Creolisation and hybridisation

AT THE end of this lesson, students will be able to:

■ Define creolisation and hybridisation.

■ Make a correlation between the dichotomy of creolisation and hybridisation and associate them to contemporary Caribbean.

The concept of creolisation has a rich and varied history, stretching back to the 16th century (Stewart, 2007). The word ‘creole’ was taken from the Spanish word criollo, which means ‘little child’. In this same breath, it should be highlighted that the term ‘creole’ is not only associated with language, but in history it is linked to persons who were born within the Caribbean, whether black or white. Stewart (2007) further highlighted that the term was first attested in Spanish, in 1590, with the meaning ‘Spaniard born in the New World’. By the early 1600s, a Peruvian source records it with the meaning of ‘blacks born in the New World’. It further came to mean any plant, animal or person born in the New World but of Old World progenitors.

The creolisation theory was coined in 1971 by Edward Kamau Brathwaite, a Barbadian poet and historian. Brathwaite (1971) purported that creolisation was a “cultural process that took place within a creole society – that is, within a tropical colonial plantation polity based on slavery. As such, Caribbean islands were attached to and dependent on the British; for its economic well-being, its protection and (from the view of the whites), its cultural models.” In summary, according to Brathwaite, creolisation can be defined as “people, mainly from Britain and West Africa, who settled, lived, worked and were born in the Caribbean, contributed to the formation of a society which, was neither purely British nor West African.”

EDWARD BRATHWAITE – CREOLISATION THEORIST

The creolisation model has grown in popularity due to the widespread interest in hybridisation in cultural studies as a result of globalisation and the emergence of plural societies in the developed world. Sociologists have argued that creolisation is a result of acculturation and interculturation. Acculturation exists when a dominant culture influences a subordinate culture. Interculturation, on the same hand, is a spontaneous combination of cultures. In the Caribbean, there are several variations of creolisation. These include Afro-Creoles (blacks), Euro-Creoles (whites) and Meso-Creoles (middle class).

The Caribbean has been argued to be a very hybrid society due to the unique merging of several cultural elements. Therefore, it is safe to say that this society is definitely not homogeneous but, rather, heterogeneous in nature. Other than language, religion is one of the most hybrid aspects of Caribbean culture. Religions such as Voodoo, Pocomania, Shouter Baptist, Revivalism, and Orisha are prime examples of hybridisation. In the Caribbean, persons with lighter skin are given preferential treatment and, due to this, a pigmentocracy evolved as a result of hybridisation. Pigmentocracy places persons with lighter skin in prestige positions and they wield the most power in society. A polyglot set of peoples also emerge in the Caribbean due to hybridisation and creolisation, and these are the individuals who showcase a rich and diverse race and ethnicity.

DOUGLARISATION

Prior to douglarisation, ‘coolitude’ was the expression used to highlight African and Indian descents. Shalini Puri, in her book The Caribbean Postcolonial: Social

Equality, Post Nationalism and Cultural Hybridity, indicates that hybridised identities are constantly expanding in a motion towards an evolving culture. The pejorative term ‘dougla’ comes from the Hindi term for mixed caste, but in the Caribbean context, it refers to an individual who is mixed with the Indian and Black race. In addition, it is a racist connotation of a state of unbelonging. For students who do literature at the CSEC level, one of the most popular West Indian books that highlight douglarisation is Green Days by the River by Michael Anthony. In countries such as Trinidad and Guyana, douglarisation is very evident in such societies, as a distinct line of demarcation has been drawn among the blacks, Indians, and those mixed with both ethnicities. Regis (2011) lucidly outlined that dougla is linked to ‘dogla’ which means ‘a person of impure breed, a two-face deceitful hypocrite’. Regrettably, this ideology is heavily held in the views of many in contemporary times. MESTIZO

A mestizo is an individual who is a mixed offspring of Spanish conquistadores and the Amerindian community. Places such as Belize and Peru have a vibrant civilization of mestizos who contribute to the cultural phenomenon of the region. Suffice it to say that concepts of multiracial identity have been present in Latin America since colonial times. In the early to mid-20th century, a number of countries in Latin America adopted the concept of ‘mestizaje’, or mixing and blending, and declared their populations mestizo in an effort to eliminate racial conflicts and promote national identity (Pew Research Center, 2015).

Due to miscegenation of races and ethnicities in the Caribbean, cultural erasure and cultural retention have taken place simultaneously. Cultural erasure is the gradual removal of certain traditions within a society, while cultural retention is the deliberate keeping of certain traditions. scribd.com)

Evaluation activity (taken from

■ Describe, in reference to your own country, examples of reassure and retention of cultural practices.