juxtapose against the multiculturalists narratives of 'ethnicity' the work of Michel Foucault, we see that ethnicity is fast acquiring the kind of significance and signifying value that Foucault attributes to sexuality in the period since the seventeenth century. (Michel, 1989) One of the most well-known of Foucault's arguments is that sexuality is not natural but constructed, and that in the multiple processes of discursive constructions, sexuality has, however, always been produced as the hidden, truthful secret that intimate something people take turns to discover and confess about themselves. The narrative character of the productions of sexuality means that even though our institutions, our media, and our cultural environment are saturated with sex and sexuality, we continue to believe that it is something which has been repressed and which must somehow be liberated. The same is the case with cultural differences and identities. Foucault calls this the repressive hypothesis, by which he refers to the restrictive economy that is incorporated into the politics of language and speech, and that accompanies the social redistributions of sex. Foucault is clear on the educational and indeed religious implications of the ethnic differences that repress hypothesis. The discursive ferment and mechanisms that surround 'ethnicity' in our time share many similar features with the 'repressive hypotheses' that Foucault attributes to the discourse of cultural differences. Chief of all is the belief in 'ethnicity' as a kind of repressed truth that awaits liberation. In order to facilitate this liberation, it is not enough that we identify the hidden motifs and inscriptions of ethnicity in all cultural representations; it is believed that we also need to engage in processes of confession, biography, autobiography, storytelling, and so forth, that actively resuscitate, retrieve, and redeem that 'ethnic' part of us which has not been allowed to come to light. (Chow, 1998, p. 101) In context with Britain, ethnicity refers to the South Asian people particularly women in post-war Britain, as both are racialised and gendered subjects, and are determined by a complex matrix of 'race', class, gender and ethnicity. Rather than looking at how certain categories have become racialised or gendered, the focus of my discussion is on the role of a racialised category in Britain i.e., South Asian women, in determining and constructing gendered action. (Andall, 2003, p. 79) It is argued that the search for the 'real' or 'authentic' South Asian woman is misguided in Britain as it homogenises and naturalises this category, especially as the term 'Asian', itself constructed in the West, encompasses diverse ethnic groups with differing histories, interests and experiences. While challenging the notion of a unitary South Asian woman's experience, the essay is intended to present a generalised picture while also highlighting the complex and multidimensional nature of their knowledge, experiences and narratives critical to any deconstruction. In setting this out, if we consider the factors towards which the South Asian women have attempted to create a 'third space' in an attempt to challenge racialised exclusions, we would come to know that transformation of social relations occur within families and communities as gendered subjects. By pointing to the rich history of organisation, one can not only challenge the commonly accepted one-dimensional view of South Asian women as passive objects but also hope to problematise some central categories within the ethnic diverse discourse. South Asian migration to Britain was part of the larger post-war migration flow when, at a time of economic expansion, black labour was recruited to meet widespread labour shortages caused by the reluctance of indigenous workers to take up undesirable employment. Consequently, South Asian migrants found themselves concentrated in low-paid, unskilled or semi-skilled work especially in the textile, manufacturing and transport industries. Both the political and public responses to black migration, and the historical racialisation of immigration as a political issue in Britain has been insightfully documented by a number of scholars. (Solomos, 1989) Black migrants themselves were a highly diverse group, not only in terms of racial and ethnic origin but also in terms of history, class and geographical origin, with the majority coming from the Indian subcontinent and the West Indies. The migration of South Asian women, as dependants of men, was generally later than that of men, with the exception of East African Asians who migrated in the form of families. Amongst factors impacting on the timing of women's migration has been government legislation aimed at reducing black migration generally. In fact, many Bangladeshi and Pakistani families remain divided even today; this is reflected in the ratio of women to men which is lower among multicultural ethnic groups. Within the migration flow, Indian women generally arrived in Britain before those from Pakistan and Bangladesh. Generally, the South Asian group is younger in make-up than white and other minority women (Owen, 1994, p. 30). Today the best example of ethnicity is the South Asian women who are mainly intense in the areas of West Midlands, Greater London and West Yorkshire; Indian women constitute the largest group in Greater London and West Midlands whereas Pakistani women predominate in West Yorkshire, while the largest percentage of Bangladeshi women is to be found in London (Owen, 1994, p. 34) As pointed out by Brah, "South Asian women's reality comprises on a complex infrastructure built on economic, political and ideological structures that follows and woven around the association between multi cultures, races and classes" (Brah, 1992, p. 64). Consequently, this complexity further necessitates the deconstruction of the category 'South Asian women' as it encompasses a highly heterogeneous group marked by differences of geographical origin, language, class, religion and caste. As discussed by Brah, the accompanying cultural and gender systems are equally different (Brah, 1992, p. 64). Given the existence of other insightful examinations of the position of South Asian women in relation to areas such as education, family and waged work, the most highlighted area is the gendered and racialised social relations, in articulation with state policies and discursive practices, impact on the formation of their subjectivity. Implicit to this is a rejection of European oriental ideologies which construct Asian women as "passive" (Brah 1992: 65). As convincingly argued by Brah (1992), state racism in Britain targeted at South Asians has been legitimised through a particular ideological construction of Asian marriage and family systems, as seen in the debates around immigration controls. Indeed, contemporary racialised discourse around the position of South Asian women continues to be informed by that of colonial times (Brah, 1992, p. 68). Much of the contemporary popular, academic and political discourse continues to represent South