(Pre)determined Occupations: The Post- Colonial Hybridizing of Identity and Art Forms in Third World Spaces

IntroductionThe world is on the move with temporary and permanent migration, immigration, exchange, and mobility of peoples and ideas occurring across physical and virtual places. This movement is affecting ideological, political, and economic spaces. National, cultural, and consequently personal, as well as communal identities, take on new dimensions within the fluidity of postmodern discourse. In this process, discussions of fixed notions of authenticity1 and tradition in culture are rendered problematic. This condition of flux that the human world is currently undergoing has been named globalization. As researchers concerned with the discourse on this condition, we find it linked inextricably with the condition of post-colonialism and the effects of colonization on cultures and societies (Ashcroft, Griffiths, & Tiffin, 1998). The work of post-colonial theorists often reflects and informs current literature on globalization (Bhabha, 1994; Diversi & Moreira, 2008; Said, 1979; Spivak, 2003). Using the terms of Deleuze and Guattari (1987), we define post- colonialism as a state of becoming or constant evolution that nation-states and cultures exist in-as they reinvent themselves physically, mentally, emotionally, and economically in an ongoing response to the event of being colonized. We refer to post-colonialism throughout this article with a recognition that its discourse includes geographical countries and political-ideological nations that are still being colonized and are living under the influence of colonization in avatars of military, economic, and ideological occupation and influence, both direct and indirect (Chibber, 2013; Nair, 2002; Tuhiwai-Smith, 2012). This article reflects our processing of theoretical assumptions within post-colonial discourses in our cross/trans-cultural work as artist-educator-researchers in communities in Peru and India.There is a rich body of research in art education on the naming, knowing, and claiming of traditional and contemporary cultural knowledge in the process of exchanging and disseminating information. The themes in this research consist of new ways that art education and pedagogy connect to the world not only through visual culture (Duncum, 2000; Tavin & Hausman, 2004), but also through attempted decolonization (Ballengee- Morris, 2000, 2010; Ballengee-Morris, Sanders, Smith-Shank & Staikidis, 2010; Tuhiwai- Smith, 2012); Indigenous identity (Ballengee-Morris & Stuhr, 2001; Bolin, Blandy, & Congdon, 2000); tourism (Ballengee-Morris & Sanders, 2009); the problematic authenticity of various art forms (Ballengee-Morris, 2002); and geography (Desai, 2005). In unpacking our own hybrid identities as culturally mobile workers-transnational, transcultural, and transdisciplinary-we examine our response-ability to enable equitable exchanges of ideas and information in art education practices while studying and teaching the 'other' and our own cultures.Unpacking our separate experiences working with artists and educators in Peru and India, we provide a brief overview of globalization. We explore what it means, and how this global paradigm has led to hybridization (Bhabha, 1994; Said, 1979) of people, cultures, and the arts. We then discuss hybridization and its effects on peoples' identities and the arts from cultures worldwide. Subsequently, we share our own experiences with hybridity focusing on Peruvian artists and Indian artist-educators by drawing on the issues and tensions within these communities as we examine how our own researcher selves impact these communities. Finally, we offer recommendations for studying art education through the lens of the hybridization of cultures, people, and the arts so as to enable equitable processes of cultural exchange and learning, rather than mere re-tellings or appropriations of another's story. We realize that as researchers we occupy spaces of privilege, and we hope to utilize these spaces to support the growth and bring forward inaudible voices of others such as our research participants, Peruvian artists and Indian artist educators. …