Postcolonial nomadism and the simulated self in images of fragmented identity

Abstract

Since the onset of postcolonialism in South Africa, cultural diversity was brought on by the political decline of cultural borders, mass-media infiltration, technological advancement and the disposition of postmodernism’s assemblage of eclectic characteristics. Within postmodern postcolonialism, cultural conditions such as diaspora, nomadism and cosmopolitanism contributed to a sense of global citizenship. As such, postcolonialism and its cultural fusion promoted a new multi-cultural, hybrid culture. In this mini-dissertation it is argued that identity is a reflection or a simulation of the social surroundings in which one exists. Just as the individual’s identity becomes a product of his/her surroundings, elements of the individual’s identity manifest within cultural spaces. Within this simulation in a hybrid and multi-cultural space, personal identity becomes a fragmented and splintered concept, which is a subconscious reaction to the diversities in the individual’s cultural surroundings; moreover, the diversity in culture also contributes to constructing a more adaptable identity from these fragments. A growing feeling of Ubuntu or tolerance for differences and oppositions that develops in multi-cultural space contributes to the argument that cultural spaces become diverse and hybrid in a postmodern eclectic era. To overcome the fragmentation in identity, the postcolonial individual unintentionally formulates a hybrid, or fusion in identity by relating to different aspects that one finds in one’s surroundings. Identity becomes a fluid concept and is ever-changing to adapt to the multiplicities of contemporary postcolonial culture. This fluidity in identity is sub-consciously achieved by adopting psychological thought processes like Nomadism and Proteanism. The process of formulation of a new eclectic and fluid identity becomes more important than the identity in itself. Therefore, the ability to have a fluid and adaptable identity becomes more important than exclusivity in one’s identity. The establishment of this fluidity in identity is not a conscious decision, but merely an autonomic process of metamorphosis that enables the postcolonial individual to maintain identity, even though his/her identity cannot be fixed.