Strategic Acts in the Study of Identity - Towards a Dynamic Theory of People and Place - Vaia Touna
4. Strategizing Subjectivity: Creolization and Intentionality in Studies of Caribbean Religions
Strategic Acts in the Study of Identity - Towards a Dynamic Theory of People and Place - Vaia Touna
K. Merinda Simmons [+]
University of Alabama
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Description
This chapter looks at academic discourses on hybridity and creolization in the context of Caribbean religious traditions. A major emphasis in these discourses is the perceived strategic and subversive patterning of hybrid belief systems by slaves in the Caribbean under Christian colonial rule. Using the text Creole Religions of the Caribbean: An Introduction from Vodou and Santería to Obeah and Espiritismo, by Margarite Fernández Olmos and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, as a point of departure, I argue for scholarly consideration of the implications of the articulated impulses of projects like this, projects that are prevalent in academic discussions of identity and migration within African diasporas.