“What role does re-appropriation of past political violence and connection with the ancestry
play in the reconstruction of a dualistic cultural identity of individuals of diaspora today?”

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​One of the most prominent and influential scholars, Stuart Hall, a sociologist and cultural theorist, in his
widely known article “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” suggests two different ways of thinking of cultural
identity. The first one defines it in terms of one, shared culture, history and ancestry that reflect the common
historical experiences. Contrastingly, the second definition posits that cultural identity involves both
‘becoming’ as well as ‘being’ and “belongs to the future as much as to the past,” undergoing constant
transformations and becoming “subject to the continuous ‘play’ of history, culture and power.”