What happens when cultures meet and new creative expressions emerge
Global in scope and multidisciplinary in approach, Creolization as
Cultural Creativity explores the expressive forms and performances that
come into being when cultures encounter one another. Creolization is
presented as a powerful marker of identity in the postcolonial Creole
societies of Latin America, the Caribbean, and the southwest Indian
Ocean region, as well as a universal process that can occur anywhere
cultures come into contact. An extraordinary number of cultures from
Haiti, Martinique, Guadeloupe, the southern United States, Trinidad and
Tobago, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, Réunion, Puerto Rico,
Argentina, Suriname, Jamaica, and Sierra Leone are discussed in these
essays. Essayists address theoretical dimensions of creolization and
present in-depth field studies. Topics include adaptations of the Gombe
drum over the course of its migration from Jamaica to West Africa; uses
of "ritual piracy" involved in the appropriation of Catholic symbols by
Puerto Rican brujos; the subversion of official culture and authority
through playful and combative use of "creole talk" in Argentine
literature and verbal arts; the mislabeling and trivialization ("toy
blindness") of objects appropriated by African Americans in the American
South; the strategic use of creole techniques among storytellers within
the islands of the Indian Ocean; and the creolized character of New
Orleans and its music. In the introductory essay the editors address
both local and universal dimensions of creolization and argue for the
centrality of its expressive manifestations for creolization
scholarship. Creolization as Cultural Creativity draws from the
disciplines of folklore, anthropology, ethnomusicology, literary
studies, history, and material culture studies. Contributors include
Roger D. Abrahams, Robert Baron, Kenneth Bilby, Ana C. Cara, J. Michael
Dash, Grey Gundaker, Lee Haring, Raquel Romberg, Nick Spitzer, and John
F. Swzed. Robert Baron, Brooklyn, New York, directs the folk arts
program of the New York State Council on the Arts. He is the coeditor,
with Nick Spitzer, of Public Folklore. Folklorist Ana C. Cara, Oberlin,
Ohio, is professor of Hispanic studies at Oberlin College. Her articles
have appeared in Journal of American Folklore, World Literature Today,
and Latin American Research Review.
