Creolization as Cultural Continuity and Creativity in Postdiluvian New Orleans and Beyond

Abstract

Joel Mann, Rebirth Brass Band, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2007. Through an examination of expressive forms, musicians, and artisans in post-Katrina New Orleans, this multi-media essay explores creolization as an approach to ethnographic work that seeks to describe and interpret cultural continuity and creativity. Creolization conjoins multiple sources in new identities and expressions, continuously co-mingling and adapting traditions in ways that link the local, regional, and global. In New Orleans and affected areas of the Gulf Coast, recovery in cultural terms can be described in the creative, transformative, and sometimes improvisatory dimensions of creolization. In its broadest sense, creolization is a useful way to address creativity in many variations and places. The text of this essay is from Creolization as Cultural Creativity, eds. Robert Baron and Ana C. Cara. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2011. Published with permission.

Keywords

• African American Studies
• Disaster and Relief
• Music
• African American Art
• Public Scholarship