ASTRO convencional

In the preceding sections I tried to draw the reader’s attention to the importance of identity in a multicultural society. In this case identity is not only considered from the individual but also from the collective point of view. In any cross-cultural environment the notion of identity does not only refer to what people are but also to what they do. Thus, several researchers have tried to get some crucial facts as to the way our identity is (re)defined as well as the way external factors define us against others. In the issue

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under analysis, our identity will not only be regarded from a personal point of view but also from the point of view of belonging to a minority culture. We could even go a step further and analyse concepts such as national identity and new identities, that is, those that imply the contact with a different language, culture and society. In the distinction between social identity and gender identity the former can be rephrased as community identity.

In this arena I propose to oppose personal knowledge to cultural knowledge. The former refers to the role of the mind of the individual before certain events and the way the individual perceives them and the latter refers to the knowledge shared by the group. Not only can they become contradictory and enter conflict but they can also become commonplace at a particular moment and then be redefined or/and be subject to modifications fostered by social change and the mobility of the population. As will be seen later both of them will be dependent on attitude. Therefore a positive or negative attitude will determine the degree of acceptance or refusal of specific cultural values. Normally a group has a higher status. Given this situation the individual may want to become a member of the group with a higher status in order to be accepted. In the primary bibliography, while the members of the first generation keep the traditional values they took from India, the female protagonists adhere to Western values. Nevetherless it is relevant to consider that theirs is not a case of power but, and as has been indicated at some other stages and will be highlighted as the thesis develops, a result of the background in which they have been born and bred. This state of mind finds its counterpart in some isolated member of the second generation, a strict follower of the traditional Indian path represented by Kiran, Naina’s brother in Chapatti or Chips (2000) as can be observed in 4.1.2.1.

Some of the most outstanding studies on the field of identity have been developed by people such as Hall (1992b), Crane (2000) and Hutnik (1991). Therefore I will comment on some of their most important contributions.

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88 2.2.6.1 Hall (1992)

The meaning and significance of identity becomes really important when applied to what are generally known as community identities. People seem to have opposed them to national identities. A real fact about today’s society is that national identities remain strong, especially with respect to such things as legal and citizenship rights, but local, regional and community identities have become more significant. Hall goes a step further and refers to the term new identities as a result of the process of globalisation the western world is subject to and states:

What these communities have in common (Afro-Caribbean and Asian communities), which they represent through taking on the "black" identity, is not that they are culturally, ethnically, linguistically or even physically the same, but that they are seen and treated as `the same’ (i.e. non-white, `other´) by the dominant culture. It is their exclusion which provides what Laclau and Mouffe call the common `axis of equivalence of this new identity (Hall 1992b: 309).

2.2.6.2 Crane (2000)

Those who have power, the British in India, whites in Britain, men in patriarchal societies, rarely need to concern themselves with the question of identity. Conversely, those without power need to use their otherness to construct a homogenous identity as a means of empowerment. (Crane 2000: 8)

Being related to a minority group the question of power arises. Thus, although some members of the Indian community have achieved public and economic success, most of its members are still trying to find a place, both socially and politically. British born teenagers have to find a balance between their parents’ heritage and their personal freedom and aspirations. At the same time parents have to cope with the daily confrontation with Western values and beliefs, which can be interpreted as a form of power. They are

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[p]assing through a transition period, in which they have to find solutions to situations that result from living and working in a British culture and environment. The most significant of these are caused by racism, discrimination, by isolation, being single mothers and as unmarried women, drinking and, to a lesser extent, smoking and taking drinks (Rait 2005: 86).

As a result, their identity is constantly reminded of it as a result of the complex gender relations stemming from duality and hibridity.

2.2.6.3Hutnik(1991)

He identified four strategies of self-identification in an attempt to explicate the type of relationships by South Asian children in Britain as regards not the relationships between the minority group and the majority group but also within the same group he belongs to:

¾ The dissociative strategy: where categorization is in terms of ethnic minority group membership and not in terms of the majority group membership.

¾ The assimilative strategy: where self-categorization primarily emphasizes the majority group dimension and denies ethnic minority roots. This would be the case of the main character in Bindis and Brides, Passion and Poppadoms or The

Marriage Market in which the female characters react according to the Western

code and not the Indian one, in spite of its interpretation as bad conduct and shame on the community. In fact they do not keep quiet under any circumstance but they denounce any attempt of physical abuse, unfaithfulness or impossibility to act in accordance with the individual´s own desires.

¾ Acculturative where individuals categorize themselves approximately equally in terms of both the above dimensions.

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90

¾ Marginal where neither dimension is important or salient to self- categorization.There may be a conscious decision not to choose an ethnic identity or a majority group identity.

2.3 Stereotypes