Page 195 - Cultural Theory

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••• Ann Brooks •••

highlights the emergence of new conceptions of subjecthood and identity framed by
the discourses of transculturalism and transnationalism. New cultural and ethnic
identities have emerged, carrying with them new conceptions of subjectivity and
offering a number of possibilities for feminists working in the area to open up spaces
for the emergence of new subject positions and new places from which to speak. This
chapter examines how discourses on transculturalism and transnationalism have
made debates on subjectivity, representation and identity much more contested.
Transculturalism and transnationalism have produced new conceptions of subject-
hood, subjectivity and identity as new cultural and ethnic boundaries have emerged.
These new cultural and ethnic identities carry with them the need for new concep-
tions of subjectivity and require the opening-up of new subject positions and new
spaces and places from which to speak. This emphasis requires a transdisciplinary
approach to the analysis of representation and identity. Thus, for many theorists of
the transcultural and transnational, including feminists, postcolonial theorists, post-
modernists, anthropologists and theorists of globalization, there has been a need for
an intellectual shift from the disciplinary constraints of sociology, geography and his-
tory to the unapologetically interdisciplinary terrain of cultural studies. The transdis-
ciplinary context of cultural studies has provided a framework for the incorporation
of a number of disciplinary areas, all of which lend themselves to an analysis of rep-
resentation, subjectivity and identity, including cultural sociology, critical ethnogra-
phy, film, literature and cultural politics. The first part of the chapter examines the
interdisciplinary nexus of cultural studies, and shows how it has provided a frame-
work for intersecting discourses on feminism, postcolonialism and postmodernism to
coalesce. The second part of the chapter focuses on an understanding of transcultur-
alism and transnationalism in the development of new conceptions of subjectivity
and identity and in demanding new discourses within which subjectivity, representa-
tion and identity can be reflected. The final section of the chapter suggests new ways
to conceptualize issues of representation, subjectivity and identity.

The Transdisciplinary Context of Cultural Studies: New Discursive
Frameworks for Understanding Representation and Identity

The interdisciplinary nexus of cultural studies has always been characterized by a
‘desire to transgress established boundaries and to create new forms of knowledge
and understanding not bound by such boundaries’ (Stratton and Ang, 1996: 362),
cultural studies has increasingly become a vehicle for transnational and transcultural
conceptualizations and framing of debates on representation and identity. Stratton
and Ang claim that:

as cultural studies is rapidly becoming an internationally recognized label for a
particular type of intellectual work, it is crossing not just disciplinary boundaries,
but also cultural-geographical boundaries. Cultural studies is now being

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