Some anthropological musings on Creolization

This paper traces the move of the concept of “creolization” from the

discipline of linguistics to those of anthropology and history during the

second half of the twentieth century, focusing on its uses in New World

slavery studies. Two positions are contrasted in recent studies of North

American slavery, those of African-Centrists and those of creolists, with

the first stressing the continued importance of African heritage and

identities in the New World and the second emphasizing the newness of the

institutions that enslaved Africans and their descendants created in the

Americas. Several exemplary studies of creolization in different parts of

the Americas are reviewed. The paper suggests that ideology and subject

position often drive historical analyses and that only strict

historicization will permit further advances in understanding the complex

processes that we call “creolization.”

Published online: 6 April 2007
https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.22.1.03pri