Essay About Edouard Glissant And Areas Of Caribbean Culture

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Q2. Antonio Benitez-Rojo states that “creolization is not merely a process (a word that implies forward movement) but a discontinuous series of recurrences, of happenings, whose sole law is change”. Referring to three areas of Caribbean culture, provide examples of this cultural “instability” and how it impacts on and/or reflects Caribbean people.

“We should get accustomed to the idea that our identity is going to change on contact with the other.”- Edouard Glissant
Antonio Benitez-Rojo states that “creolization is not merely a process (a word that implies forward movement) but a discontinuous series of recurrences, of happenings, whose sole law is change”. The root of creolization is said to be the plantations, where it was plodding its cultural fragments through its way in modern Caribbean history. The cycle of having these fragments come together and then pull apart and come together again is all part of the colonization process. This colonization process affects many areas of the Caribbean culture including its music, language, and food.

Music in the Caribbean is a prominent form of creolization in the Caribbean. The sounds of samba of Cuba, Latin jazz of Brazil, calypso of Trinidad and dancehall of Jamaica all seem to stem from the African Diasporas as well as the sounds originating from the plantation. These forms of music incorporated the pulsating drums of Africa as well as the sounds created on the plantation such as the rhythms from ‘the sugar mill’s machines, the machete stroke that cuts the cane, the overseer’s lash and the planter’s language.’(Antonio). Although the drumming was forbidden, Africans resisted vehemently and adapted European music to suit their own needs, being forced to participate in it. Several forms of folk music in the Caribbean reflect the fusion of African and European musical forms: the beguine in St. Lucia, mento in Jamaica, salsa in Cuba, and bossa nova in Brazil, are all examples of this fusion. Along with the focal influence of Africa, other influences that produce Caribbean music include the sounds from India, China and Java. Contemporary music in the Caribbean embodies the combination of all these sounds to form a hybrid, creolized sound that is still ever changing as more influences are being integrated. Much integrated music can be found in the sounds of salsa for example. Trinidadian music including soca and chutney are also good examples of ever-changing music. Soca-Chutney, is a combination of both Indian music influence and calypso music which inherently came from Africa. Soca-parang, another example of process of change that juxtaposes the Spanish Venezuelan culture with the soca sounds of Trinidad. The steelpan which was invented in Trinidad is being incorporated in other forms of music of Trinidad and within the Caribbean as well. Creolization is also seen where the growing influence of Latin American and Caribbean music gave rise to the debut of a new music genre called reggaeton just a decade ago. Edouard Glissant, eulogist of creolization and cultural interbreeding, talks of the example of West Indian music in which new rhythms are being born of the interaction with Africa and the United States in his “Cultural Creolization of the World” interview. Examples of this can be seen in the musical combination of American pop singer Gwen Stefani and Jamaican dancehall artist Bounty Killa. Other fusions include Janet Jackson and Beenie Man abd Alicia Keys and Baby Cham, just to name a few.

In the context of linguistics, creolization is said to occur when two or more languages converge to form a new, indigenous language. In his theory of creolization, Glissant has replaced the monolingual concept of root-identity with the concept of the rhizome-identity, which maintains the fact of rootedness but rejects the idea of a totalitarian root. The creole is at the same time “absolutely original” and growing like a rhizome without fixed roots – the process is global. Glissant sees that the clearest symbol of creolization is a creole language, open to multilingual influence. “Creolization carries in itself the adventure of multilingualism along with the extraordinary explosion of cultures.” The syncretism in the language of the Caribbean is a product of the languages brought by the colonizers merging with those of the indigenous people, the slaves and the indentured workers. Dominica for instance, is French and French creole speaking island, where African languages and some local indigenous languages providing substrate input. Some words are also derived from English, and Spanish. In Trinidad, the language is characterized as “a mongrel lingo, locally termed, talki-talk, a jumble of corrupt French, Spanish” (The Rise of Immigrant English in Trinidad).

For instance, Trinidadians