No Man's Land (eBook)

Living Between Two Cultures

Anne East (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2021 | 1. Auflage
96 Seiten
404 Ink (Verlag)
978-1-912489-45-9 (ISBN)

Infos

Many individuals - especially of non-white heritage - are suspended in an identity limbo. The need to divide and separate our lives, even ourselves, into neat boxes means that many British-born people with no ties to their parental culture are left adrift within our society. This is Anne East's experience. Neither able to claim one culture as her own or be fully accepted by all groups within British society as the Brit she is, it's a no man's land of cultural loss. In No Man's Land, Anne explores this chasm in more detail, how it is to feel one thing and yet be perceived as another, the emotions felt within this limbo, and why culture truly matters. More so, she considers how this has manifested through history, and the British Empire, with focus on the often unheard or ignored impacts on those of East and Southeast Asian heritage.

Anne East is a freelance writer and currently lives in Suffolk. Anne read English linguistics and literature at the University of York and started a career as a retail buyer working in London and Cambridge. After having two children, Anne decided to quit the nine to five and go it alone as a content writer.

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Introduction

Humans like to categorise, divide and separate. It’s evident everywhere you look. From race and nationality, to borders and religion, we’re most comfortable when we can pigeonhole and compartmentalise.

But while Marie Kondo-ing our existence into elements that ‘spark joy’ and elements that do not might help us make sense of who we are from a broad perspective, it’s clear from the sheer number of humans that exist that to do so is pretty futile. Despite this futility, we still do it because we crave solidarity and a sense of belonging. Categorising people enables us to decide who to accept and who to filter out based on predetermined ideas of group characteristics.

One of those neat little boxes that we use to compartmentalise ourselves is culture. But what is it? Who defines it? Most importantly, who gets to say who is a part of it?

No Man’s Land explores this hazy idea of culture within the context of the United Kingdom, its importance in shaping self-identity, and what happens when the culture you identify with, and embrace, doesn’t embrace you in the same way. In particular, it explores the feelings evoked when the majority culture has perpetuated a narrative that places itself over others, belittling them and, by default, rendering you and your perceived other culture inferior.

Like most issues that involve people, the ideas of culture and identity are complex and nuanced, and perspectives will vary. One viewpoint that isn’t so frequently heard is that of the East and Southeast Asian diaspora, which is my heritage. Complicating the idea of cultural identity, particularly for me, is the touchy subject of race. While many definitions of culture and race separate the two, they are messily intertwined because of assumption, prejudice and ignorance. My cultural heritage has never been important to me. It’s just not something I really think about very much. As far as I am concerned, I am culturally British. I don’t look in the mirror and question who I am or where I come from. Like you, I only see myself, not a collection of societal labels.

My heritage (or assumptions about my heritage) do, however, seem to be a source of endless fascination for strangers who feel the urge to ask me random questions about where I’m from.

When I reply that I’m from Surrey, for many people, it’s not the right answer. It might be the truth, but it’s not the truth they were looking for. I know this because, more often than not, there is an awkward silence as they try to find the words they’re looking for to get the answer they want without sounding just a teeny bit racist. The confusion that crosses their face gives me a perverse sense of pleasure, because I know what they expect and want me to say – Malaysian, Chinese, Thai, Indonesian, Singaporean. In honesty, it probably wouldn’t matter which of those I said because we all look the same, right?

So, is the question racist? According to a 2018 YouGov survey, 67% of Britons think, yes: ‘asking a non-white person who says they are from somewhere in Britain “where they’re really from”’ is ‘either always or usually racist’.1

When I’ve been asked the question, I’ve generally felt that it’s been asked through curiosity. It’s more about wanting to know what someone who looks like me is doing here, in England. If I was white and spoke in a Welsh accent, you might ask what part of Wales I was from. Same if I was white and spoke with a Scottish or Irish accent. The fact that I am brown and speak with an English accent means we bypass the whole ‘where-abouts in England are you from?’ and automatically start playing some elaborate geography guessing game.

But, if we’re being completely honest, if I was white and Welsh or Scottish or Irish, most people wouldn’t bother asking what part of the British Isles I was from because they wouldn’t stop me to ask. Similarly, if I were white and German or white and Polish and they’d never heard me speak, I’d just be another white face in the crowd with the ability to pass as any other white Briton.

