Cultural Mimicry

Cultural mimicry describes a partial, superficial adaptation of migrants to their new cultural environment in order to escape negative stigmas and the associated dangers. In this process, the original cultural influences are not abandoned, as is the case with assimilation, but are ‚camouflaged‘ through external imitation. (cf. Albrecht, p. 261)

Homi H. Bhabha describes this adaptation as „almost, but yet not quite the same“ (Bhabha 2000, p. 132). An imitation that is nevertheless never quite the same as what is imitated, because what is performed as German, for example, is what is interpreted as such from an individual perspective. (cf. Albrecht, p. 260)

Word origin

The term mimicry originally comes from biology and describes the characteristic of some animals to imitate features of poisonous animal species in order to protect themselves from enemies (cf. Nünning, p. 502). An example of this is the grove hoverfly, which externally resembles a wasp. The difference to mimesis is that it describes a general form of camouflage, which can refer to the similarity of some insects to leaves as well as to the color-changing ability of the chameleon.

Cultural theoretical application

Beginning in the 1990s, the term was taken up in cultural theory by the Indian postcolonial theorist Homi H. Bhabha. He uses the example of the colonial period to concretize the power of cultural mimicry. Through the superficial adaptability of the black population to their white colonial masters, the existentialist notion of a basic difference of human societies and thus the supremacy of the Western world is questioned. At the same time, a parodic reflection of the rulers can emerge from these efforts that further destabilizes the claim to authority. This distorted adaptation already arises automatically due to the individually different interpretations of cultural practices.

In contrast to deconstructivist efforts, however, cultural mimicry is not an active resistance to hegemony. Rather, this occurs as an unintended side-effect of the actual ‚camouflage‘ and, in the case of an unintended caricature, can miss it. (cf. Struve, pp. 144 -149)

Hybridity in the cultural interstice

Of much greater interest to the cultural theorist is the ‚third space‘ which is created by the mimicritical process. Especially regarding intercultural negotiation processes, Bhabha sees the chance of cultural hybridity [hyperlink to encyclopedia article]. Through the paradoxical, ambivalent simultaneity of reference and demarcation to the respective cultures, an unambiguous cultural identity would be negated, whereby a common questioning, negotiation or reformulation of the understanding of culture can arise (cf. Struve, p. 144).

The actual (unintended) resilience of mimicry thus consists primarily in the questioning of a self-contained culture and only secondarily in the destabilization of power imbalances derived from it.

Terms distinguishing mimicry from mimesis

In terms of cultural theory, mimicry and mimesis are sometimes difficult to distinguish. Following the biological meaning, a cultural mimesis could describe general imitation practices with neutral connotations. In contrast, the mimetic concept of the feminist cultural theorist Luce Irigaray, which she describes in 1974 in Speculum – Mirror of the Other Sex, is more similar to the understanding of mimicry described here, which, however, unlike cultural mimicry, refers to gender-specific imitation and actively aims at the deconstruction of power relations. (cf. Nünning, p. 502)

Literature

Albrecht, Yvonne (2017): Feelings in the Process of Migration. Transcultural narratives between belonging and distancing. Wiesbaden: Springer.

Bhabha, Homi K. (2000): The localization of culture. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.

Nünning, Ansgar (2008): Metzler Lexikon Literatur- Und Kulturtheorie. 4th ed. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler.

Struve, Karen (2013): On the topicality of Homi K. Bhabha. An introduction to his work. Ed. v. Stephan Moebius. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.