Problematising new ethnicities. There are some problems with using Xxxx’x new ethnicities thesis with my A-J formation. First of all, Xxxx would seem to make reference to biological constructs which date back to colonial times. Xxxx uses the term black in his writing which he links to skin colour even though the term black is a fixed essentialist category which has its roots in scientific theorisations of ‘race’. In addition, he uses the notion of ‘hybridity’ which is a metaphor originating from biology which was used to describe the offspring of Black Africans and White Europeans (Xxxxxx and Pennycook, 2007). This means that it can infer, ‘a biological construal of cultural practices (ibid, p. 25). What is more, the existence of hybridity is predicated on the notion of pure ‘races’ (ibid), which also dates back to scientific theorisations of ‘race’. Xxxxxx (2006) would seem to agree with this as he states: talk of ‘new ethnicities’ and ‘cultures of hybridity’ can appear to be chronically undermined by the essential enduring biological fixity of the skin colour of black and brown people in Britain and what this signifies in social, cultural, economic and political life (Xxxxxx, 2006 p. 4). Xxx (2003) would also seem to concur with this idea. She criticised Xxxx’x theoretical framework and she questioned the use of the old ‘racial’ category of black, which he used to link the identification of black with skin colour. This may be why she said that she could not recognise her own ‘mixedness’ in these ‘new ethnicities’ (Ali, 2003 p. 10). There seems to be a contradiction in Xxxx’x work as, on the one hand, he is challenging essentialist conceptions, but, on the other hand, he is drawing upon the same essentialist terminology albeit with new meanings (Hall, 2000). These essentialist categories pertaining to skin colour are not applicable to my A-J formation because their skin colour is neither black nor white and their racial features are ambiguous (see chapter 5). In addition, Xxxx (1996) seems to have a problem with terminological distinction. In his seminal article entitled ‘New ethnicities’ he does not seem to give an explicit definition of the term and as such the meaning is left somewhat open to interpretation by the reader. Although the pluralised term, ethnicities, is used in the title, it rarely features in the article itself as the singular, ethnicity, is the preferred term. To add to the confusion, Xxxx seems to adopt a cut and mix approach to terminology as he uses new ethnic iden...
