Synopses & Reviews
Globalization and the Post-Creole Imagination is a major intervention into discussions of Caribbean practices gathered under the rubric of andldquo;creolization.andrdquo; Examining sociocultural, political, and economic transformations in the Caribbean, Michaeline A. Crichlow argues that creolizationandmdash;culture-creating processes usually associated with plantation societies and with subordinate populations remaking the cultural forms of dominant groupsandmdash;must be liberated from and expanded beyond plantations, and even beyond the black Atlantic, to include productions of andldquo;cultureandrdquo; wherever vulnerable populations live in situations of modern power inequalities, from regimes of colonialism to those of neoliberalism. Crichlow theorizes a concept of creolization that speaks to how individuals from historically marginalized groups refashion self, time, and place in multiple ways, from creating art to traveling in search of homes. Grounding her theory in the material realities of Caribbean peoples in the plantation era and the present, Crichlow contends that creolization and Creole subjectivity are constantly in flux, morphing in response to the changing conditions of modernity and creatively expressing a politics of place.
Engaging with the thought of Michel Foucault, Michel Rolph-Trouillot, Achille Mbembe, Henri Lefebvre, Margaret Archer, Saskia Sassen, Pierre Bourdieu, and others, Crichlow argues for understanding creolization as a continual creative remaking of past and present moments to shape the future. She draws on sociology, philosophy, postcolonial studies, and cultural studies to illustrate how national histories are lived personally and how transnational experiences reshape individual lives and collective spaces. Critically extending Bourdieuandrsquo;s idea of habitus, she describes how contemporary Caribbean subjects remake themselves in and beyond the Caribbean region, challenging, appropriating, and subverting older, localized forms of creolization. In this book, Crichlow offers a nuanced understanding of how Creole citizens of the Caribbean have negotiated modern economies of power.
Review
andldquo;This is a demanding and provocative text. . . . Crichlow makes a number of insightful interventions, usually by way of pinpointing a problem in how creolization has been used and then bringing new analogies into play.andrdquo; - Huon Wardle, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
Review
andldquo;This provocative book will surely attract attention with its signal contribution to the rich interdisciplinary arena of scholarship on colonial and postcolonial discourse, history, anthropology, philosophy, political science, literary criticism, and of course Caribbean studies. . . . The book is dense, and not something to absorb in one sitting; it savors like a fine wine.andrdquo; - Anandiacute;bal Josandeacute; Aponte Colandoacute;n, Caribbean Studies
Review
andldquo;One of the prominent features of Globalization and the Post-Creole Imagination is its narrative, methodology, and eclectic approach. Instead of one grand narrative, the book contains many narratives embodying multiple ideas and viewing angles. These narratives present different rich ethnographies, each of which is fundamental to explaining creolization as an open and liberated concept and the post-creole imagination. Also prominent is the simmering of multi disciplinary varieties of theories and concepts. Borrowing from Glissant, Trouillot, Bhabha, Derrida, Foucault, Bourdieu, Lefebvre, and Mbeme, among others, Crichlow creates a unique yet complicated theoretical approach. Moreover, the multidisciplinary profile of the author and contributor Patricia Northover add a new element in the eclectic academic approach of the book.andrdquo; - Milagros Ricourt, SX Salon
Review
Crichlow brings an extensive knowledge of postcolonial, diaspora, transnational, and globalization theory to debates over the historical specifi city and generalizability of creolization, and her ambitious work opens up new paths for the study of agency and cultural transformation in globalized time and space.andrdquo;
- Nicole Simek, Symploke
Review
andldquo;Crichlowandrsquo;s foray is well worth reading. Her critiqueof some of the sacred cows of creolization studies and suggestions for alternative conceptualizations, drawn primarily from literary criticism and philosophy but enhanced with anthropological and historical works, are thoughtful and provocative.andrdquo; - Aisha Khan, Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology
Review
andldquo;Globalization and the Post-Creole Imagination invites us to move creolization debates beyond the plantation and the ideological constructions of Caribbean national identity, which have generated numerous exclusions and misrecognitions to the meaning of creole culture and citizenship. . . . [I]t raises questions both thought-provoking and challenging. . . .andrdquo; - Raquel Romberg, New West Indian Guide
Synopsis
Argues that creolization is world-wide and not just specific to cultures which arose within the plantations of the Americas among African descended populations.
Synopsis
An interdisciplinary argument that the concept of cultural creolization must be expanded to encompass cultural productions by vulnerable populations living in situations of modern power inequalities anywhere in the world.
About the Author
“Globalization and the Post-Creole Imagination is a brilliant piece of work that engages with an extensive volume of transdisciplinary scholarship related to fundamental issues of modern subjectivity and subjecthood. Its point of departure is the place of modern subjects in the spaces occupied particularly by the Caribbean subaltern of former English colonies.”—Percy C. Hintzen, author of West Indian in the West: Self-Representations in an Immigrant Community“This is an exceptional book. Michaeline A. Crichlow juxtaposes erudite knowledge about several specialized fields with an experimental stance that aims at detecting the making of conditions often seen as a mere attribute. She shows us how creolization is made, thereby becoming much more than disadvantaged status. In this making lies the possibility that powerlessness can be complex and in this complexity lie the elements for making the political, whether expressed in cultural or recognizably political vocabularies. This book opens up a new terrain for inquiry and interpretation.”—Saskia Sassen, author of Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages
Table of Contents
Preface ix
Prologue. Globalization and Creole Identities: The Shaping of Power in Post-Plantation Spaces 1
1. Locating the Global in Creolization: Ships Sailing Through Modern Space 15
2. Creole Time on the Move 41
3. Decentering the andquot;Dialectics of Resistanceandquot; in the Context of a Globalizing Modern: Afro-Creoles under Colonial Rule 73
4. Power and Its Subjects in Postcolonial Performance 107
5. andquot;Gens Anglaisesandquot;: Diasporic Movements Remixing the World with Post-Creole Imaginations 135
6. An eBay Imaginary in an Unequal World: Creolization on the Move 171
Epilogue. Rethinking Creolization through Multiple Prandeacute;sences: Masks, Masquerades, and the Making of Modern Subjects 201
Notes 221
Index 281