Créolité
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''Créolité'' is a literary movement first developed in the 1980s by the Martinican writers
Patrick Chamoiseau Patrick Chamoiseau (; born 3 December 1953) is a French author from Martinique known for his work in the créolité movement. His work spans a variety of forms and genres, including novels, essays, children's books, screenplays, theatre and comic ...
,
Jean Bernabé Jean Bernabé (1942 in Le Lorrain, Martinique – 12 April 2017 in Fort-De-France, Martinique) was a writer and linguist. Bernabé was a professor of language and culture at the Université des Antilles et de la Guyane. He was an important figur ...
and
Raphaël Confiant Raphaël Confiant (born January 25, 1951) is a Martinique, Martinican writer known for his literary commitment towards Creole literature. Life and career Raphaël Confiant was born in Le Lorrain, Martinique. He studied English and political sci ...
. They published ''Eloge de la créolité'' (In Praise of Creoleness) in 1989 as a response to the perceived inadequacies of the
négritude ''Négritude'' (from French "nègre" and "-itude" to denote a condition that can be translated as "Blackness") is a framework of critique and literary theory, mainly developed by francophone intellectuals, writers, and politicians in the Africa ...
movement. ''Créolité'', or "creoleness", is a
neologism In linguistics, a neologism (; also known as a coinage) is any newly formed word, term, or phrase that has achieved popular or institutional recognition and is becoming accepted into mainstream language. Most definitively, a word can be considered ...
which attempts to describe the cultural and linguistic heterogeneity of places like the
Antilles The Antilles is an archipelago bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the south and west, the Gulf of Mexico to the northwest, and the Atlantic Ocean to the north and east. The Antillean islands are divided into two smaller groupings: the Greater An ...
and, more specifically, of the French Caribbean. "Creoleness" may also refer to the scientifically meaningful characteristics of
Creole language A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable form of contact language that develops from the process of different languages simplifying and mixing into a new form (often a pidgin), and then that form expanding and elaborating into a full-fl ...
s, the subject of study in creolistics.


History

''Créolité'' can perhaps best be described in contrast with the movement that preceded it, ''la négritude'', a literary movement spearheaded by
Aimé Césaire Aimé Fernand David Césaire (; ; 26 June 1913 – 17 April 2008) was a French poet, author, and politician from Martinique. He was "one of the founders of the Négritude movement in Francophone literature" and coined the word in French. He ...
,
Léopold Sédar Senghor Léopold Sédar Senghor ( , , ; 9 October 1906 – 20 December 2001) was a Senegalese politician, cultural theorist and poet who served as the first president of Senegal from 1960 to 1980. Ideologically an African socialist, Senghor was one ...
and
Léon Damas Léon-Gontran Damas (March 28, 1912 – January 22, 1978) was a French poet and politician. He was one of the founders of the Négritude movement. He also used the pseudonym Lionel Georges André Cabassou. Biography Léon Damas was born in Ca ...
in the 1930s. ''Négritude'' writers sought to define themselves in terms of their cultural, racial and historical ties to the
African continent Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
as a rejection of
French colonial French colonial architecture includes several styles of architecture used by the French during colonization. French colonial architecture has a long history, beginning in North America in 1604 and being most active in the Western Hemisphere (Car ...
political
hegemony Hegemony (, , ) is the political, economic, and military predominance of one State (polity), state over other states, either regional or global. In Ancient Greece (ca. 8th BC – AD 6th c.), hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of ...
and of French cultural, intellectual, racial and moral domination. Césaire and his contemporaries considered the shared
black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...
heritage of members of the
African diaspora The African diaspora is the worldwide collection of communities descended from List of ethnic groups of Africa, people from Africa. The term most commonly refers to the descendants of the native West Africa, West and Central Africans who were ...
as a source of power and self-worth for those oppressed by the physical and psychological violence of the colonial project. In the words of Lewis, it is a "transitory" movement, "agent of revolutionary change" stimulated by a desire to express a Black singularity and a Black unity. Later writers such as the Martinican Edouard Glissant came to reject the monolithic view of "blackness" portrayed in the ''négritude'' movement. Indeed, an initial naming of this movement following ''négritude'' as ''créolitude'' in 1977 gave way to ''créolité'', with a change in suffix indicating a "strong semantic contrast." Backdropping créolité, in the early 1960s, Glissant advanced the concept of '' Antillanité'' ("Caribbeanness"), which claimed that Caribbean identity could not be described solely in terms of African descent. Caribbean identity came not only from the heritage of ex-slaves, but was equally influenced by indigenous Caribbeans, European colonialists, East Indian and Chinese (
indentured servant Indentured servitude is a form of Work (human activity), labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract called an "indenture", may be entered voluntarily for a prepaid lump sum, as paymen ...
s). Glissant and adherents to the subsequent ''créolité'' movement (called ''créolistes'') likewise stress the unique historical and cultural roots of Creole regions while still rejecting imperialist (especially French) dominance in these areas. Glissant points out that the slaves that were brought there and their descendants are no longer merely African "migrants", but became "new beings in a different space", part of a new identity born from a mixing of cultures and differences. The authors of ''Eloge de la créolité'' describe ''créolité'' as "an annihilation of false universality, of monolinguism, and of purity." (''La créolité est une annihilation de la fausse universalité, du monolinguisme et de la pureté''). In particular, the ''créolité'' movement seeks to reverse the dominance of French as the language of culture and literature in French-based Creole areas. Instead it valorizes the use of Creole languages in literary, cultural and academic contexts. Indeed, many of the ''créolistes'' publish their novels in both Creole and French. They advocate a heterogenous identity and proudly bear their differences and are "neither Europeans, nor Africans, nor Asians, we proclaim ourselves Créoles". (''ni Européens, ni Africains, ni Asiatiques, nous nous proclamons créoles'').


Bibliography

* Bernabé, Jean, Patrick Chamoiseau & Raphaël Confiant (1989), ''Éloge de la créolité'', Paris: Gallimard. p. 28. * . * Wittmann, Henri (1999). "Prototype as a typological yardstick to creoleness." ''The Creolist Archives Papers On-line'', Stockholms Universite


See also

*
Creole peoples Creole peoples may refer to various ethnic groups around the world. The term's meaning exhibits regional variations, often sparking debate. Creole peoples represent a diverse array of ethnicities, each possessing a distinct cultural identity tha ...
*
Creolization Creolization is the process through which creole languages and cultures emerge. Creolization was first used by linguists to explain how contact languages become creole languages, but now scholars in other social sciences use the term to describe ...
*
Négritude ''Négritude'' (from French "nègre" and "-itude" to denote a condition that can be translated as "Blackness") is a framework of critique and literary theory, mainly developed by francophone intellectuals, writers, and politicians in the Africa ...
*
Postcolonial literature Postcolonial literature is the literature by people from formerly colonized countries, originating from all continents except Antarctica. Postcolonial literature often addresses the problems and consequences of the colonization and subsequent deco ...
*
Suzanne Césaire Suzanne Césaire (; ; née Roussi; 11 August 1915, Poterie des Trois-Ilets, Martinique – 16 May 1966, Yvelines) was a French writer, teacher, scholar, anti-colonial and feminist activist, and Surrealist. She co-founded the Martinique cultural j ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Creolite Creole culture Latin American literature Literary movements Martiniquais literature Postcolonialism