ABSTRACT
The notion of creolization emerged to describe the situation in territories such as Reunion Island, and it was meant to refer to very specific emergences. The marginalization of the Indian-Oceanic formations in post-colonial theory demands, however, that we first present these formations and try to describe their specificities. Creolization on Reunion Island must be understood in the larger context of the Indian Ocean region. If the world of the plantation was its matrix, we must keep in mind that slaves, indentured workers, and settlers arrived on the island with memories, traces of their worlds. Reunion Island, situated on the Asian-African axis, and its processes of creolization cannot be studied outside this larger context. Creolization is a process constantly at work, in which 'diffusion' and 'spread' of elements accompany appropriation and adoption; a process that necessitates the agency of the recipient. Creolization is not a harmonious process; it involves exclusion and discrimination.
