Cultures have always been hybrid.

Nothing is fixed, nothing is pure: cultures follow mixed logics, drawing their strength precisely from those differences that allow each one to fabricate their own canvas.

What makes the world of our shared and interconnected experiences, both practical and symbolic, is always the result of different encounters, contributions and mindsets. In this context, there is nothing in nature that resembles a pure culture. Every cultural identity is influenced by various elements, resulting in a rich tapestry of traditions, beliefs, and practices that evolve over time through interactions and exchanges.

Vincenzo Matera, Ugo Fabietti and Roberto Malighetti (2020) have explained ‘hybrid cultures’ and ‘mestizo logics’ like this:

“Hybrid cultures represent the new syntheses, profiles, and landscapes that define the contemporary world from a socio-cultural standpoint: these new profiles and landscapes emerge from the increasingly intense encounters among individuals and groups with diverse histories, memories, knowledge, and identities, often rooted in experiential and conceptual foundations that are markedly different from one another”.

The way cultures combine and recombine their traits on the basis of certain power relations, have today assumed a frequency and intensity that are considerably higher than in the past, even in the rather recent past.

From an empirical point of view, therefore, the expression ‘hybrid cultures’ is a way of expressing what is happening in the world, a metaphor for the intensity and frequency that characterises the encounter between cultures in the contemporary world.

In conclusion, anthropologists are now more than ever concerned with studying the complex logics of what make up cultures. They analyse structures, changes, influences and trace genealogies to make sense of diversity. They are those who consider the global sphere as the main habitat of people, and stand on borders and frontiers to observe the interweavings and exchanges of traits and people that make our world alive.

Quoted book: U. Fabietti, V. Matera, R. Malighetti From tribal to global. Introduction to anthropology, Pearson, 2020 (italian)

Image still from video of exhibit Harmony and Dissonance: Orphism in Paris 1910-1930 at the Guggenheim, New York upcoming November 8th, 2024-March 9th, 2025. Orphism emerged in the early 1910s, when the innovations brought about by modern life were radically altering conceptions of time and space. Artists connected to Orphism engaged with ideas of simultaneity in kaleidoscopic compositions, investigating the transformative possibilities of color, form, and motion.