Why, then, is the question problematic if the intention is curiosity rather than using the answer to show prejudice? In my mind, it’s a problem because it comes with a sense of entitlement. The person asking the question feels they have a right to ask me about where I’m really from. They are gatekeeping cultural inclusion and identity because, for some people, being really British and really part of British culture doesn’t just mean being born and growing up in the UK. It also means you have to look a certain way; if you don’t, you can never be perceived as inherently British.

Maybe, then, all of this does make the question racist. Possibly, I am just painfully naïve in viewing the question as nothing more than ignorant presumption, or perhaps the difference between the two is just semantics, because invariably the question is only ever asked by white people. If the topic of where I’m from ever comes up with non-white people (which it very, very rarely does) it is discussed as an exercise in sharing information (‘my parents are from X, what about yours?’). It’s also shaped as an entirely different question. The focus isn’t about where I am supposedly from, it’s about my heritage and history.

For many of us in Britain, this is where we sit: in a cultural no man’s land – between who we are, and who people perceive us to be. It is this liminal space that fascinates me. Yet, identifying the existence of this cultural limbo isn’t new. It has been explored by scholars and all sorts of other far cleverer people than me in greater depth. For example, Afua Hirsch’s Brit(ish) (Vintage, 2018) is an exploration of her mixed-race identity within Britain. It’s highly personal and moving – a narrative that lays bare the struggle of reconciling who you are when you’re perceived in a certain way. More so, it explores a country seemingly in denial about its own imperial past, and how that filters through to the present day.

Plus, although not specifically about cultural limbo, a study into the concept of self-identity, Identity: Contemporary Identity Politics and the Struggle for Recognition by Francis Fukuyama, focuses on the dangers of narrowing those identities within cultures themselves – how the self then impacts the group and the possible consequences for cohesion.

Across 2020 (and the-year-that-wasn’t due to the COVID-19 pandemic), heated conversations were stimulated around belonging, with the nation encouraging its inhabitants to be considerate and to come together in an act of Great British solidarity. Britons throughout the country were encouraged to clap for key workers, support elderly and vulnerable neighbours and support each other in what was unprecedented upheaval in a time of peace. People gladly gave up their time and resources to help others less fortunate2 and tradespeople donated their expertise to those in need.3 The scale of generosity was humbling, demonstrating the very best of our qualities.

But who are our fellow Britons? Despite feeling and being British on paper, in a time of national crisis I was not easily compartmentalised as British by some – that same consideration did not extend to me. From the stranger who asked me if I ‘was healthy’ when news broke of a novel coronavirus detected in China, to the woman who shouted ‘not eaten your dog, then’ as I was running with him, it was crushingly clear where those individuals thought I sat on the spectrum of Britishness. In those moments, the gulf between my self-identity and their narrow vision of what and who is British in the 21st century was obvious. Despite being British, to them I simply wasn’t.

And so here we are. Into the third decade of the 21st century, the era in which people in the 1960s thought we’d be communicating with aliens and farming in space.4 Yet, despite these grand and lofty predictions of how we might have progressed as a species, we’re still having conversations about who belongs in what group and whether or not they really do, based on… what, exactly?

Every classification we have is socially constructed. Race – from the 18th century, to justify the superiority of Europeans. Nationality – devised through politics to separate countries and their people. Ethnicity – the social grouping of individuals based on their shared linguistic or cultural traits. Like all man-made inventions, their functionality is limited, unlike the evolving individuals and ideas they try to describe.

To add further confusion, some of these notions can’t even be agreed on, making them highly subjective. The construct of ethnicity is a good example. Official government guidelines make it clear that ‘ethnic groups do not represent how all people identify’.5 Ethnicity is defined in the dictionary as group identity based on culture, religion, tradition and customs. The idea of race is not inherent in the concept of ethnicity but interestingly, the Oxford Reference definition does point out it can be used as a politically correct term for race.6 The 2021 census shows just how complex and limited the idea of ethnicity really is. The Welsh census included options for Asian Welsh and Black Welsh for ethnic group.7 Based on the definition of ethnicity this of course makes sense – skin colour plays no part in either the government’s or the dictionary’s definition. The Scottish census has been delayed to 2022 but the 2011 census already included...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 9.12.2021
• Reihe/Serie: Inklings
• Reihe/Serie: Inklings
• Verlagsort: Newcastle upon Tyne
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Essays / Feuilleton
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Psychologie ► Psychoanalyse / Tiefenpsychologie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Pädagogik
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft
• ISBN-10: 1-912489-45-7 / 1912489457
• ISBN-13: 978-1-912489-45-9 / 9781912489459