Creole Culture Research Articles

Madmen and Matriarchs: Gender, Race, and the Reimagining of Creole Identity in Johnelle , by Alfred Mercier

Abstract: Still relatively overlooked, Johnelle by Alfred Mercier is an intriguing meditation on societal collapse and resilience. Shaped by Mercier’s personal experiences and political leanings, the novel delves into motherhood, fatherhood, heredity, and mental illness, and links infanticide to the demise of Francophone Creole culture. It positions female characters as pivotal to Louisiana’s future, contrasting them with male figures whose relevance fades in the aftermath of the American Civil War. This essay examines how Mercier challenged nineteenth-century literary conventions by using gender both as a narrative device and an ontological framework. To a white, crumbling patriarchy, he opposed a multi-racial matriarchal system, and introduced a gender-non-conforming character, inviting readers to envision new possibilities for the future. Ultimately, Johnelle presents a radical vision that questions racial and gender hierarchies and advocates for alternative social structures in postbellum Louisiana.

Negotiated Resistance: Counterstories of Louisiana Creole Spirituality

ABSTRACT Louisiana Creole as a cultural identity is inextricably linked to Blackness. An understanding of Creole identity as a challenge to the racial binary imposed within Louisiana illuminates the larger legacies of colonialism, slavery, and systems of inequality within society. Creoles organised and fought against racial inequality and segregation through the collective of the Citizens’ Committee forming the legal challenge of Plessy v. Ferguson. Although Louisiana Creoles have been associated with Catholicism, as St. Augustine stands as a historical site of Creole culture, spiritual practices have transcended institutionalised religions. Louisiana Creoles critiqued the institution of the Catholic Church and developed methods of resistance. Drawing upon the legacy of social clubs, Creoles used the format of these associations to further spiritual activism. Through adopting aspects of Catholicism, African traditions, and Louisiana and Creole culture, they formed belief systems and devised intersectional strategies to combat institutional racism.

The Analysis of Conflict in The Awakening by Kate Chopin

This paper mainly examines the conflict in the text. Kate Chopin is a famous American woman novelist in the late 19th century who creates a lot of short stories and novels. The famous novel The Awakening is her masterpiece. Edna Pontellier is the heroine in this novel, whose heart is full of conflict when searching for selfhood. The conflict of the heroine lies in her choice in the role model, her nature, her love and her awakening. Not only the heroine’s conflict but also the conflict between the Creole culture and the Victorian culture illustrated in the text of The Awakening reflects Kate Chopin’s conflict in creating her works. The social background and her personal experience are the root reasons which contribute to Chopin’s conflict characterization in her writing. (Paichai University)

New Orleans Coffee in The Awakening: The Legacy of Rose Nicaud

New Orleans Coffee in <i>The Awakening</i>: The Legacy of Rose Nicaud

Cajun Music: A Reflection of a People. Volume II

Cajun Music: A Reflection of a People. Volume II

Différentes sources d’inspiration dans l’oeuvre romanesque d’Ananda Devi

In the article the author analyses various sources of inspiration noticeable in the works of Ananda Devi. Considering the writer’s background, her native island of Mauritius, a multi-ethnic multi-lingual and multi-cultural island, various cultural inspirations are noticeable in her works. The author of this article focuses on the novelist’s prose and analyses the cultural references rooted in Indian, European, African and Creole cultures. The aim of this analysis is also to describe the intertextual relations that exist between some of Ananda Devi’s texts and the works of Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Arthur Rimbaud or Malcolm de Chazal, T. S. Eliot, Toni Morrison and J. M. Coetzee. In the analysis, the author draws on the research of Homi Bhabha and Gérard Genette.

Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood

Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood

Ethnicity, Self-Knowledge and Literary Sensitivity: A Sociological Reading of V. S. Naipaul’s First Four Novels

Taking a cue from G. S. Ghurye’s Shakespeare on Conscience and Justice (1965) this lecture in his memory explores the role of ethnicity in shaping the self-knowledge and literary sensitivity of V. S. Naipaul. Naipaul’s life traverses three distinct cultures: the Hindu culture brought by his ancestors who came as indentured migrants to Trinidad, the Creole culture of colonial Trinidad and the emerging modern culture of western civilisation. Much of Naipaul’s self-knowledge involved his engagement with these three cultures and his experience of the interplay between colonialism and ethnicity. In his first four novels— Miguel Street, The Mystic Masseur, The Suffrage of Elvira and A House for Mr Biswas—Naipaul describes the life and times of the descendants of Indian immigrants in colonial Trinidad and the making of a girmitiya diaspora there. The lecture delineates the rare sociological insights into this diaspora provided by these novels.

