Bulletin n. 2/2007
October 2007
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Cohen Robin
    Creolization and Cultural Globalization: The Soft Sounds of Fugitive Power
    in Globalizations , Volume 4, Issue 3 September 2007 ,  2007 ,  369-384
    In this article, I provide a comparative discussion of Creoles and creolization. The core concept centres on the cross-fertilization between different cultures as they interact. When creolization occurs, participants select particular elements from incoming or inherited cultures, endow these with meanings different from those they possessed in the original cultures, and then creatively merge these to create new varieties that supersede the prior forms. While discussions of creolization are common in linguistics, studies of popular culture, and historical studies of certain plantation societies, I use the notion here as a contemporary and general sociological term. I argue that creolization is a key aspect of cultural globalization and provide more detailed discussion of new understandings of creolization in Brazil, South Africa, and the US. I contrast manifest and strident forms of 'monocultural' power in the reassertion of nationalism, narrow ethnicities, and religious affinities with the more subtle but pervasive forms of 'fugitive power' found in the construction and affirmation of creolized identities. Creolization is only one aspect of fugitive power, but it is one with an intriguing past, an increasingly visible present and, I will suggest, a promising future.
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