Créolité can perhaps best be described in contrast with the movement that preceded it,
la négritude, a literary movement spearheaded by
Aimé Césaire,
Léopold Sédar Senghor and
Léon Damas in the 1930s.
Négritude writers sought to define themselves in terms of their cultural, racial and historical ties to the
African continent as a rejection of
French colonial political
hegemony and of
French cultural, intellectual, racial and moral domination. Césaire and his contemporaries considered the shared
black heritage of members of the
African 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. Later writers such as the Martinican
Edouard Glissant came to reject the monolithic view of "blackness" portrayed in the
négritude movement. Indeed, an initial naming of this movement following
négritude as
créolitude in 1977 gave way to
créolité, with a change in suffix indicating a "strong semantic contrast." Backdropping créolité, in the early 1960s, Glissant advanced the concept of
Antillanité ("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 and
Chinese (
indentured servants). Glissant and adherents to the subsequent
créolité movement (called
créolistes) 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. The authors of
Eloge de la créolité describe
créolité 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, the
créolité movement seeks to reverse the dominance of
French 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 the
créolistes 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). ==Bibliography==