Güney Louisiana Kreole kültüründe inanışlar, kimlik ve bellek
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2019
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info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Özet
Güney Louisiana bölgesi, on beşinci yüzyıldan itibaren transatlantik sömürgeciliğin beşiği olan Karayipler’den aldığı Akdeniz, Afrika ve Latin Amerika kültürlerinin kavşak noktası olmuştur. Bölge, Fransız ve İspanyol sömürgeciliğinden miras Katolik-Kreole kültürüne özgü toplumsal tabakalaşması, yerel kimliğinde barındırmakta olduğu çeşitli inanışların ve ırkların melezliği ile günümüz Amerika Birleşik Devletleri’nin özel bir kültürel yöresidir. Güney Louisiana, 1803’ten itibaren Amerika Birleşik Devletleri sınırlarına dâhil edildikten sonra Anglo-Protestan Amerikan kimliğinin hâkimiyet alanına girmiştir. İç Savaş öncesi köleciliğe dayalı tarımsal üretimi, katı toplumsal sınıfları, seçkinci siyasi yapısı ve köleci toplumsal yapısının yarattığı ırk ayrımcılığı sebebiyle diğer Güney eyaletleri ile ortak özellikler taşımaktadır. Bununla birlikte, Güney Louisiana, önceki Fransız ve İspanyol sömürgeciliğine özgü Katolik-Kreole kültürel mirası ile günümüz Louisiana eyaleti sınırları içinde bile marjinal bir yerel kimlik olarak varlığını sürdürmektedir. Portekizce “yerli” anlamındaki criulo kelimesinden türetilmiş olan Kreole tanımı ilk olarak on altıncı yüzyılda Yeni Dünya’daki ikinci nesil Avrupalı sömürgeci yerleşimci nüfus için kullanılmıştır. Bu bağlamda, yeni sömürgeci nüfusun Avrupa’daki hanedan anakent kültürlerinden uzaklığını ifade eden Kreole tanımı sömürgelerde gözlemlenen potansiyel siyasi bir tehdidin de temsili olmuştur. Daha sonraları Yeni Dünya sömürgelerinde başlayan transatlantik kölecilik ile birlikte Kreole tanımı, Afrika’dan Amerika’ya getirilen Afrikalı köleler ile Amerika’da doğan ikinci nesil köleler arasındaki hiyerarşiyi belirlemek için kullanmıştır. Zaman içinde Güney ve Orta Amerika’nın sömürgeci köleci toplum yapısının doğurduğu Avrupalı, Afrikalı ve Yerli Amerikalıların bir arada yaşam biçimi, Kreole tanımını hem ırksal hem kültürel bağlamda bir melezlik kavramına dönüştürmüştür. Böylece Kreole kavramı, günümüz Güney Louisiana’daki yerel inanışlar, kimlikler ve yerel bellek ile bütün, özgün bir kültürel öge olarak, bu yörenin, Amerika Birleşik Devletleri’nin ana akım siyasi erki ve toplumsal kimliğinin hâkimiyet alanına karşı direnç göstermesine olanak sağlamıştır. Bu çalışmada, Jewel Parker Rhodes’un Voodoo Dreams (1993) adlı romanı ve Mona Lisa Saloy’un Red Beans and Ricely Yours (2005) adlı şiir kitabında Güney Louisiana Kreole inanışları, kimlik algısı ve yerel bellek unsurları incelenecektir.
Southern Louisiana has been a meeting point for Mediterranean, African and Latin American cultures, transferred from the Caribbean region, since the beginning of transatlantic colonialism by the fifteenth century. As a reminiscence of the Catholic-Creole culture inherited from French and Spanish colonialism, its peculiar social stratification has shaped Southern Louisiana as a unique cultural region of the United States with its hybridized race codes and beliefs related to its local identity. Following its incorporation into U.S. borders in 1803, the region came under the domain of Anglo-Protestant American identity. Thenceforth, Southern Louisiana shared similar socio-economic aspects with other regions of the American South, such as its agricultural economy based on slavery up to the Antebellum period, and its consequent offshoots of strict social stratification, oligarchic political traditions, and racism. Nevertheless, with its Catholic-Creole heritage of earlier French and Spanish colonialism, Southern Louisiana persists as a unique marginal local identity even in today’s state of Louisiana. Stemming from its Portuguese root criulo, which means ‘native,’ the definition of Creole was initially used in the sixteenth century to identify the second-generation European colonial population in the New World. In this respect, with its inference of cultural distance and detachment between the colonies and their European metropoles, the definition of Creole was also inclusive of a rhetorical representation of a potential political threat. Later on, as an outcome of transatlantic slavery in New World colonies, the definition of Creole was used to identify the hierarchic category between the African slaves and the second-generation slaves born in the Americas. In due course, mixed social relations among the European, African and Native American colonial populations in Southern and Central America transformed the definition of Creole into a concept of racial and cultural hybridization. Thus, as an authentic cultural identity, today’s concept of Creole has become a means for the revival and survival of the cultural alterities identified with contemporary Southern Louisiana, including local beliefs, identities and memories, as an alternative cultural space to the domain of main-stream Anglo-American identity and political power in the United States. This article focuses on Southern Louisiana Creole beliefs, identity and local memory with reference to Jewel Parker Rhodes’s novel Voodoo Dreams (1993) and Mona Lisa Saloy’s poems from her book Red Beans And Ricely Yours (2005).
Southern Louisiana has been a meeting point for Mediterranean, African and Latin American cultures, transferred from the Caribbean region, since the beginning of transatlantic colonialism by the fifteenth century. As a reminiscence of the Catholic-Creole culture inherited from French and Spanish colonialism, its peculiar social stratification has shaped Southern Louisiana as a unique cultural region of the United States with its hybridized race codes and beliefs related to its local identity. Following its incorporation into U.S. borders in 1803, the region came under the domain of Anglo-Protestant American identity. Thenceforth, Southern Louisiana shared similar socio-economic aspects with other regions of the American South, such as its agricultural economy based on slavery up to the Antebellum period, and its consequent offshoots of strict social stratification, oligarchic political traditions, and racism. Nevertheless, with its Catholic-Creole heritage of earlier French and Spanish colonialism, Southern Louisiana persists as a unique marginal local identity even in today’s state of Louisiana. Stemming from its Portuguese root criulo, which means ‘native,’ the definition of Creole was initially used in the sixteenth century to identify the second-generation European colonial population in the New World. In this respect, with its inference of cultural distance and detachment between the colonies and their European metropoles, the definition of Creole was also inclusive of a rhetorical representation of a potential political threat. Later on, as an outcome of transatlantic slavery in New World colonies, the definition of Creole was used to identify the hierarchic category between the African slaves and the second-generation slaves born in the Americas. In due course, mixed social relations among the European, African and Native American colonial populations in Southern and Central America transformed the definition of Creole into a concept of racial and cultural hybridization. Thus, as an authentic cultural identity, today’s concept of Creole has become a means for the revival and survival of the cultural alterities identified with contemporary Southern Louisiana, including local beliefs, identities and memories, as an alternative cultural space to the domain of main-stream Anglo-American identity and political power in the United States. This article focuses on Southern Louisiana Creole beliefs, identity and local memory with reference to Jewel Parker Rhodes’s novel Voodoo Dreams (1993) and Mona Lisa Saloy’s poems from her book Red Beans And Ricely Yours (2005).
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