| This thesis examines the ways theories of creolization impact the current crisis of identities in the context of globalization. The focus is on contemporary Francophone West Africa and the Caribbean literatures. Edouard Glissant's theory of identities in particular is examined in great detail, as it claims to be at once universal and opposed to previous forms of analysis such as the Negritude movement that had viewed identity as essentially related to race, culture or African origin. Hence, the purpose of this thesis is to explore how creolization theory is relevant to the quest of identity for Africans and to provide an evaluation and critique of its effectiveness.;My corpus consists of French and Francophone literary and philosophical texts of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries but also draws on post-colonial studies, and on theories of race and cultural hybridity. Human participants are not involved in my research. |
