In this chapter, the authors approach the perspective of Nomadic Hybridism that appears from the interaction of subject-avatars as digital technologies, mainly with the Metaverse technology, in a space of flow. They present and discuss subtopics like “Space of Flow, Nomadism, and Interculturalism,” “Digital Virtual Nomadism or Metanomadism.” The conclusion about the chapter is that hybridism and nomadism, even being different elements, are mutually empowering. In other words, the hybrid context makes evident the difference and triggers mobility of other differences. The possibility of being anywhere and/or everywhere contributes to the capacity of articulating, relating, and consequently, mingling.
TopIntroduction
We currently find ourselves in a highly connected and paradoxical scenario, being anywhere without leaving home, fluid frontiers, permeable boarders, plural places and presences. We are becoming very intimate with digital technology and we are developing the capacity to “think with” and “from” the use of such technologies, constructing 3D digital virtual worlds, which are also the worlds in which we live.
Therefore, we configure ways of living, particular and singular, for several reasons. Firstly, because we are thinking and building relationships within a digital virtual environment1. Secondly, because coexisting starts being timeless and space is understood as flow, according to Castells (2003)2. Thirdly, because this configuration of living contributes to the future generations developing more dialectic, systemic, complex, hybrid and nomadic perspectives3. In the dynamic described above, we have seen complex movements in the sense of highlighting hybridism, in different domains, empowering the nomadic instinct, between human beings.
We deal with the nomadic instinct, according to Maffesoli (2012), designer of the postmodern nomadic relating it to the Greeks’ daemon (evil and good creatures, who presented several faces). As a result, when we think of digital technology in synergy with archaism (formation of tribes), we have the action of this critical and sensual spirit, in other words, the daemon. With the advances of techniques, and scientific development and the totalitarian rationalization of life, we can see a species of “unveiling the world”, individualized, dichotomy, lonely, human beings. However, with postmodern technology, which has linked the logia (Greek work meaning study) to the teckné (Greek word meaning technique, art or work) under the action of this daemon, the opposite seems to happen, “becoming enchanted with the world”, collectivized human beings, plural in a “being together” and in all spaces, which configure themselves as hybrid.
Hybridism consists, in its common sense, of the crossing of two distinct elements, to make up another element, so, hybridism is the action of mingling elements or objects. According to Backes (2013), the origin of the hybridism concept comes from biology (Canclini, 2006), meaning mingling different species, for Franck (2012). In this domain, according to Santaella (2008, p.20), hybridism characterizes: “instabilities, interstice, sliding and constant reorganizations of cultural scenarios, the interactions and reintegration of levels, genres and ways of culture, identity crossing, culture transnationalization, fast growth of technologies and communicational media, expansion of cultural markets and emergence of new habits of consuming”.
We therefore configure spaces in the context of digital technological hybridism4. The concept of Digital technological hybridism, developed in the context of the Research Group GPe-dU – UNISINOS/CNPq, is in a process of construction, reflection, maturing and systematization.
The word hybridism combined with the adjectives technological and digital, according to Backes (2011), results in digital technological hybridism, in other words, a coherent conjunction (which in the crossing can be different and contradictory) of accomplishment possibilities of human action in a space of digital virtual nature, through digital technology. Therefore, digital technological hybridism happens in the crossing of different technological resources, that normally complement each other (under a more technical and physical perspective); and in the contradictory crossing of usually consolidated logic, as in the case of metaphorical representations and graphic of knowledge in pedagogical practices (under a more philosophical and conceptual perspective). So, the crossing, integration and articulation between digital technology happens as human beings appropriate, elaborate or mobilize instruments (digital technology) in their actions and interactions under the coexistence perspective.