 | Hybridity?: No, Syncretism!: The Refusal of 'Purity, Mix and Stir leslie roman |
| | Hybridity?: No, Syncretism!: The Refusal of 'Purity, Mix and Stir leslie roman |
"Which culture is not then hybrid? The idea of 'hybridity, of intermixture, presupposes two anterior purities...there isn't any purity; there isn't any anterior purity...that's why I try not to use the word 'hybrid', because there are degrees of it, and there are different mixes...Cultural production is not like mixing cocktails. What people call 'hybridity', I used to call 'syncretism'...I would prefer to stick with that--syncretism is the norm, but, that dry anthropological word does not have any poetic charge to it. There isn't any purity. Who the [----explitive deletive] wants purity? Where purity is called for, I get suspicious" (Paul Gilroy, 1994, 54-55, editorial note, mine). From "Black Cultural Politics: An Interview with Paul Gilroy by Timmy Lott," Found Object 4:46-81.