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Créolité is a literary movement first developed in the 1980s by theMartinican writersPatrick Chamoiseau,Jean Bernabé andRaphaël Confiant. They publishedEloge de la créolité (In Praise of Creoleness) in 1989 as a response to the perceived inadequacies of thenégritude movement.Créolité, or "creoleness", is aneologism which attempts to describe the cultural and linguistic heterogeneity of places like theAntilles and, more specifically, of theFrench Caribbean.
"Creoleness" may also refer to the scientifically meaningful characteristics ofCreole languages, the subject of study increolistics.
Créolité can perhaps best be described in contrast with the movement that preceded it,la négritude, a literary movement spearheaded byAimé Césaire,Léopold Sédar Senghor andLéon Damas in the 1930s.Négritude writers sought to define themselves in terms of their cultural, racial and historical ties to theAfrican continent as a rejection ofFrench colonial politicalhegemony and ofFrench cultural, intellectual, racial and moral domination. Césaire and his contemporaries considered the sharedblack heritage of members of theAfrican diaspora 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.[1]
Later writers such as the MartinicanEdouard Glissant came to reject the monolithic view of "blackness" portrayed in thenégritude movement. Indeed, an initial naming of this movement followingnégritude ascréolitude in 1977 gave way tocréolité, with a change in suffix indicating a "strong semantic contrast."[2] Backdropping créolité, in the early 1960s, Glissant advanced the concept ofAntillanité ("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 andChinese (indentured servants). Glissant and adherents to the subsequentcréolité movement (calledcréolistes) 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.[3]
The authors ofEloge de la créolité describecréolité 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, thecréolité movement seeks to reverse the dominance ofFrench 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 thecréolistes 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).