Dancing Revolution: Bodies, Space and Sound in American Cultural History, by Christopher J. Smith

<i>Dancing Revolution: Bodies, Space and Sound in American Cultural History</i>, by Christopher J. Smith

The possibility of a creolised planet

In this interview Paul Gilroy talks to Femi Oriogun-Williams about his love of folk music of all kinds. He discusses its songs of expropriation, suffering, soldiering, impressment and migration; its relationship to the countryside - often a dangerous and menacing place - and to Englishness, including English nationalism; and the role of Black performers inside the world of folk, including Nadia Cattouse, Dorris Henderson, and Dav(e)y Graham. He also discusses the cosmopolitan of musicians, and their appetite for music that operates across cultural and national boundaries; the plasticity, pliability and nomadic aspects of musical forms mean that Nina Simone can make a song by Sandy Denny her own, and Kathryn Tickell can experiment with South Asian sources; it allows songs to appear in many different versions, as with 'The Lakes of Pontchartrain'. The folk traditions of the Atlantic world exhibit all of the recombinant cultural DNA that went into them. This creates the possibility of reading the culture of the Atlantic world, North and South, with the idea of a Creole culture - and the possibility of thinking with a creolised planet in mind.

Writing Ourselves into Time: Stories of Indo-Trinidadian Women

ABSTRACT Three generations of Indo-Trinidadian women are the major subjects in the stories that emerge as the researcher/writer situates herself as an Indo-Caribbean Canadian. A traditionally patriarchal culture has previously rendered women as minor characters within the literature of the region. The writer gains new perspective after leaving a home country that has been characterised by colonisation. This work explores threads of memory in retrieving stories that are at risk of disappearing over time. Customs that characterised life for earlier generations of Indo-Trinidadian women show up as interesting details, giving insight into the resilience of people who had limited circumstances in rural Trinidad. As the generations progress, and as there is more urban exposure, identity is complicated by the dominant Trinidadian Creole culture. The stories offer glimpses into lives where traditional Indian culture morphs into a unique Indo-Trinidadian one. The three women embrace assimilation into a larger Trinidadian culture, but in varying degrees. For the researcher, learning to write about Indo-Trinidadian women’s experiences is as important as the stories that are written. Through interviews, questioning, authoethnography, memory work, and storytelling, events are reconstructed from snippets of inherited fragments of experiences.

The Representation of ‘the New Woman’ in Kate Chopin’s the Awakening and in Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil’s Aşk-ı Memnu | Kate Chopin’in Uyanış ile Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil’in Aşk-ı Memnu Romanlarında “Yeni Kadın” Temsiliyeti

Social changes often take place when a culture is confronted with the influence of an overpowering, ‘higher’ culture with predetermined sets of values. In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, the Creole culture is changing due to the influence of the North (of America) and in Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil’s Aşk-ı Memnu, Turkish culture is affected by the West (Europe). The results of these influences are observed best in the characters of women and conceptions about womanhood. Two heroines of these novels, Edna and Bihter, do not conform to the norms of their society, resulting in conflicts in their family and friend circles and leading to their subsequent suicides. They represent the new type of woman or the ‘new woman’, who seeks to set the rules of her own life and enjoys the same social freedom as men do, however, these women cannot manage the overwhelming social changes and eventually falter. The aim of this research is to analyse the periods of big social and political transitions in the communities and the representation of new women in the face of these changes.

Louisiana Trail Riders

Black trail-riding clubs have their roots in Creole culture that formed in South Louisiana in the eighteenth century. Today, trail rides are an opportunity for generations of people to gather, celebrate, and ride horseback. The riders form a distinctive yet little-known subculture in Southwest Louisiana, one that exists in stark contrast to most depictions of cowboys and serves as a reminder that Black equestrian culture stems from a time when the Louisiana Territory was in fact the American West. Black riders across the country have received greater prominence with the rise of Black Lives Matter and have taken the reins of a symbol long associated with independence and power.

“MUSIC OF THE SLAVES” IN THE INDIAN OCEAN CREOLE ISLANDS: A PERSPECTIVE FROM THE SEYCHELLES

This article examines the development and expression of the moutya from Seychelles, in relation to the sega from Mauritius and the maloya from Reunion. These musical styles and their associated practices are recognised as evidence of an African heritage in the archipelagos. To better understand their connections and singularities, I utilise a diachronic and synchronic approach, at local and regional levels. The purpose is to demonstrate the mobility of musicians and the permeability of musical practices in these islands over time, using history and narratives from the colonial period (from the end of the seventeenth century) to the present, and fieldwork observations. This approach shows how music and dance elements from Africa are creolised on the islands and how they are further adapted as islanders travel around these islands. In the process one musical practice becomes many, although they fall into a matrix of styles sharing similar features. The article approaches the emergence and the transformation of (what would become) moutya in the Seychelles by first describing the emergence of musical creativity in the Mascarenes and Seychelles. This is followed by a discussion of the transition from a marginal and resistance form of music to new musical categories. Finally, the article describes circulations and musical exchanges between the islands, opening the door to a better understanding of Creole culture and music in the south-western Indian Ocean islands.

