partially incorporate the perspectives and logic of the dominant culture, resulting
in a self-representation that is partially rooted in cultural constructs imposed from
above. The term was first used in the 1940s and 1950s by Latin American intellec-
tuals like the Cuban ethnographer Fernando Ortiz and the Uruguayan writer Angel
Rama, who focused on the role indigenous culture played in shaping the character
of national identity. A common manifestation of transculturation isreligious syn-
cretism, with the resultant faith sometimes gaining recognition as a new religious
movement, as in the case of voodoo, Santeria, or the so-called “cargo cults” of the
South Pacific. Transculturation is related to the process of modernization, but
where the latter term implies an abandonment of cultural values and practices in
favor of uniform, contemporary standards, transculturation suggests an adaptation
based on the interaction and interpretation of social and historical evaluations
from all the included cultural influences. The process of crafting a national identity
in a multinational state that may eventually lead to the evolution of anation-state,
may be seen as a variation of transculturation. Such identity to be successfully
constructed involves the adaptation and reconstruction at some level of values
and mores of all member groups, who must by default constitute and recognize
its legitimacy.
Some post-modern scholars of literature, such as Mary L. Pratt, have argued
that transculturation is in reality a form of resistance to theethnocentrismof the
colonizing power, and that the process is most pronounced in so-called “contact
zones.” Such zones are fundamentally a geographic construct, because they re-
present the space in which the process of transculturation transpires, and in which
elements of a cultural hybridization areincubated and ultimately expressed. In
purely geographical terms, such spaces represent the reduction of distance in a
core and peripheryrelationship linked tocultural diffusion. In a post-colonial
context,globalizationmay be viewed as an expression of transculturation. This
situation is more complex than the colonial example, in that globalization does
not transpire via exclusive binary relationships, nor is there a single “hegemonic”
culture, to borrow Pratt’s term, that dominates, although some commentators
would contend that Western culture itself serves as the hegemonic element in glob-
alization.
Transhumance
A seasonalmigrationamong nomadic herders between regions of different eleva-
tions. Transhumance is a type ofpastoralism, but is specific to topography and
should not be confused with more general nomadic herding or migration with
Transhumance 347