This is being used by Nationalist movements in creating/re-creating an identity narrative that opposes the colonial narrative which cherry picks commonly held cultural or social or even biological attributes of a colonized group and attaches negative labels to them. Is there an opposing concept to essentialism? to the effect that cultural traits are not immutable but rather change through time and context? Because even if there were a certain trait which is retrieved as essential to a culture/group and existed before colonialism then after centuries under colonial rule this trait would have changed due to different context (because of history and political economy)?
Thank you. These are great questions. Constructivism is an opposing term to essentialism. And yes, any historical or cultural retrieval is always textual and thus cannot be essential but cultures do tend to essentialize national or tribal identities.
