“间质空间”阈限下的文化身份认同

Identification of Cultural Identity in “Liminal Space”

霍米·巴巴认为,后殖民文化就是一个"混杂体",差异文化在一个交叉位置"间质空间"相交汇,在冲突与交往中,经过不断的"间性协商"而产生互融、互渗与共存。《中途》的主人公鲁特福德在贩奴途中就生存在一个西方文化与非洲文化相交汇的空间,主流文化与边缘文化的双重夹击使他陷入文化身份的困惑而处于"中间"状态,随着与黑人交往的深入,他的民族文化身份意识逐步觉醒,最终摆脱不确定身份的困境,找到自我并超越自我,成为一个具有混杂文化身份的人。

Homi K. Bhabha argues that the post-colonial culture is continuously in a process of hybridity, and that cultures meet in a liminal or in-between space. He also suggests that with a process of translating and transvaluing, cultures interact, transgress and transform each other. The protagonist, Rutherford, in Middle Passage inhabits such an in-between space on the voyage of slave trading. Challenged by both western and African cultures, he gets confused for lack of an essentialized or fixed identity. With constant interactions with the black, he begins to be awake to his black identity, and more than that, he even leaps over the borderlines between races, and ultimately constructs his hybrid identity.