Module 1: Caribbean Society

and Culture
By: Aaliyah Noyan
Objective 4: Identity and Social Formation
4(C): Creolization and Hybridization
(i) process of cultural change in the Caribbean:
acculturation, plural society; creolisation as argued by
Edward Kamau Braithwaite; douglarisation, hybridization;
(ii) racial admixture and colour in the formation of
Caribbean society and culture, for example, terms like
mulatto, mestizo, dougla, creole;
(iii) erasure, retention and renewal of cultural practices.
Creolization:
Refers to any kind of fusion of persons, ideas, customs, culture and beliefs to create a different
form or likeness which may not be very similar to the original.
This term is used in Caribbean life to describe many levels of meeting, mixing and creating
something new, especially fusion between different races to produce hybrid persons and
culture.
It offers the view that there is a clear evident cultural unity in Jamaica due to the merging
of the European and African cultures. This merged occurred through frequent interaction
between groups and by adapting to and imitating one another. This theory was developed
by Edward K. Braithwaite. According to Edward, Caribbean society began on the slave
ships and the plantation through the processes of the contact between different cultural
groups.
This creolization thesis recognizes the multiple and unending variation between and among
the Caribbean people and their cultures and subcultures and emphasizes the creativity that
comes out of the clash between cultures, with some being in a dominant position. This led
to the acquisition of new cultural patterns (acculturation).
Acculturation: socialization into another, more dominant culture, whether it be the culture
of a colonial power or that if a migrant’s host country.
Douglarisation:
Douglarisation refers to the mixing of cultures occurring between the two groups,
Afro-Trinidadian and East Indian, which has not always been harmonious. The
presence of “douglas” in the society today suggest that the deep polarization
between the two major ethnic groups in Trinidad and Tobago is a complex
phenomenon that cannot be easily explained or described.
Hybridization:
Refers to the process of cultural and ethnic combine to produce new or “creole”
forms. In other words, it is the process of mixing two (2) unique, original cultures to
obtain one.
For example, meeting and mixing in the Caribbean region have been going on for
more than 500years. Prior to the conquest, the aboriginal inhabitants of the New
World migrated through the Caribbean from South America , and captured each
other and adapted each other’s language and cultural practices.
Racial and Ethnic Hybridization
Amerindian, African and Indian women were forced to cohabit with and have children
by the European conquistadors, slave masters and overseers. This miscegenation went
on for centuries and many of the children of such union had physical features
proclaiming their ‘white’ inheritance. According the racial ideologies then prevailing,
the lighter-skinned children were somehow considered to be better than their maternal
ancestors and dealt with more leniently because of their physical features publicizing
their European connection. As a result of this, a Pigmentocracy evolved where persons
with a fairer complexion enjoyed more prestige and wielded more power in the society
than others.
Although various terms were used, there were not enough terms for all the variation.
Europeans first encountered the Amerindians in the 5th century and between the
powerful and the powerless, the mixed race of mestizos was born and this term was
used to label all persons on mixed race in the Caribbean.
Furthermore, enslaved Africans and their white European overlords produced the ethnic
group called, “mulatto” which was a child who was half-black and half white.
A “dougla” is someone of mixed race African and Indian parentage. The word means an
illegitimate child of mixed union between persons of different castes and has been used
as an derogatory(showing a disrespectful attitude) mainly in Trinidad and Tobago.
The term “creole” describes the local ‘descendant' of anything imported but when
applied to people, it describe a person who was born locally of immigrant parents.
However, in Trinidad and Tobago, it is used to describe a person of African descent.
 Images of Miscegenation:

• A zambo is a child of a mulatto and a black person.

Hybridization Continuation:
Cultural Hybridization: the development of new cultural forms out of existing ones through a
period of contact and interaction. The term ‘creolization’ is used if this hybridization took place
in the context of European colonization, therefore hybridization and creolization means
virtually the same thing. Cultural hybrids is itself a process, so the hybrids themselves change
and develop overtime.
Hybridization: Religion:
The major religions in the world met in the Caribbean and underwent considerable
hybridization into creolized forms.
Africans created many syncretic religious forms that were adapted to their conditions of
life.
Myall is an early Caribbean religion that developed in Jamaica where Christian elements
were blended with African world views.
Hybridization: Language:
From the interaction of differing cultures, hybrid forms of language developed which is
referred to as creole. With the formation of creole, there were many varieties such as
basilect, mesolect and acrolect.
Basilect is the raw form or the least socially prestige(for examples, it is used in Jamaica),
Mesolect is a combination of creole dialect and standard English(Trinidad), and Acrolect is
standard English with at least one or two creole dialect (Barbados).
Language Variety:
Process of Cultural Hybridization:
Cultural Erasure: Refers to the practices that have died out or are dying out. Culture
can be both material and non-material, therefore a culture can survive base on artefacts.
The language of the Tainos or Arawaks of the Greater Antilles, for example, still survive
in place names and in local dialects to some extent, thus, some Tainos practices could
have survived and be hybridized within local contexts in the Caribbean.
Cultural Retention: Refers to practices that have survived even when most other forms
and symbols of a culture are no longer evident. A cultural retention usually refers to
some specific aspect of a culture, for example, within a religion or language but does not
necessarily mean survival in an intact form. For example, in Belize, Garifuna culture is
described as one where there are a remarkable number of cultural retentions. It was
hybridized and has since undergone some elements of mixing and hybridizing with other
cultures in Belize, but is still sufficiently different to be regarded as an ethnic minority.
Cultural Renewal: occurs when a group goes through a conscious rejuvenation process
and returns to some elements of its culture, which it believes have been ignored or
suppressed.
THE END!