The concept of culture that we have discussed was evolved by scholars studying uni-cultural societies—small tribal societies that were regarded as non-changing, Western societies sharing a common civilization, and large indigenous societies of the East having a civilizational spread. Such large societies became some sort of melting pot in which regional and religious cultures merged and became sub-cultures. India has been described as an indigenous civilization which developed a Great Tradition and allowed Little traditions to flourish. The interactions between the two traditions resulted in some local traditions becoming widely accepted and part of the Great Tradition, and some of Great Traditions being redefined at lower levels or going out of use completely. These processes were named Universalization and Parochialization, respectively (Marriott, 1955). These processes were seen as operating within a culture.
Very little attention was, however, paid to the Diaspora communities. The Chinese and the Indians are the two groups that are ubiquitous in the sense that they are to be found in almost all countries of the world, and in substantial numbers. While these groups have succeeded to a remarkable degree in accommodating themselves in the societies of their migration, they have also retained their cultural identities. However, their unique identity neither corresponds to their parent culture nor to the host culture. In a multicultural milieu—now a feature of most societies of the world, thanks to the process of globalization—the cultures of the migrant groups defy their classification as a sub-culture. A multicultural society is by definition a society with many cultures. However, these cultures are to be seen somewhat differently as operating within the overall umbrella of the distinct culture of the host society.
While scholars differ in their assessment of the degree and extent to which institutions transplanted from India into other cultures by Indian immigrants have retained their originality, they all seem to hint at the continued presence of ‘Indian-ness’. It is this phenomenon that seems to provide these migrant communities with an identity distinct from other groups in the plural societies of their relocation. They have carried the norms of behaviour with them and reactivated several structural and cultural features of their parent culture while making adjustments and adopting local customs, thus striking a new equation—a consequence of sandwiching. The different equations provide different profiles and distinguish them not only from the non-Indians of the host society, but also from other overseas Indians, and the Indians in India.
The era of globalization is characterized by the increasing mobility of people across cultures. This has led to the formation of what may be termed Sandwich Cultures (see Atal, 1989). Migrant groups evolve their own mechanisms to preserve their cultural identity and yet develop interfaces with the culture of the host society. The emerging culture of the immigrants is the result of sandwiching the forces of the host culture and the parent culture. Since people have moved to different cultures across the world, the sandwich cultures of peoples originating from the same country also differ from one host country to another. The existence of sandwich cultures makes native cultures more diverse and heterogeneous.
The concept of sandwich culture is applicable at several levels:
- At the country level:The culture of the entire country may be a result of the process of sandwiching between the powerful pressures from two or more civilizations. Thailand offers a good example of this type, which has emerged as a result of sandwiching between the Indian (mainly Buddhist) and Chinese civilizations. The language (vocabulary and the script) and religion (including the institution of monarchy) represent the influence of Indian civilization (see Desai, 1980). Its food habits, some patterns of dress, and tonality in language as well as business ethic is derived from the Chinese. However, the Thai culture is a distinct identity, and not a sub-system of either the Chinese or the Indian cultures. Its orientation to India and China is not comparable to the opposing processes of host and parent cultures. Thai culture is an emergent form that has assimilated elements of the two external influences with the native Thai culture.
- Within the country level:
- Immigrant communities: People of Indian or Chinese origin, for example, settled in other countries offer instances of immigrant communities. Sandwich cultures are created among them. It is this culture that is transmitted to the newer batch of immigrants who come and settle in the same locality as add-ons or replacements. The old inhabitants ‘socialize’ and ‘enculturate’ the newcomers, and thus make their adjustment in a strange environment relatively smooth. These groups define their own areas of interaction, create aperture points for an interface with the host culture, and set up their membership boundaries.
- Autochthonous communities overwhelmed by invading immigrants also develop sandwich cultures as a result of a breakdown in their isolation. The modern Maori in New Zealand, the aboriginals in Australia, and the several tribal communities in India exemplify this type.
- Frontier groups: Communities located on the frontiers of a given political system receive influences from the neighbouring country with whom they have a frontier in common. For example, the residents of Southern Thailand exhibit a mix of Thai and Malay cultures.
- Refugee communities constitute another type with a potential for a sandwich culture.
- Returnee culture: There is a recent phenomenon of reverse migration, also called ‘sea-turtling’. These people exhibit a peculiar ambivalence. Back in their parent country, they locate themselves in a distinct colony that is modelled after the country of their migration. Many of these people possess dual passports. In their case, the interactions with the parent culture increase and that of the host culture decline, and yet the host culture continues to be their positive reference group, and they live in the hope of returning one day. In their own country of origin, they create a mini-country of their migration. If Indians settled in Singapore created a ‘Little India’ on Sirangoon Road, Indians returning from the US and settling in the city of Bengaluru have created a mini-USA in Adarsh Palm Meadows in Whitefield.
- It is a culture that emerges as a consequence of twin pressures—that of the original parent culture and the strange culture. When this occurs within the same habitat, it is seen more as an instance of culture change, where the arriving culture might invade or overwhelm the native culture. In these cases, the original culture represents the ‘past’ or the ‘ideal’ culture, and external elements are seen as evidence of modernity. When it occurs in a strange setting—the country of migration—the original culture remains the ‘parent culture’, and the culture of the country of migration becomes the ‘host culture’. The host culture may be hospitable or hostile; and it is this feature that determines the character of the emerging sandwich culture.
- People living a sandwich culture possess a ‘double identity’12 as Indian-American, Thai-Chinese, etc. And they exhibit a certain degree of ambivalence and have a double orientation. When an Indian NRI stays in the US he misses India, and when he visits India, he misses the United States.
- A sandwich culture develops in a country only when there is a critical mass of people from another culture. When individual families move to another country, they are either absorbed into the host culture or remain foreigners (who are seen as sojourners).
- Sandwich cultures created by people from the same stock vary from country to country, depending on (i) the attitude of the host country, (ii) the amount of exposure to the parent culture, and (iiii) the amount of exposure to the host culture. These can be measured in terms of insulators and apertures—such as language, endogamy, food habits, racial prejudice and an urge to return to their roots. When we talk of a sandwich within the same country of origin, this can be seen in terms of the integration of a community into the mainstream. Several revival movements, now couched in terms of ethnicity, are indicators to return to the past, to the original, to stress on indigeneity. These movements result in rediscovering and reviving old traditions and discarding some of the traits adopted from the wider culture.
The concept of sandwich culture helps in understanding the process of globalization in sociological terms. It offers a helpful paradigm for the study of the diaspora.
This phenomenon is easily visible amongst the Thais, Koreans, Malaysians and Pakistanis. Cubans settled in Miami, The Exile, David Rieff talks of ‘Cuba in the heart of Miami’, and describes the lives of Miami’s Cubans as ‘torn between the imagined Eden of their homeland and America’s irresistible attraction’. A very different view of a sandwich culture can be had in a fascinating history of the Chinese in America, by Iris Chang. The blurb of the book calls it an epic story
that spans 150 years … [that] tells of a people’s search for a better life—the determination of the Chinese to forge an identity and a destiny in a strange land, to help build their adopted country, and often against great obstacles, to find success.
Now, with the opening of mainland China, it is possible that the ‘sea turtle’ phenomenon has unravelled in the case of the American Chinese. Non-Resident Indians returning to India for work also offer an excellent opportunity to study the phenomenon of return migration—sea-turtling. Although living in India, many of them have settled in newly developed colonies that are like alien islands in an Indian sea.
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