Ethnogenesis / Cultural Naissance • (eth-nō-jene-ses) • noun
Definition: The birth of culture
Origin: Greek / English and French
At SCL, we talk a lot about ethnocide and Eǔtopia. Ethnocide is the problem, and Eǔtopia is the sustainable good place we all aspire to live in. The transition from ethnocide to Eǔtopia necessitates countless questions. What does Eǔtopia look like? How do we get there? What actions or changes are required to cultivate Eǔtopia? All of these questions are valid and part of SCL’s mission is to provide these answers so that Eǔtopia becomes a tangible solution instead of an unobtainable fantasy like utopia. Ethnogenesis, or cultural naissance, is one of our solutions.
What is Ethnogenesis / Cultural Naissance?
When you live in an ethnocidal society like America, you are accustomed to a normalized acceptance and expectation of cultural destruction without being fully aware of it. The destruction of culture has been the foundation of American society, and once you sit with that idea it becomes alarming how pervasive and normalized destruction has become. I have written extensively this year about the physical manifestations of ethnocide both in this newsletter and other publications. This week I wrote a column for the Institute of Art & Ideas that also explains how ethnocide still shapes our society today.
The more aware you become of ethnocide, the more you realize that not only does America incline us to engage in ethnocide, but to also speak ethnocidal language. America has so many socially acceptable expressions that celebrate destruction as a source of progress and solving problems. “Kill two birds with one stone” and “silver bullet” are just two of many show how America celebrates violence and the destruction of culture. The destruction of an other is articulated as a success. The destruction we speak of can be metaphysical or physical, but both iterations of destruction are expressed as a social good.
For America to even aspire for Eǔtopia, we have to cultivate ideas, language, and actions that celebrate the birth of culture and not the destruction of it. Ethnogenesis and cultural naissance can peacefully create a profound change in the very ideas, language, and actions of the American people, but also in the identities we give ourselves.
In 2019 as part of my research for The Altars Project, I read Octavio Paz’s book The Labyrinth of Solitude which is about the history and culture of Mexico. Chapter 4 “The Sons of La Malinche” had a revelatory impact on my understanding of ethnogenesis / cultural naissance. After finding and coining ethnocide and Eǔtopia, I also felt that ethnogenesis / cultural naissance was an integral part of the puzzle, but I was unsure how to practice or manifest this process. Paz’s book changed all of that.
La Malinche is the name of the indigenous woman who gave birth to Martín Cortés el Mestizo, the son of Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés. She is considered the mother of the mixed indigenous and Spanish people that were created in Mexico, and these mixed, or mestizo, people were central to the formation of a new cultural identity. To this day, Mexicans have a cultural identifier in mestizo, and a national identifier in Mexican. They literally created a new name and identity for the new people and culture that were born on their land. If this fact was not revelatory enough for an American accustomed to near-inescapable ethnocide, I was further blown away by the fact that this act of ethnogenesis / cultural naissance did not have a pleasant or celebrated origin story.
Mestizo people do not celebrate Cortés. He was a brutal colonizer. Additionally, La Malinche has also not been a celebrated figure, but her story is a bit more complex than Cortés’s. The narrative of her being a traitor to her people has clear sexist overtones, and there is a growing canon of feminist literature that paints her in a much different light. Mexico has a culture of mixed people that they know comes from an unholy alliance, with neither of their founders being universally well-liked. The notion of a cultural or social foundation that is not celebrated represents a profound cultural step that America struggles to even imagine, let alone create a language for, and embark on.
The existence of mestizo culture and people does not mean that Mexico does not have racism or oppressive social norms that dehumanize and marginalize indigenous people and those of African descent. The birth of culture is not the birth of perfection. It is the realization that the birth of something new in the Americas, which is more than just aspiring to be a continuation of European ideas, is essential for existence and true progress.
Why Ethnogenesis & Cultural Naissance?
Ethnogenesis and cultural naissance mean exactly the same thing, but articulating the same meaning with a different linguistic foundation actually provides a subtle change in meaning that is essential.
Ethno means “culture” and genesis means “birth” in Greek, therefore it becomes easier to understand how you can counter ethnocide -- the killing of culture while keeping the people -- by giving birth to culture while keeping the people. Linguistically, you begin to see the connection between ethnocide and ethnogenesis. This connection is not as clear with cultural naissance, but this is precisely why we need this additional term.
Ever since the Italians decided to bring Europe out of the Dark Ages by launching the Renaissance, Westernized societies loved to use the language of “renaissance” to describe the emergence of something good and new. Sometimes this new movement was a rebirth of a glorious past, but the language of renaissance in the United States largely equates to a disturbing re-writing of history.
America’s ethnocidal culture has almost no attachment to the physical place that is North America, apart from a scorched earth policy of trying to replicate Europe from afar or manipulating the land in order to generate wealth. American ethnocide is actually the result of the attempt at a European Renaissance in the Americas, which we know is far more regressive than progressive. It does not equate to liberation or advancement, thus the language of renaissance is not applicable to this country.
The language of naissance, however, can have a home in America because in response to ethnocidal destruction we must give birth to something completely new. Applying naissance instead of renaissance reminds us that the destruction of ethnocide means that we do not have a previous good that we can attempt to replicate. Eǔtopia is not the return of a previous good place, but the creation of a new one. We must birth or naissance Eǔtopia, and as Mexico’s mestizo culture shows us, we do not need an idyllic origin story and revere our founders. We can know that part of our founding was derived from evil people with horrible ideas and we can still engage in a cultural naissance that is not defined by the evils of the past.
As Americans of different races, cultures, and religions come together to form good faith relationships and birth something new, we engage in ethnogenesis / cultural naissance. Communities of color have been doing this for generations, but without the language to articulate their actions. By providing the language for the cultural creation we have engaged in for a long time, we further empower this necessary cultural process and get one step closer to creating Eǔtopian spaces.
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