Creolization
Creolization describes historical and cultural processes that led to the formation of the Creoles and the Creole languages . The first use of the Portuguese and Spanish term is documented from the 19th century; today it is mostly used for a state of cultural intermingling (see also multiculturalism ).
Etymology of the term and historical context
"The discourses about the etymology and meaning of the designation 'Creole' and the terms 'Creolization' and 'Creolity' vary depending on the social, historical and cultural context and depending on which group they are used by"
In this quote, Jacqueline Knörr already summarizes the various (grammatical) forms of the term that are associated with a change in meaning, and goes into the difficulty of an etymological definition. "Creolization" means a social process of cultural mixing, at the end of which there is a new culture. “Creolity”, on the other hand, is the quality resulting from “creolization”, which already suggests that creolization is a finite process. “Creole” ultimately means the title of an individual or a group, which is characterized by the characteristics explained below.
Knörr explains that the answer to the question about the origin of the term “Creole” would also answer the question about the “original Creole”: “For example, one becomes ' white ', while the other becomes black 'Etymology constructed - in order to derive a' white 'or' black 'primordial creole from it. "
While the oldest name for a "Creole", according to Knörr, is the Portuguese crioulo , the use of the Spanish word criollo was the first to be documented. This is the name given to the Spaniards born in the “ New World ” to differentiate them from the “ peninsulares ” born in Europe . Both words, however, can be traced back to the Latin creare , which can be translated as “create” and “create”. In addition, the Portuguese and Spanish verb criar ("raise, nourish, produce, create") and the noun cria ("baby, infant, person without family") are important, as they provide information about the context in which the term Creole is used has been. Ultimately, like the ending -olo or -oulo , which identifies a noun as a diminutive , they refer to the designation for children born in exile. Only later did the term Creole include adults born there. According to Charles Stewart, the first evidence of the use of the term creolization can be found in the 19th century, but the term creole can be attested as early as the 16th century. In the 16th and 17th centuries the differences between the Creoles and the individuals from the "Old World" were already being discussed. In light of the use of these terms, which v. a. find application in the colonial context, Jacqueline Knörr titled one of her works Postcolonial Creolity versus Colonial Creolization . Now that the "offsprings" born in the New World were viewed as Creoles, a few years later it hit America and African slaves sold to the colonies. By creoles, criollos or crioulos they were referred to as slaves born in the new colony. Slaves who were born in Africa, however, were called New Africans, Saltwater Negroes or Wild Negroes . "Creoles were also called the descendants of connections between blacks and whites and finally all non-indigenous people who were born in the country" ( Knörr 2009 : 94, cf. also Stewart 2007: 4, who explains that this strong narrowing of the term also is still practiced today.).
Ultimately, the term functioned as a differentiation between people and groups with regard to their indigenousness or descent, in contrast to the colonists and their descendants in the Old World. Knörr sees the exile of slaves and the early colonial societies as classic examples of historical creolization processes and explains the alternative process of the formation of diaspora communities, which could be made possible by a corresponding group size and dynamics.
Linguistic meaning
The term Creole language is often used to distinguish it from Pidgin languages . While pidgins are simplified and irregular means of communication that are often only spoken by non-native speakers and only follow rudimentary grammatical rules, creole languages are grammatically fully developed languages that also have a more extensive vocabulary. According to Stewart, linguists would now agree that creole languages result from the use of pidgin languages as a mother tongue. Creole languages are mostly based on the coming together of different contact languages, but still differ from them in the sound system and their grammar. “After the process of creolization, phonology , morphology , lexicons and syntax are different from those of the source languages” ( Stoll 2005 : 147) and are also acquired as a mother tongue. Today, Creole languages are spoken in many of the former colonies, derived from Spanish, Portuguese, French, English and Dutch ( e.g. French in the case of Martinique ). However, there are still uncertainties about the origin of some languages in Creole studies (see e.g. Thomas L. Markey and his work on Afrikaans ).
Ethnological and sociological significance then and now
On the meaning of the assignment and differentiation "Creole": On the one hand, Europeans who were born in the "New World" were called "Creoles", on the other hand people who were born in the New Colonies. The same thing happened to the descendants "from connections between (former) slaves or between relatives of different origins" ( Knörr 2009 : 95). “Creole” thus functions as a differentiation between different ethnicities and generations of American migrants and post-colonial groups. Creolization is also used in connection with terms (and process names ) such as globalization and transnationalization . The parallelization of these terms is justified: Creolization also describes a process or a solution that results from the coexistence of different cultures and languages. Especially in times of (economic) globalization, such terms and theoretical approaches are booming and are widely discussed.
