Finding a Sense of Community and Identity

I've been debating community, identity, tradition and modernity in today's world.

Firstly, living in a modern Western society (Australia) ensures that I am free to be an individual, free to define my own journey. Of course peer pressure is relevant here and we do have expectations from ourselves and from others around us but in a different way to other societies.

We want meaning, we want to define where we stand, find out whether we fit or don't fit.

Recently, I read a book which relates to these issues by Robyn Bavati called 'Dancing in the Dark'. It is about the life of a young Haredi/Ultra-Orthodox Jewish girl living in a conservative family who wanted to become a ballet dancer (fictional yet based on a real individual). She faced difficult in doing this and had to lie about her other life and what Robyn does in this book is interesting, you would think she would condemn them and their ways but she shows that there is something about living in a Haredi community that can be fulfilling and that we as individuals are continually making choices to be where we are or to change directions and maybe the walls that limit us can be empowering for some people (giving them a sense of meaning and place-i.e Sara, Ditty's friend) but limiting for others (i.e Ditty, the main character).

I, as a Mauritian-Australian am constantly asking myself about my identity. My Creole culture (which was explored in an earlier post) is based on the interactions of slaves who lost their cultures and Europeans and other Mauritians and finding meaning in Creole identity, community is something that isn't really easy to work out. You can say it's our music or our involvement in religion (Catholic, Anglican, Evangelical and even Rastafarianism) but I don't see that as fulfilling for me as an individual. Growing up in Australia has definitely made me feel different from people in Mauritius, our culture here is not quite defined, it was about a specific British/Northern European heritage and that still plays a role (hence of course, use of the English language) but transitioning into a multicultural society has led us to ask what makes us Australian. And, I find that I don't personally connect to Australia's British heritage overly (although it has obviously influenced me) and modern civic, multicultural Australia hasn't developed the culture or symbols for me to connect with (on a deeper level) coming from my background.
Maybe, it's because I don't feel complete with my Creole heritage and the people around me with a strong cultural background can relate to cultures with stronger identities and traditions which can then interact with their Australian identity for a stronger, more complete one?

I am searching, spiritually and culturally to fulfil myself and find a greater sense of meaning that I can connect with. I do have good friends and having friends you can talk to is truly a sense of community. Family, forms another community and I do have many cousins (many overseas and interstate though) and I do feel I can connect with a few of them fairly well (e.g. Mum).
But because culture is so important to me, I feel that in places such as Brazil, Mexico and a few other Latin American countries have experienced cultural hybridity on a deeper level and can fulfil the aspects of both Creole and Australian cultures I find lacking. I can learn about Brazilian spirituality and connect it to the ancestor veneration of my Malagasy African heritage, the Catholic practices of other ancestors (e.g. religions such as Umbanda, Catimbo, Candomble in Brazil, Espiritismo and Santeria in Cuba). Indigenous and European heritages have meshed in Mexico where in Australia they have mostly remained separate (Day of The Dead).

Dominic

Being mixed, créolité/creolitude, mestizaje

I come from a cultural background (through my parents) which is based on the mixture of the various peoples which inhabited the island of Mauritius (Creoles). It's not easy to define and it's not straightforward. Our heritage includes Afro-Malagasy slaves who lost most of their traditions due to discrimination that they experienced. It includes the European settlers who came and formed the most influential culture during the period of colonialism.

It is very hard to define where Creoles stand and should stand on culture, if my grandmother's Chinese my experiences would be different from a Creole who had an Indian grandfather. Each individual can take their own stand on their heritage.

There are two main foci or cultural focal points though: the African and the European which have been the most influential in defining the identity Creole culture today. The African slaves who were born in Mauritius were known as Creoles as were considered their Mauritian-born European counterparts (though Euro-Mauritians would not be called Creoles today).

The main thing I have realised from reading about similar cultures and backgrounds in the Caribbean and Latin America is that, it is not just enough to say the we are a blend of this and that. But to realise that some cultures suffered in the process, while others prospered (Africans and Native Americans versus Europeans) and that reinforced the development of our identities.

That is not to say that our European heritage is not valuable and should be rejected but we should try and honour the different parts of our heritage as something specific, tangible like the Caribbean writer Edouard Glissant says when seeing Creolitude/créolité as something which incorporates our different heritages like a rhizome (taken from contemporary European philosophers called Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari).

A rhizome is for an example the roots of grass which spread out starting new plants without a specific root starting a single tree but a connection of nodes from which we have different plants starting out.

Thus for Creoles around the world and similar cultures of mixed heritage - mixed people in Latin America (mainly of African, Native American and European heritages), each of our heritages can be seen on an equal level and be learned about to help reinforce and better define our identity today.