Los historiadores mexicanos del siglo XIX y el surgimiento de la identidad nacional mexicana

The present article is trying to find and link the work of the 19th‑century Mexican historiography with the emergence of the national identity of the society of Mexico. Contextualizing this process, the paper recalls the main events of the political scene of a newly independent and sovereign country, also involved in a whole series of international conflicts. The purpose is to find, in the works of Teresa de Mier, Bustamante, Ramírez, Icazbalceta, Paso and Troncoso, Alemán, Orozco and Berra, those contributions that had a relevant impact on the vision of the historical past related to both the independence process and the pre‑Hispanic period, that is, Mesoamerican and colonial history. These contributions are perceived mainly in the rescue of the masterpiece of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún and the confrontation with the foundational narration of both the Creole culture and the indigenous culture that was formed after the conquest, i.e. the miraculous appearance of the Virgin from Guadalupe.

Creolization and Creole People in Early Modern Caribbean Colonial Societies

Creolization is one of the most fascinating topics for regional studies on the Americas. Previously, scholars across various academic disciplines have extensively studied and viewed creolization in the substantial content under the trend—how did creolization proceed—such as the material and cognitive development of creole cultures and peoples: their way of living, and the linguistic aspect of creolization has been especially focused on. This paper, however, focuses more on the palpable impacts of creolization and delves into the way in which such ethnic convergence influenced the sociopolitical environment of colonial societies, or the impacts of the process, which provides a better understanding of how the dynamic of creolization affected the colonial societies back then, instead of merely informing the readers of how creolization was happening. Specific primary and secondary sources have been used and referenced, based on which the study has been conducted. The study has reached a conclusion that creolization had a complicating impact on the sociopolitical environment of the colonial Caribbean.

SPATIALIZING BLACK CULTURE THROUGH THE PLACEMAKING TRADITION OF THE RURAL LOUISIANA CREOLE BOUCHERIE

abstract Before the advent of refrigeration and grocery stores, Louisiana’s rural Creoles—mixed-race French-heritage people who usually identify as black—supplemented their diets through self-provisioning activities such as the ritual of butchering of a hog and distributing its products amongst kin and neighbors. Called a boucherie, this activity continues in the state’s rural southwest and is deeply linked to present-day Creole identity. Collected through ethnographic and archival methods, this research argues that the boucherie gives spatial expression to Creole culture through reuniting family members, sharing intergenerational wisdom and memories, and, for some, meeting sustenance needs. I draw from research on black placemaking—conceptualized as the ways black Americans “create sites of endurance, belonging, and resistance through social interaction,” (Hunter and others 2016, 1)—ritualized commemorative practices, and spatializing culture. This study contributes to the burgeoning field of black geographies by demonstrating how boucheries serve culture-sustaining roles for black Louisianans.

Making Space for Heritage: Collaboration, Sustainability, and Education in a Creole Community Archaeology Museum in Northern Belize

Working with local partners, we developed an archaeology museum in the Creole community of Crooked Tree in the Maya lowlands of northern Belize. This community museum presents the deep history of human–environment interaction in the lower Belize River Watershed, which includes a wealth of ancient Maya sites and, as the birthplace of Creole culture, a rich repository of historical archaeology and oral history. The Creole are descendants of Europeans and enslaved Africans brought to Belize—a former British colony—for logging in the colonial period. Belizean history in schools focuses heavily on the ancient Maya, which is well documented archaeologically, but Creole history and culture remain largely undocumented and make up only a small component of the social studies curriculum. The development of a community archaeology museum in Crooked Tree aims to address this blind spot. We discuss how cultural sustainability, collaborative partnerships, and the role of education have shaped this heritage-oriented project. Working with local teachers, we produced exhibit content that augments the national social studies curriculum. Archaeology and museum education offer object-based learning geared for school-age children and provide a powerful means of promoting cultural vitality, and a more inclusive consideration of Belizean history and cultural heritage practices and perspectives.

Community Development and Cultural Creolization Through Food: The Oval Site at Stratford Hall Plantation

ABSTRACT The once-dynamic Oval Site at Stratford Hall Plantation in Westmoreland County, Virginia, is a prime example of how the history of an enslaved community can be lost to time. As an eighteenth-century farm quarter that housed both an overseer and enslaved individuals, the undocumented space was a location of constant cultural interaction and negotiation that, without archaeology, would have remained unknown. An archaeobotanical analysis conducted on plant remains recovered from the site demonstrates how enslaved Africans and African Americans on the site acquired and consumed food, and interacted with the site overseer and slave owners. Identified botanical material suggests that food was both a mechanism and a product of community development, identity formation, and agency assertion. The botanical assemblage further illuminates the multitude of influences and experiences that went into forming new, creolized African American foodways.

Emancipation address as creole testimony: Muhammad Kabā Saghanughu, a formerly enslaved Muslim in Jamaica

ABSTRACT During the celebration of emancipation in the British West Indies, Muhammad Kabā Saghanughu, a 90-year-old former apprentice from West Africa living in Jamaica wrote and likely delivered a speech in Arabic script and had it delivered to Jamaican Governor, Sir Lionel Smith. This recently discovered manuscript exhibits elements of the ‘freedom narrative’ as defined by Paul E. Lovejoy and of ‘creole testimony’ as identified by Nicole N. Aljoe. The language and discourse of the address reveal that linguistic and cultural creolization can be deliberate rather than organic. Kabā Saghanughu ingeniously used the official colonial discourse of this public occasion to project into the historical record his autobiography and critique of slavery.