Créolité, Creolization, and Contemporary Caribbean Culture

Abstract

Taking the publication of Éloge de la créolité as a starting point, a number of key questions can be posed: What was the discursive and thematic goal of the Éloge? How does it distinguish itself from creolization? And how do we assess its political stance and its sociocultural accomplishments? One key predecessor, Kamau Brathwaite, suggested that the binarisms undergirding the principle of cultural distinctness on which much of the historical definition of the region was drawn be abandoned in favor of an increasing recognition of its intrinsic cultural heterogeneity. For many, the programmatic nature of the tenets of créolité—highlighting specificities of periodization and linguistic and cultural practice—appeared to mark the opposite of an open approach to ethnocultural representation. But perhaps créolité's ultimate value lay in its instantiation of an enunciative framework for cultural identity, also visible in Caribbean carnivals and in regional musical rhythms such as zouk.