Toward the materiality of intercultural dialogue, still a "miracle begging for analysis"
pp. 53-66
in: Michal Rozbicki (ed), Perspectives on interculturality, Berlin, Springer, 2015Abstract
Creolization (in the sense of cultural mixing or crossover) is a "miracle begging for analysis. Because it first occurred against all odds between the jaws of brute and absolute power, no explanation seems to do justice to the very wonder that it happened at all."1 The wonder has now apparently been demystified. With the poststructuralist turn, renewed attention to political dynamics in cultural production has unearthed submerged yet persistent interstices within culture, formerly imagined as a seamless system. The interstices have revealed ways in which cultural domination is never completed. Culture is not merely a manifestation of institutional and material reality, constraining and coercing human actions, consciousness, and reflections. Instead, culture is the key avenue for shaking or even breaking the "iron jaws of power." Power is not "absolute," however "brute" it may be.