fixed but becoming continous process of history, culture, and power. Cultural identity in particular changes in formation continously.
Therewith, it emphasizes the impossibility of such fully constituted, separate and distinct identities. It denies the existence of authentic and originary
identities based in a universally shared origin or experience. Identities are always relational and incomplete, in process. Identity is always a temporary and unstable
effect of relations which define identities by marking differences. Thus the emphasis here is on the multiplicity of identities and differences rather than on a
singular identity Hall, 1993: 394. In identity theory, self categorizationor self identification classifying or
naming itself in particular ways in relation to the other social categories or classifications is important to form an identity McCall and Simons, 1978. An
individual forms their identity by identifying one self with a certain social group. This social group usually exist structured in a society such as white American or
African American. Each person, however, over the course of one’s life, is a member of unique combinations of social categories. That results in unique sets of
self identities as well Hogg and Abrams, 1988. Hogg and Abrams further elaborate that in the context social identity,
identity is a person’s knowledge that he or she belongs to a social category or group 1988. Using self-comparison process, persons who are similiar to the self
are categorized with the self. Self-categorization and self-comparison result into two different consequences. The consequence of self categorization is “an
accentuation of the perceived similarities between the self and other in group PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
members and the contrast between self and out-group members” Hogg and Abrams, 1988.An individual uses self-categorization to find similiarities with the
other group members then adopt the identity of the social group to the self.It includes the values, beliefs, attitudes, behavioural norms, and so on.
On the other hand, the consequence of social comparison is the “selective application of the accentuation effect” which create self-enhancing outcomes for
the self Hogg and Abrams, 1988. Specifically, this self-enhancement also improves one’s self-esteem by judging the in-group positively and the out-group
negatively.
4. Theories on Hybridity and Resistance
Homi K. Bhabha says that hybridity confers the colonized and colonizer’s power relation. Hybridity sheds light that it is not always true the pre-
constructed notion that the colonized is always inferior to the colonizer. Furthermore, hybridity theory propagates that being a hybrid means that a person
in a place between the First World and the Third World. Hence, in the hybrid realm, an individual has two cultures meeting and diffusing with each other.
Bhabha also states that culture is never constant but dynamic with other cultures’ involvement. The cultural identity is constantly changing, absorbing the
influences of other cultures. Hybridity is also the revaluation on the colonial power by displaying
‘necessary deformation and displacement’ of the discrimination faced by the colonized and also the domination held by the colonizer. Not only that, hybridity
also questions the images and the presence of authority. It means questioning the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
authority and identity of the colonizer upon the colonized Bhabha, 1994: 112- 113.
In order to dig deeper, another theory of Barry is presented to lay stronger ground of theoretical framework. Based on Barry, hybridity happens
when an individual is colonized both mentally and physically by dominant culture creating a condition of in-betweenness—the original identity and the dominant. A
hybrid individual stands in-between the culture of the colonized and the culture of the colonizer. However, the individual never fully possesses one culture.
In order to establisha new identity, a hybrid usually uses mimicry. It is when the colonized imitates the identity and culture of the dominant culture in
order to gain certain social benefit. Mimicry is the desire to be reformed as a recognizable Other.
Mimicry emerges as the representation of difference that is itself a process of disavowal. Mimicry is, thus the sign of a double
articulation; a complex strategy of reform, regulation and discipline, which ‘appropriates’ the Other as it visualizes power
Bhabha, 1994: 86. Mimicry is a process of denial that creates reform of the colonized to
resemble the colonizer—in order to gain the same power. Mimicry happens when the Other imitates the culture, language, habit and other colonizer’s attributes in
order to be the same as the colonizer. In order to analyze further about the hybridity and cross cultural
interaction, Bhabha explicates in his theory of ‘The Third Space’ that it is where the meeting of two identities becoming ambivalent; that it challenges cultural
identity. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
The theoretical recognition of the split-space of enunciation may open the way to conceptualising an international culture, based not
on the exoticism of multiculturalism or the diversity of cultures, but on the inscription and articulation of cultures hybridity. It is the
inbetween space that carries the burden of the meaning of culture, and by exploring this Third Space, we may elude the politics of
polarity and emerge as the others of our selves Bhabha, 1994: 56. The third space concept elucidates that the new hybrid culture emerges
from it. The perspective in seeing the colonizer and colonized is no longer a binary relationship but rather creating an entity that contains “otherness” of
ourselves. The identity of a hybrid is no longer cocooned within the boundaries of two separated polars the colonized and the colonizer.
As Bhabha argues that ahybrid is not only “double-voiced and double- accented”but is also “double-languaged” for in it, there are not only and not even
so much “two individual consciousnesses, two voices, two accents, as there are doublings of socio-linguistic, consciousnesses, two epochs that come together
and consciously fight it out on the territory of the utterance”Bhabha, 1994:58. As an hybrid individual, one uses not only two voices or two accents but
alsotwo languages. This occurance happens because the individual has not only two consciousnessess, but also there are dual socio-linguistic, consciousnesses,
and two periods of time within their identity which constantly fight each other to be enunciated.
On the other hand, an individual might struggle against the domination of the colonizer through resistance. Elleke Boehmer states that the goal of the
colonized is to go against the domination of the colonizer. It is said that the colonized might take “the approximation and assimilation” or later more radically,