“In the course of time, in the interaction of groups of different origins, they shaped new and common social and cultural forms that combined the characteristics of the different cultures of origin of the Creoles with those of the dominant colonial culture and the local culture”
But this course is also full of prerequisites, as Knörr describes. There must be a need for a new ethnic identity , which is likely when the identity of origin loses its social relevance and integration into the local society is made more difficult. In addition, “ethnic structuring and classification” seem to promote a creolization process.
Stoll also defines creolization as "the creative appropriation of cultural mixing while respecting and preserving diversity and heterogeneity" ( Stoll 2005 : 147). With a view to the definitions given, creolization can definitely be described as having positive connotations. It describes a process of merging different cultures and languages into a new, autonomous one, which is achieved through “cultural contact, encounter, mixing or mutual transformation of different cultures” ( Müller, Ueckmann 2013 : 9). With regard to the historical creolization processes, however, creolization can also be interpreted as a survival strategy: the forced departure from home, the loss of the familiar, and the situation of inequality and asymmetry. Creolization can therefore also be seen as "resistance to a complete loss of language and culture, to an economic system in which one became an object or a freely available person" ( Vergès 2008 quoted from Müller, Ueckmann 2013 : 10, cf. also Djoufack 2010: 118). Ultimately, creolization processes do not require the social oppression of large groups of the population, but the slave trade and the colonial efforts of Europe were a push factor : the population's great distance from their homeland and their familiar surroundings and the resulting need to be in a (albeit unknown) social structure to be embedded.
“There was both the need to live in forced exile and the need to preserve origin-related identity and culture against the background of heterogeneous origins, which, among other things, also served to distinguish from those who were decisive for the fate of one's own enslavement, deportation and oppression were responsible "
But what had a negative connotation at the beginning became a different experience and memory through time and the increasing cultural exchange between the Creolized, the Creolized and the local. Due to the heterogeneity of society, its different origins and the interaction that takes place between the different groups, “quasi-neo-integrated” cultures emerge, which in turn culminate in a new collective identity. The peculiarity of creolization is that previously parallel cultures and languages in their merged form replace the old contact languages and the previous culture (and identity).
Creolization as a theoretical approach
Edouard Glissant
The term, which was shaped by anthropology and linguistics, was decisively promoted by Édouard Glissant , an essayist and novelist, who brought it into the field of culture by linking it with post-structural theories. His goal is to create the conditions “to take part in a power-free game between languages and cultures in a global world” ( Djoufack 2010 : 119) (cf. Jürgen Habermas power-free zone, in which the better argument counts). Glissant is about the (an) appropriate language, the "langage approprié", which not only serves as "consumer language", but also for creativity and free production. This language should enable the construction of identity. Born in Martinique, Glissant draws these conclusions from his work in the Caribbean and his observations of the language situation there (the conflict between French and Creole). In doing so, he does not favor a specific language, but only sets important characteristics that are intended to enable this "liberated game" and to reduce asymmetries between languages and cultures.
“So I claim that the world is creolating. Suddenly and with full awareness, the cultures of the world are brought into contact with one another, change in their exchange, which often leads to avoidable clashes, merciless wars [...] Creolization means that the cultural elements brought into contact are necessarily considered to be ›equal‹ must apply, otherwise creolization cannot really take place […] Creolization requires mutual appreciation of the heterogeneous elements that are related to one another, that is, that being is neither degraded nor disregarded in exchange and mixture, neither from inside nor from outside . Why am I talking about creolization and not mixing? Because the creolization is unpredictable while the result of a mix could be foreseen "
Glissant's conviction and theory that the whole world will be creolized is also borne out by his deterritorialized term Tout-monde :
"With the deterritorialized concept of the tout-monde , a cultural essentialism that promoted an Africanization of Africa, a Caribbeanization or creole of the Caribbean or an orientalization of the Orient is to be abandoned in favor of a hybridization of cultures"
In this quotation, creolization is again explained with a different term, namely “ hybridization ”.
