Focusing on moments of cultural encounters Ortiz's concept of transculturation describes different phases and considers the impact of power imbalances on processes of cultural transformation. A problematic edge of Ortiz's concept, however, is that he suggests a homogeneous Latin American cultural landscape that evolves from three cultural bases: a harmonious mestizian culture, an enforced tension between rural and urban spaces and finally, the growing pressures of modernization. Such conceptualization of a Latin American modernity is problematic since it neither considers reciprocal dynamics nor the existence of an indigenous modernity that is able to stimulate and influence development processes.

The idea of an indigenous modernity is to some extent integral to Homi Bhabha's notion of hybridity, but his concept essentially suggests that all negotiations are carried out between colonial/imperial and postcolonial parties and thus remain fixed in this very nexus, and seem too static for describing modern lives in a globalised world.

Recent migration studies seek to dishevel the distinction between the colonial/imperial vs. the postcolonial by introducing concepts such as transmigration and transculturality, particularly relevant for describing post-diasporic societies and identities. Following this pattern, the paper seeks to answer the following questions: at what cost can a critical approach to the New English Literatures and Cultures accommodate the presented concepts? Is the political lost in transcultural criticism? Can transcultural criticism endorse cultural permeability while neglecting moments of confrontations and conflict?  And, to what extent do concepts of transculturality indeed present a new dimension to an understanding of cultures in transformation?

SISSY HELFF holds her Ph.D. from Frankfurt University. She is postdoctoral Assistant in the Department for the New Literatures in English at Frankfurt University, Germany.  Her main fields of interest are postcolonial and transcultural literature and theory, narratology and media studies. Her publications include Die Erfahrung der Migration in der Black British Frauenliteratur (1999) and her more recent Unreliable Truths: Indian Homeworlds in Transcultural Women’s Literature (2008), the co-edited volumes Transcultural English Studies (2007) and Transcultural Modernities: Narrating Africa in Europe (2008).  At the moment she is a visiting researcher at the interdisciplinary Postcolonial Studies Centre of University of Leeds.