Immigration, Culture, Identity

Migration, both literally and figuratively, is a concept that undermines the foundations of modernity and brings them into question. Just as human migrations on a global level transform the urban space, which is the core of modernity, they also blur the borders of the nation-state or distinctions such as the First World and the Third World and invalidate old patterns of explanation. At the conceptual level, this process is accompanied by the intertwining and blending of different histories and memories, the fragmentation of singular identity constructs, and the hybridization of language. Based on these observations, Lain Chambers determines that social and cultural theories that insist on looking through the glasses of modernity are inadequate to understand this "active world." The author, who takes us through hybrid languages, worlds and histories, reveals how our understanding of space and identity has changed. This text, which consists of "essays" in which concrete observations and theoretical reflections go side by side, presents a structure that is both fragmented and holistic at the same time. As we navigate different channels of cultural diversity, we discover new ways to meet and understand the “other”.

Written as a travel narrative, Migration, Culture, Identity starts from the point that we cannot have a fixed residence in the world of migrations and the impossibility of returning home. For the hybridized metropolitan people, the meaning of Walkman now passes through different colors of “world music”. Another stop of the author is how we look at this "rootless" world through the computer screen. In this journey that is constantly taking off, Chambers shows us how to visit cities that cannot be mapped and sheds an interesting light on urban sociology. At all these stops, we witness how migration, marginality, hybridity and homelessness defeat the West's belief in linear progress and rational thinking. We observe how the foundations of the modern understanding of knowledge and identity are being shaken.



Number of Pages: 208

Year of Printing: 2014


Language: Turkish
Publisher: Details Publications

First Printing Year: 2009

Number of Pages: 208

Language Turkish