Religious Creolization and Differentiation

Abstract

Religious differentiations are as important as creolization processes in creole societies. Taking four generations of a family in La Réunion as an example, I illustrate how religious practices and identifications can develop historically, culturally and socially in a creole context. Changing importance of and identification with religious practices are interrelated with political developments and power relations, ranging from the colonial context via departmentalization to regionalization, which come along with possibilities and felt expectations of cultural identification, including as French, Indian, Hindu, Reunionese, and Creole. Religious practices also reflect changing images of Hindus, such as from indentured laborers to successful entrepreneurs, as well as their aspirations for recognition and status. Combining people’s material and sensory approaches to religion with the discursive level of their life stories reveals a complex historically embedded relation between religious creolization and differentiation.