Jacqueline Knörr
Like Glissant, Knörr is also very interested in creolization and has published many papers dealing with this topic. Among other things, in her contribution "Postcolonial Creolity versus Colonial Creolization" she calls for an " analytical-comparative concept of creolity " which, in addition to other differentiations, distinguishes between "Creolization as a proce ß and creolization as a concept" ( Knörr 2009 : 101, cf. also Knörr 2007: 44 ff.). With this she wants to solve the problem of external and self-attribution of creole. “What is Creole from an etic point of view does not have to be named (or recognized) from an emic point of view" ( Knörr 2009 : 100). This discrepancy between the etic and the emic, in turn, is due to the problem of the use of the terms already explained. Neither skin color nor origin are clear indices for creole. In addition, apart from the description of the state of “creole” or “creole”, it is also used as a process name and compared with other terms and processes such as transnationalization and globalization . Knörr is thus concerned with the scientific conceptualization of an identity, culture or group as Creole or Creole “using (socio-) cultural, (ethno-) historical and other criteria related to the group, culture and identity and not making them dependent on them whether it has 'Creole' in its name or not ”.
Differentiation from other terms
The use of the term creolization for current processes has been criticized because it would remove one from the historical meaning, which is closely interwoven with the slave trade , or even detach the term from this context. But the diagnosis of a current social situation as creolized does not contradict anything if this term is used to distinguish it from other fashionable terms.
Creolization versus transnationalization
One of these terms is transnationalization . Like creolization, transnationalization also describes an inadequacy of national borders and a feeling of “in between” among those affected. It is the already described distance to the place of origin and the inaccessibility of the new society, in which one is not (yet) embedded, that causes creolization by eliminating this state of “being in between” to some extent. This felt and lived “in between”, which is often used analytically when national identities are no longer effective, is also known from transnationalization studies. In Germany it is particularly popular to describe the (emotional) situation of Turkish guest worker migrants, although the current situation of these generations (if only because of today's technical possibilities to interact over great distances) is hardly comparable with the in-between, the Müller and Describe Ueckmann in the slave trade . The starting point of transnationalization is the nation state and the society it houses. Their point of reference is initially open in contrast to the scenarios that predict the following terms: Europeanization, globalization or Americanization. In addition, transnationalization is a relational term “which relates the interactions and transactions within a social structure to interactions and transactions with units outside the social structure”. The concept of creolization differs from the concept of transnationalization in one respect. Creolization is not tied to national borders and does not have to cross them in order to have an effect. Rather, it mostly works within a nation-state by accomplishing this cultural penetration, which also promises transnationalization across national borders. Here, too, a differentiation must be made: While transnationalization does not necessarily have a fixed, tangible goal, one expects at the end of a creolization process, e.g. B. linguistic type, a new mother tongue, which is composed of grammatical rules, vocabulary and the phonetics of other contact languages and replaces these at least for the Creole group. It is not possible to say exactly in which (cultural) direction this process is drifting, but a linguistic or cultural mishmash is predicted.
Even though different groups and individuals may be referred to as Creoles in the course of time, a specific feature of Creolization is and remains the connection with indigenization and ethnicization . In summary, what is characteristic of creolization is its historical and etymological history, which distinguishes it greatly from transnationalization (and also from globalization). Apart from the fact that both terms are often used in a partially undifferentiated, inflationary manner and without an exact catalog of criteria, creolization has, one might argue, a more closed definition. Creolization is probably to some extent also transnationalization, but transnationalization does not necessarily have to be creolized as well. While the one term v. a. emerged from a (post-) colonial context, transnationalization is more likely to be described as a European modern phenomenon.
Creolization versus globalization
Globalization , a by its origin v. a. economically shaped word, found its way into the social sciences at the end of the 20th century. Mostly or through many theories such as Benjamin Barber's “McWorld” or George Ritzer's McDonaldization , globalization is equated with universality and standardization. In Germany (or in American exile) Adorno and Horkheimer made one of the first attempts to describe this standardization of everyday culture with their theory of the culture industry and the “Enlightenment as mass fraud”. They exposed v. a. the advanced technical achievements that make distances bridgeable and irrelevant and enable a global society. One consequence of this and the more relevant cause for standardization are ultimately the mass media and the mass production of cultural goods by large American industries, which cost art its authenticity. Just like Adorno and Horkheimer, Barber also describes an Americanization of the lifestyle that is conveyed through the advertising industry, consumer goods and the mass media. Ritzer, on the other hand, does not only restrict these general cultural characteristics, which are spread through global processes and which he exposes as fast pace, efficiency and rationality, to the USA. In contrast, Stoll and Gerhards see creolization as a counterweight to globalization theories. In this regard, for example, they go into the varying range of products on offer at McDonald's, which is not, as could and was supposed to be, served independently of nation state, culture and religion. For example, the American group has taken its blockbuster Big Mac out of its range for the Indian market and has also adapted its spice mixes and selection of drinks to local tastes. Gerhards sees creolization at work here, in that the products “are colored and transformed by the recipient culture” ( Gerhards 2003 : 145). “The result of this process of local appropriation of global goods are interaction effects that lead to processes of creolization ” ( Gerhards 2003 : 146). In this context, Stoll again emphasizes the cultural mix, which, unlike globalization, does not create universality at the level of the lowest common denominator, but preserves heterogeneity and diversity. What Gerhards also goes into is the danger of globalization theories due to their time and space-independent formulations of not being falsifiable and thus contradicting Karl Popper's falsification principle. The concept of Creolization, on the other hand, is so limited in its historical understanding, spatially and temporally, that with this background, it could avoid this danger, but here again the criticism of the inflationary use of the word stem “Creole” and its suffixes, which the The question about falsifiability probably leaves open for now.
