Western Model and Creolization

This article examines the process of creolization, using the very special and nevertheless revelatory case of French Guiana. Underlining the complexity of the French Guianese society and its history, it focuses on Creoles and Maroons as groups generations up from slavery, and establishes creation as constituent of creolization, without ignoring the reference to African origins. It focuses on the domain of magic and religion, in order better to identify the point at which Creole and Maroon constructions diverge : that of the function given by the Creoles to individualism as their structuring principle, while the Maroons place matrilignage and clan at the heart of their plan. The concept of creolization thus seems better adapted to societies historically marked by the western model and its modernity and which, in fact, lay claim to being creole.