Theories on Character and Characterization

their original community. He also states that there is no diaspora that exactly the ideal type. If that is so, then it can only be defined toone group such as Jewish diaspora Safran, 1991:48. Diaspora in postcolonialism generally talks about the idea of cultural dislocation Gandhi, 1998: 131. It means that in diaspora—the movement of the people create a condition when the people experience a disruption on their original cultural identity—they have to live in a new cultural spectrum which is not their own.Paul Gilroy in Gandhi’s Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction states that diaspora has its’ value in “the elucidation of those processes of the mutation of culture and restive discontinuity that overpasses racial discourse” Gandhi, 1998: 131. Diaspora revolves around the process of cultural mutation that refuses stagnancy and stability of meaning and identity. The culture moves within the diasporic experience, it always changes. It mutates when the original culture meets the new one. Diaspora also illustrates the mobility of thought and consciousness made by the cultural adherence of colonialism. In diasporic discourse, the discussion does not only stop on the idea of Western or colonial identity but also it has the nuanced culture of travel Gandhi, 1998: 132-133. In diaspora, there is amovement of thought and consciousness of the diasporic people caused by the requirement of colonialism. The culture moves and travels. Clifford 1994:304 enunciates that diasporic configurations such as longing, memory, and disidentification are partaken by a broad range of minority and migrant populations. The dispersed community who are once PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI disconnected from their homeland, now are capable to find themselves in border relation with their own homeland because of technologies of transportation, communication tools, and migrating labor. Furthermore Clifford says that regardless the existence of idelogies of purity, dispersed communities can never be exclusively nationalist Clifford,1994: 305. They are moved and affected by the transnational networking with multiple attachments, and also change in accordance with the host countries’ norm as well as resisting it. It means that diaspora is not exclusive to one national identity but it is influenced by transnational movements. It adapts and resist the host country as well. Diaspora includes dwelling, communities maintainance, having collective home far from home. At the end it creates forms of community consciousness and solidarity that retains the identifications apart from their national timespace in order to live in the host countryClifford, 1994: 304-308. Diaspora forms a community with their own fellows. This community share togetherness and solidarity to survive in the foreign place. Jim Clifford describes it, the term diaspora is “a signifier not simply of transnationality and movement”, but of political struggles to define the local - would prefer to call it place - as “a distinctive community, in historical contexts of displacement” 1994:308. Diaspora is not only the matter of movement of the dispersed people but it is also about the community’s struggle to define themselves. Diaspora emphasizes “the historically spatial fluidity and intentionality of identity, its articulation to structures of historical movements whether forced or chosen, necessary or desired” Clifford, 1994:308. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

3. Theories of Cultural Identity

Hall in The Questions of Cultural Identitycategorizes three concepts of identity. Those are identityas the Enlightenment subject, identity as sociological subject, and identity as post-modern subject 1993:275. Identity on the Enlightenment concept is seen as “a fully centered, unified individual”. This paradigm belives in a conception that human beings have their inner core self. It emerges when they were born. The essentialist core of an individual is the identity Hall, 1993: 275. While the Enlightenment concept focuses on ‘individualist’ view, the sociological conception says that identity is formed in the “interaction” between self and society. The individual still retains its “core.” However, this core is changed and modified with the “dialogue” with the cultural world outside Hall, 1993: 275. This view enunciates that individuals internalize the meaning and the values of culture as part of themselves—at the same time align their subjective feelings in accordance with the objective cultural space the individuals occupy. A human being’s identity is contingent toward the cultural world which shapes them. The third one is the post-modern conception. This view argues that the subjectindividuals which are previously seen as “unified has become fragmented: composed, not a single, but of several, sometimes contradictory, or unresolved, identity” Hall, 1993: 276-277. The process of identification has become open-ended, variable, and problematic. Our identity shifts and changes at different times. Furthermore, Hall proclaims that cultural identity is process based Hall, 1993:394. Therefore, cultural identity undergoes constant transformation. It is not 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