Strategies of dealing with the other: Coexistence and exclusion

Abstract

The specific character of Ortiz’s theory of transculturation is dependent on the Cuban context in which, and for which, it was elaborated. This article, opening with a sketch of Ortiz’s place of upbringing, Menorca, as a site of brutal struggles for identity hegemony over centuries, looks at the Mediterranean context of intercommunal mixing and antagonism, arguing that rather than an ajiaco (stew) it is a field of contest wherein the coexistence of pre-existing identities depend on fragile strategies of accommodation and “making way” but where often contact with alterity results in antagonistic struggles to neutralize the impact of the other.