Finally, further differentiations should now be mentioned, but - due to the conception of the contribution - not explained in more detail: on the one hand, this is the concept of glocalization and the Créolite movement . Inspired by Glissant's creolization concept, a new movement developed, the Créolite , which, however, turned away from Glissant in its objectives and consequences (above all the connection between space and language, in the sense of Creole traditions).
Studies and work on creolization
In their recently published volume Kreolisierung revisited, Müller and Ueckmann introduce the following question: “Can creolization serve as a model for a new cultural encounter in the global age? Specifically: Can the range of non-European postcolonial theory also be used and made fruitful for the analysis of the history of migration within Europe ? ”( Müller / Ueckmann 2013 : 14). Can this theory developed in colonies be lifted out of the colonial context and applied to other territories as well? According to the criticism summarized by Stewart one would have to answer with no. On Aisha Khan, an anthropologist from the Caribbean, he explains the coherence of the term "Creole". In Trinidad, for example, this would only apply to descendants from connections between (former) black slaves and white Europeans. At the same time, other migrants and ethnic groups would be excluded from this creolized society, such as the East Indians. This problem basically leads back to the already mentioned demand formulated by Knörr for an analytical-comparative concept of creole. If indicators, features, characteristics and criteria had already been defined that would enable a social (or linguistic) scientific analysis independent of emic and etic aspects, the questions formulated at the beginning would have to be answered (more clearly).
Ultimately, however, works and empirical analyzes must be listed that have dealt with creolization on European soil or that have described social processes as creolized. On the one hand, work by Fatima El-Tayeb should be mentioned in this regard. B. in The Forces of Creolization , in detail on the situation of migrants in Europe and their subsequent generations, refers to the latent color blindness of Europe. Another empirical analysis, this time by Jürgen Gerhards, reveals a creole behavior of German parents when assigning names to their children. In this context, creolization always means the mixing of different cultures and lifestyles, regardless of skin color and ethnicity of the units under investigation. Sometimes social processes are analyzed without going into the historical and etymological genesis of terms, which Aisha Khan would probably criticize again. In conclusion, it remains simple to repeat Jacqueline Knörr's demand for an analytical-comparative creole term that would make scientific work with this term much easier.
literature
- Djoufack, Patrice (2010): De-localization, hybrid language and identity formation. On the invention of language and identity by Franz Kafka, Elias Canetti and Paul Celan. V&R unipress: Göttingen.
- El-Tayeb, Fatima (2011): “The Forces of Creolization”. Colorblindness and Visible Minorities in the New Europe. In: Lionnet, Françoise / Shi, Shu-mei (eds.): The Creolization of Theory. Duke University Press: Durham. 226-252.
- Engel, Gisela / Marx, Birgit (2000): Globalization and universality interdisciplinary contributions. Röll Published by Dettelbach.
- Garcia-Canclini, Nestor: 'Hybridity'. In: International Encyclopedia of Social & Behavioral Sciences: Elsevier, Amsterdam [et al.], Vol. 10, pp. 7095-7098.
- Gerhards, Jürgen (2003): Globalization of everyday culture between Westernization and Creolization: The example of first names. In: Social World 54/2. 145-162.
- Gugenberger / Eva / Sartingen, Katrin (2011): Hybridity - Transculturality - Creolization - Innovation and change in culture, language and literature in Latin America. In: LIT Published by Wien. ISBN 978-3643503091
- Kahn, Aisha (2001): Journey to the center of the Earth: The Caribbean as master symbol. In: Cultural Anthropology 16.271-302.
