Creolization

Creolization

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Creolization, in its most general meaning, is a process of cultural change, the origins of which lie in encounters between Africans and Europeans, initially in a context of slavery and colonialism. This process produces new “creole” cultures and societies. Creolization is characteristic of the Caribbean, Louisiana, and much of Latin America, where creole refers to people, languages, music, and things that are created in the “New World” but are not of indigenous ancestry. The term may also refer to the cultures of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Mauritius. More specific meanings are demographic, where creolization refers to an increasing proportion of the population being locally born of African, European, or mixed descent, as distinct from both indigenous people and immigrants; and linguistic, where it means the development of a new language, such as Haitian or Jamaican Creole, which normally coexists with, but is distinct from, a particular European language.

Creole people, languages, and products resulted from interactions between external influences and local conditions, where power was a pervasive factor. When slave owners, missionaries, and colonial administrators tried to suppress African cultures and impose aspects of European cultures, they were often ignored or resisted. In many Caribbean societies during the period of slavery, most people were enslaved Africans who came from many different cultures, while power was exercised by a minority of Europeans and white Creoles. Africans tried to maintain their traditions, and the process of creolization was an adaptation to the physical environments and social constraints in which they lived. A creole culture is generally not homogeneous, but may be conceived as a continuum between its Afro-creole and Euro-creole variants.

Édouard Glissant, a poet, playwright, novelist, and cultural theorist from Martinique, views creolization as the central cultural process that defines the Caribbean. He emphasizes that creole cultures, like the ceaselessly changing creole languages, are characterized by diverse origins, fragmentation and adaptation, fluidity and openness. Glissant posits that the creolization process, unlike assimilation or acculturation, is creative, accepts difference, and remains open, because people may adopt aspects of “other” cultures without relinquishing their own.

The concept of creolization has ideological and political implications. Creole people and culture are evaluated negatively by those who consider them inferior because they are not “pure” European, but positively by those who view them as being authentic and appropriate to the places where they developed. The positive evaluation of creole culture and identity became an important aspect of cultural nationalism because it emphasizes the local and unifying nature of the creole way of life, but people and cultures that are defined as “noncreole” may be excluded from full participation in nations that are defined as creole. In Trinidad and Tobago, for example, the Afro-creole culture that includes carnival, calypso, and steel bands is promoted as the center of national culture, so many Trinidadians of Indian descent feel marginalized.

Acculturation, hybridization, and transculturation are related concepts that are more general in application than creolization. Acculturation emphasizes the process in which an ethnic group acquires another culture in a largely one-way process of cultural change, and hybridization implies a process of miscegenation, or biological mixing. Transculturation, a concept coined by the Cuban scholar Fernando Ortiz (1881–1969) in 1940, refers to the multiple interactions and creation of new cultures, not limited to creole cultures in the Caribbean. Creolization, despite its ideological implications, is a useful concept because it focuses on creative aspects of cultural change, without assuming the unlimited power and success of the Europeans, but it is limited by its specific association with cultures that originated from encounters between Africans and Europeans.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Burton, Richard D. E. 1997. Afro-Creole: Power, Opposition, and Play in the Caribbean. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Shepherd, Verene A., and Glen L. Richards, eds. 2002. Questioning Creole: Creolisation Discourses in Caribbean Culture. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle.

O. Nigel Bolland