ABSTRACT
Behind the democratizing concepts of impure cultures and hybrid networks lie other asymmetries. The author ground his wariness by touching briefly on some of the consequences that anthropological models have had, and on attempts to clean them up; such attempts may bring in items of knowledge already at work in other domains and thus far from innocent in their implications. Cultural identity is something to which everyone can lay claim; but when cultures are given a homeland and become identified with particular territories or countries, then cultural difference may work to exclusionary or asymmetric; effect. This chapter has touched on bodily creativity in the production of persons for its suggestiveness about network length. The author has introduced the language of ownership for a reason. On the contrary, the new modernities have invented new projects that forestall such imaginings. For neither a mixed nature nor an impure character guarantees immunity from appropriation.
