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ANUSHRAY SINGH Third Spaces Third Space Theory explains the uniqueness, peculiarity and fluidity of each person, actor or context as “hybrid.””” Similarly, Edward Soja observes that Third Space “breaks the First Space-Second Space dualism and comprises such related concepts as place, location, locality, landscape, environment, home, city, region, territory and geography.”'* Homi K. Bhabha sees this space in comparison to Soja’s definition as spaces which act as an ambiguous area developing when two or more individuals/cultures interact, and we analyse them through cultural hybridity and intercultural encounters. The secondgeneration immigrants, as well as the prospering middle classes of South Asia, experience cultural hybridity to varying degrees. Unlike the first-generation immigrants or non-urban resident South Asians, their cultural hybridity allows them to access and move freely between both First and the Second spaces, and hence dissolve the distinction generally seen by the diasporic. This cultural hybridity is a result of fluency in cultures and languages of both their diaspora and the host. The intersection of the diaspora with that of the Western host society leads to the construction of Third Spaces. We may postulate that “hybrids” (the performers of South Asian-Western identities are “authentic” interlocutors and interpreters of both the First and Second space) are well versed in the cultural subtleties of their diaspora and the host society. This postulation is supported by South Asian cultural participation in popular Western culture. Many prominent filmmakers, artists and performers of South Asian descent often use their “cultural nuance” to relay realities of the immigrant experiences (the most common trope is growing up “brown” in the West) between their immigrant and host cultures. These cultural nuances implore both race and identity. Similarly, culturally hybrid citizens of any diasporic community have enough “agency” to invite disparate characters in our defined First and Second spaces to come together without prejudice. This coming together is an involvement in a more robust discourse surrounding identity, race, gender, culture, representation and art. I situate my work within these diasporic expressions as legitimate forms to develop discourses that see the diasporic as the authors of their own stories, experiences and cultural identities. These forms are observed in Third Space, the sites of construction for a South Asian diasporic identity where, “the categorization process has a dual, performative influence on the production of identity." I see them as an effective framework to enunciate South Asian-Western identities and South Asian cosmopolitan ones, which are often used by 7 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, London, Routledge, 1994, 55. 18 Sanghamitra Dalal, “Book Reviews: Communicating in the Third Space.” Transnational Literature, 2010, 3. 1% Carsignol, “The Constuction, Mobilization and Limits”, par. 55. * 148 +
