Hybridity

Hybridity refers in its most basic sense to mixture. The term originates from biology and was subsequently employed in linguistics and in racial theory in the nineteenth century. Its contemporary uses are scattered across numerous academic disciplines and is salient in popular culture. This article explains the history of hybridity and its major theoretical discussion amongst the discourses of race, post-colonialism, identity, anti-racism and multiculturalism, and globalization. This article illustrates the development of hybridity rhetoric from biological to cultural discussions.

Hybridity is a cross between two separate races, plants or cultures. A hybrid is something that is mixed, and hybridity is simply mixture. Hybridity is not a new cultural or historical phenomenon. It has been a feature of all civilizations since time immemorial, from the Sumerians through the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans to the present. Both ancient and modern civilizations have, through trade and conquests, borrowed foreign ideas, philosophies, and sciences, thus producing hybrid cultures and societies. The term hybridity itself is not a modern coinage. It was common among the Greeks and Romans. In Latin hybrida or ibrida refers to "the offspring of a tame sow and a wild boar, child of a free man and a slave," and by extension to the progeny of a Roman man and a non-Roman woman. The word hybridity was in use in English since the early 17th century and gained popular currency in the 19th century. Charles Darwin used this term in 1837 in reference to his experiments in cross-fertilization in plants. The concept of hybridity was fraught with negative connotations from its incipience. The Greeks and Romans borrowed extensively from other civilizations, the Egyptians and Persians in particular, and creating ipso facto hybridized cultures, but regarded unfavourably biological hybridity. Aristotle, Plato and Pericles were all opposed to racial mixing between Greeks and "barbarians" and viewed biological hybridity as a source of racial degeneration and social disorder. Similarly, within the Roman Empire, which is considered as one of the most multi-ethnic empires, cultural difference was usually integrated into the predominant culture, whereas biological hybridity was condemned. The Romans’ attitudes to racial mixing hardened from the 4th century AD when Rome embraced the Christian faith. This is manifest in the Codex Theodosianus (AD365) which prohibited marriages between Christians and non-Christians, the Jews in particular, and inflicted death penalty on those who did not obey this law. Contempt for biological hybridity did not end with the fall the Roman Empire, but continued throughout the Middle Ages and well into modern times, reaching a peak in the nineteenth century with the rise of Europe into an unrivalled imperial power. Hybridity and fear of racial degeneration caused by the mixing of Europeans and non-Europeans were major concerns in 19th century colonialist discourse prompted by racist pseudo-scientific discourses found in such works as Joseph Arthur de Gobineau's Essai sur l’inégalité des races and Joseph-Ernest Renan's L’Education culturelle et morale.

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