Creolization

Creolization is the process in which Creole cultures emerge in the New World. As a result of colonization there was a mixture among people of indigenous, African, and European descent, which came to be understood as Creolization. Creolization is traditionally used to refer to the Caribbean; although not exclusive to the Caribbean it can be further extended to represent other diasporas. The mixing of people brought a cultural mixing which ultimately led to the formation of new identities. It is important to emphasize that creolization also is the mixing of the "old" and "traditional" with the "new" and "modern". Furthermore, creolization occurs when participants actively select cultural elements that may become part of or inherited culture. Robin Cohen states that creolization is a condition in which "the formation of new identities and inherited culture evolve to become different from those they possessed in the original cultures," and then creatively merge these to create new varieties that supersede the prior forms.

According to Charles Stewart the concept of creolization originates during the 16th century, although, there is no date recording the beginning of the word creolization. The term creolization was understood to be a distinction between those individuals born in the "Old World" versus the New World. As consequence to slavery and the different power relations between different races creolization became synonymous with Creole, often of which was used to distinguish the master and the slave. The word Creole was also used to distinguish those Afro-descendants who were born in the New World in comparison to African-born slaves. The word creolization has evolved and changed to have different meaning at different times in history.

What has not changed through the course of time is the context in which Creole has been used. It has been associated with cultural mixtures of African, European, and indigenous (in addition to other lineages in different locations) ancestry (e.g. Caribbeans). Creole has pertained to "African-diasporic geographical and historical specificity". With globalization, creolization has undergone a "remapping of worlds regions", or as Orlando Patterson would explain, "the creation of wholly new cultural forms in the transnational space, such as 'New Yorican' and Miami Spanish". Today, creolization refers to this mixture of different people and different cultures that merge to become one.

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