Strategizing Subjectivity

Creolization and Intentionality in Studies of Caribbean Religions

Abstract

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.