Keynote Lecture: Hybridity and Economy

The concept of hybridity has opened up debates in the study of culture regarding the interrelation between different cultures and in particular the work of cultural formation in the interstices between those cultures. At the same time, the concept has been met with criticism, in particular regarding the paradox that, in order to think cultural dynamics beyond essentialism, it presupposes the existence of homogeneous and essential cultures that engage in hybridization. The purpose of this lecture is to approach this paradox through a discussion of economic dimensions of hybridization, which have often been lacking in discussions about cultural hybridization, in order to demonstrate that those economic dimensions might be capable of rescuing the concept of hybridity for analysis despite its critiques. It does so by way of addressing the conceptual meanings and significance of the economic dimension of the constitution of culture in Fernando Ortiz’s analysis of “Cuban counterpoint” (1940), in particular with regard to his notion of ‘transculturation’ which prefigured that of hybridity. Ortiz chose the entry point of the economy, in particular, the formation of colonial and postcolonial Cuba out of two quite distinct modalities of agriculture, botanical transplantation, cultivation, and marketing – namely, sugar cane and tobacco. The lecture discusses the conceptual contributions of Ortiz’s economic take on culture formation for the contemporary study of cultural hybridity.

// Prof. Dr. Andreas Langenohl is professor of Sociology and Head of Graduate Studies at the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) at Justus Liebig University Giessen. Before, he directed a research group on “Idioms of Social Analysis” at Konstanz University. He held research fellowships at Cornell, Konstanz, and Freiburg University. His fields of research and teaching include economic sociology and the sociology of finance, social and cultural theory, transnationalism, and the epistemology of the social sciences. Apart from four monographs and several co-edited volumes, his work has appeared in the journals Economy & Society, Cultural Critique, Security Dialogue, Finance & Society, Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies and several European social science journals.