How to be different

Background The essay contributes to a collection that examines intersectionality in Australia. The collection addresses how normativity and difference are constructed and how marginalized subject positions might be given voice. 'Intersectionality' makes evident the connections between power and marginalisation. Yet, 'the hybrid' is often read as complicit with established divisions of power. Drawing on Greenblatt's (2009) idea of "at-homeness" as a test of belonging as well as Stuart Hall's ideas of the fluidity of cultural identity, my contribution asks, how might hybrid subjects construct themselves as 'different' and how does the fluidity of their identity shape their relationships to 'at homeness' and therefore, belonging? Contribution Hybridity is a form of difference that scrambles the sense and stability of 'normative' and 'different' because it contains both. My contribution identifies the blurring between normativity and difference. 'How to be different' builds on my research examining sites of meaning problematized by hybridity¬–sites that make this 'gap' manifest, such as 'skin' and 'home'; with its connotations of domestic intimacy, as well as nationality, culture, rights and belonging. This essayistic memoir addresses the nature of difference and how it might be inhabited bodily. I use metaphor to question ideas around intersectionality. For example, the main character cannot tell the difference between right and left, which reflects her inability to make sense of her own difference, given her fluid sense of identity. For her difference is, as in Stuart Hall, a process of becoming as well as being. It is as much about the future as it is about the past Significance The work was commissioned by Fremantle Press. The collection contributes to and extends discourse around difference and normativity within Australian culture. My essay extends this discourse to include hybridity. The work has been featured by the Wheeler Centre, Perth Writers Festival and SBS Life.