Asian women as the passive victims of out-of-date male-dominated traditions and practices, as witnessed in recurrent press reports of arranged marriages that have often been the only means of giving visibility to Asian women. Removed of their agency or subjectivity, women are depicted as if they are subjected to commit something wrong rather than the doers and the Asian families and outmoded cultural practices seen as the only culprits rather than race, class and gender systems of domination. Furthermore, Asian culture is presented as an unchanging pure essence instead of being understood as a continuously constituting and contested dynamic that presents a possible site of resistance for minority communities. (Andall, 2003, p. 85) Thus, despite the white feminist attack on the family as a primary site of women's oppression, it remains an important site of support in a hostile society particularly for South Asian women. This is not to overlook the forces of male power, which maintain unequal social relations within the family and household. Therefore, a study carried out as early as 1979 showed that the ideology of domesticity was equally accepted among both white and Asian girls, revealing a complexity of collusion, resistance and opposition (Brah, 1979). Indeed, South Asian women's organisations have systematically sought to challenge not only the exercise of male violence, but also articulated the need for Asian women to make their own choices about how and why they challenge their marriage systems within a context where Asian marriages have become so deeply ingrained within racialised discourses (Trivedi, 1984). While an important site of tension, negotiation and challenge, the issue of marriage is not the only significant factor for South Asian women as an ethnic nation, but the amply demonstrated challenges have posed both at discursive and practical levels for Asian women in Britain. The reality of racism and exclusion and ideas about 'race' and ethnicity have been among the most powerful factors in determining the extent and nature of minority ethnic mobilisation in Britain. Marginalised in major sectors of British society, such as employment, housing and education, and the overt racism of the British state, as reflected in immigration legislation, for instance, along with its failure to acknowledge and effectively meet the needs of black groups, was a major motivating factor in generating self-organisation. (Andall, 2003, p. 83) Much of the debate within black organisation and politics has focused on the issue of 'black' and its applicability to both Caribbean and South Asian groups. Black groups migrating to Britain were differentially racialised but their structural location within major areas of life exposed them to similar processes of racism. Influenced by the Black Power movement in the United States where 'black' became a label of pride, the term was increasingly used by both South Asian and African-Caribbean organisations and activists in the 1970s in an attempt to foster solidarity. The debate about the applicability of 'black' was sought to emphasise cultural difference at the expense of a politics of unity against racism; in the process it failed to recognise that political and cultural meanings could differ across contexts. (Madood, 1994) As convincingly argued by Brah (1992), this critique overlooked the fact that rather than seeking to deny other major factors which shape and define identities of black groups in Britain, 'black' was used to mobilise collective action and foster solidarity against racism at a particular historical moment. According to Solomos and Back, 'while it is necessary to question essentialist and simplistic notions of blackness, it is important to retain a political and analytical notion of blackness as a way of describing points of convergence and volatile alliances' (Brah, 1992, p. 213). Given the marginalisation and negation of self that results from racism and sexism, notions of empowerment, community and identity have been central to the agendas of all resistance movements since the 1960s (Yuval-Davis, 1994). Today, identity has taken the form granting citizenship rights which are in response to the efforts on the part of the working class, not limited to women but also ethnic minorities and, in contemporary western democracies, these rights have been expanded to include women's reproductive rights as well. (Einhorn, 1993). It is seen even in liberal democratic nations which treat all citizens equally, citizenship rights vary and are dependent on class, ethnicity, and gender. In Britain, for example, white, middle-class and married women are viewed as suitable mothers and reproducers of the British nation and their breeding is encouraged while poor, single, working-class, black women's and lesbians' reproduction is regarded as being inappropriate or excessive. Black feminists have documented the way in which black women in Britain experience health care provision and the way that abortion, sterilisation and the injectable contraceptive Depo-provera may be forced on black women while the fertility of middle-class white women is encouraged (Bryan et al. 1985). In most accounts of the development of western industrial economies, neither capitalists nor labourers were depicted as having any gender, ethnicity, 'race', religion or nationality. It is not so that these social attributes does not exist, but according to the models of development adopted they belong to 'traditional' societies and, through the processes of industrialisation, are marginalised and so become less and less relevant to societal relations with respect to ethnicity. References Andall Jacqueline, (2003) Gender and Ethnicity in Contemporary Europe: Berg: New York. Brah, A. (1992), 'Difference, Diversity, Differentiation', in J. Donald and A. Rattansi (eds) 'Race', Culture and Difference, London: Sage Brah, A. (1979), Inter-generational and Inter-ethnic Perceptions: A Comparative Study of South Asian and English Adolescents and their Parents in Southall, West London, Ph.D. thesis, University of Bristol Bryan, B., Dadzie, S. and Scafe, S. (1985) The Heart of the Race: Black Women's Lives in Britain, London: Virago Chow Rey, (1998) Ethics after Idealism: Theory, Culture, Ethnicity, Reading: Indiana University Press: Bloomington, IN. Einhorn, B. (1993) Cinderella Goes to Market: Citizenship, Gender and Women's Movements in East Central Europe, London: Verso Kent Kingsley Susan, (1999) Gender and Power in Britain, 1640-1990: Routledge: London. Michel Foucault, (1989) The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Vintage). Owen, D. (1994), Ethnic Minority Women and the Labour Market: Analysis of the 1991 Census, Manchester: Equal Opportunities Commission. Solomos, J. (1989), Race and Racism in Contemporary Britain, London: Macmillan Trivedi, P. (1984), 'To Deny our Fullness: Asian Women in the Making of History', Feminist Review, 17: 37-52 Yuval-Davis, N. (1994), 'Women, Ethnicity and Empowerment', in K. K. Bhavnani and A. Phoenix (eds) Shifting Identities, Shifting Racisms, London: Sage Read More