Looking for TCK novels?
Try Heidi Tunberg’s TCK Resources:
http://tckresources.com/
Or a booklist I compiled for this blog (Needs updates!):
https://thirdcultureliterature.blogspot.com/2014/07/an-ever-growing-list-of-third-culture.html
Terminology:
A cluster of terms about people who have relocated (used in Literary Analysis, but also widely in other disciplines):
• Migrant (moves temporarily, e.g. “migrant worker”)
• Immigrant (moves permanently to a new place, often adopts citizenship in new locale)
• Emigrant (moves from a place)
• Diaspora (originally from the Jewish diaspora—a scattered population whose origin is elsewhere. E.g. Indian diasporic population in England, Hong Kong diasporic population in Vancouver)
• Global (Catch-all for anything people want to imply is international in some way!
A footnote on problems: these terms often imply racial difference and power imbalances.
Two heavily theorized literary terms:
• Postcolonial. After C19 European colonialism in Africa, India, Caribbean, Australia, Canada, NZ. Texts from formerly colonized countries, often engaged with the aftermath of the colonial encounter (racism, empire, recuperating indigenous and national identities).
• Borderland. Spanning a border (e.g. First Nations peoples whose territories span the Canada/US border or, most commonly, migrant workers whose lives straddle the Mexico/US border)
Terms to compare with TCK:
1) Hybrid
Hybrid is something mixed. It combines elements.
A CCK might be hybrid . . . But a TCK (neither/nor, not an amalgamation) might not be.
2) Transnational
Steven Vertovec “Transnationalism and Identity”
“social worlds that span more than one place”
“Circular flows of persons, goods, information and symbols”
“tendency towards claiming membership in more than one place.”
Nancy L. Greene The Limits of Transnationalism
“Transnationalism emphasizes the back-and forth-ness of interconnected ties”
“Circular flows” (Vertovec) and “back- and forth-ness” (Greene) (ie repeated crossings of the same borders) are not necessarily typical of the TCK.
“membership in more than one place”: TCKs feel neither/nor rather than the both/and.
Transnationalism can happen at any age . . . And you don’t even need to be a person (“goods, information and symbols”)
3) Interstitial, Liminal, In-Between
Key Theorist: Homi K. Bhabha (Location of Culture, Nation and Narration)
Interstice: usually, a small gap
Liminal: a transitional area (e.g. a hallway), a threshold, a border
In-Between: being in between things
For Bhabha: diasporic populations are positioned on the line itself between one thing and another.
TCK is neither/ nor.
Liminal etc. are the actual dividing line.
Sounds like TCK, but isn’t:
Third World
(a.k.a. “developing countries.” Used a lot in C20. Redolent with racism and neocolonial attitudes)
Third World Cosmopolitanism
A term generated by Timothy Brennan in the 1980s: Essentially involves a “third world” postcolonial author who has relocated to a major “first world” city. E.g. Salman Rushdie.
Third Culture
The Emerging Third Culture by John Brockman
“In 1959 C.P. Snow published a book titled The Two Cultures. On the one hand, there were the literary intellectuals; on the other, the scientists.” In 1963, Snow expanded his idea when he “optimistically suggested that a new culture, a "third culture," would emerge and close the communications gap between the literary intellectuals and the scientists.”