- Knörr, Jacqueline (2007): Creolity and Postcolonial Society. Integration and Differentiation in Jakarta. Campus Published by Frankfurt a. M.
- Knörr, Jacqueline (2009): Postcolonial Creolity versus Colonial Creolization. In: Paideuma 55, 93-115.
- Lang, Jürgen (2009): Les langues des autres dans la créolisation. Théorie et exemplification par le créole d'empreinte wolof à l'île Santiago du Cap Vert. Fool: Tübingen
- Markey, Thomas L. (1982): Afrikaans: Creole or Non-Creole? In: Journal for Dialectology and Linguistics, 49/2. 169-207.
- Mauer, Stefan (2013): Even Mc Donalds bow to Indian culture. In the Handelsblatt at: http://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/handel-dienstleistungs/schwerer-markteinstieg-selbst-mc-donalds-beugt-sich-der-indischen-kultur/4552442.html , accessed on March 30, 2013 .
- Miller, Ivor (1994): Creolizing for Survival in the City. In: Cultural Critique 27. 153-188.
- Müller, Gesine / Ueckmann, Natascha (2013): Introduction: Creolization as a global cultural model? In: Müller, Gesine / Ueckmann, Natascha (eds.): Kreolisierung revisited. Debates about a global cultural concept. Transcript Published by Bielefeld. 7-42.
- Stewart, Charles (2007): Creolization: History, Ethnography, Theory. In: Creolization. History, Ethnography, Theory. Left Coast Press: Walnut Creek. 1-25.
- Stoll, Karl-Heinz (2005): Translation as Creolization. In: Living Languages 50/4. 146-155.
- Vergès, Françoise (2008): Postcolonial Exhibiting. About the project of a> Museum of the Present <on the island of Réunion. An interview with Françoise Vergès by Charlotte Martinz-Turek. In: European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policy 6. Online at: http://eipcp.net/transversal/0708/martinzturekverges/de . Retrieved March 31, 2013.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jacqueline Knörr: Postcolonial Creolity versus Colonial Creolization. 2009, p. 98 ff.
- ↑ Jacqueline Knörr: Postcolonial Creolity versus Colonial Creolization. 2009, p. 93.
- ↑ Knörr 2009, p. 94; Stoll 2005, p. 146 ff.
- ↑ Knörr 2009, p. 94; Stewart 2007, p. 1 ff .; Stoll 2005, p. 146 ff.
- ↑ cf. Stewart 2007, p. 20.
- ↑ Stewart 2007, p. 1.
- ↑ Jacqueline Knörr: Postcolonial Creolity versus Colonial Creolization. 2009, p. 94.
- ↑ cf. Knörr 2009: 94.
- ↑ cf. Stoll 2005: 146 ff.
- ↑ cf. Stewart 2007: 2
- ↑ cf. Knörr 2007: 40 ff., 2009: 98 and Müller / Ueckmann 2013: 12 on the disintegration of slaves
- ↑ cf. Miller 1994 and Müller, Ueckmann 2013: 10
- ↑ cf. Stewart 2007: 1
- ↑ cf. Knörr 2009: 97
- ↑ See Müller, Ueckmann 2013: 8
- ↑ cf. Djoufack 2010: 118 ff.
- ↑ Stewart mentions hybridity and syncretism in this context , cf. 2007: 3
- ↑ Knörr 2009: 101, cf. also Stewart 2007 19 ff., who also emphasizes the importance of general criteria
- ↑ cf. Knörr 2009: 96, Müller / Ueckmann 2013: 12 and Stewart 2007: 4
- ↑ cf. Müller / Ueckmann 2013: 18
- ↑ Gerhards 2003: 148
- ↑ cf. Knörr 2009: 97
- ↑ cf. Engel / Marx 2000, Gerhards 2003: 146 and Stoll 2005: 147
- ↑ cf. Gerhards 2003: 146
- ↑ cf. Gerhards 2003: 146
- ↑ cf. Wall 2013 and the range of McDonaldsIndia: http://www.mcdonaldsindia.com/images/Nutrition-Information.pdf
- ↑ cf. Stoll 2005: 147
- ↑ cf. Gerhards 2003: 147
- ↑ in more depth on this Knörr 2007: 61 ff. And Müller / Ueckmann 2013: 18 ff.
- ↑ cf. Stewart 2007: 4 ff.
- ↑ El-Tayeb 2011
- ↑ cf. Gerhards 2003