Representations and problematics of hybridity in Amitav Ghosh

Abstract

Hybridity has been a privileged theory in post-colonial writings. It is considered as a source of empowerment that resists oppositional binarism and monolithic discourses that characterize dominant Western historical representations. Amitav Ghosh’s In An Antique Land and his ongoing Ibis Trilogy are historiographic projects that instantiate, both textually and formally, the employment of hybridity in resistance of cultural and political suppression. However, Ghosh at the same time interrogates the discourse of hybridity by highlighting its problematics. Such ambivalent stance creates a paradox that the author leaves open as a site for critical debates. Employing the strength of hybridity, Ghosh rewrites history and challenges the critiques that disapprove the theory for its lack of ethics and suggests that the theory of hybridity can fulfill our ethical imperatives by excavating forgotten voices of the past.