Creolization: Sociocultural Aspects
nature’), or it may result from a particular environ-
ment, context, and interpersonal stance. Enhancement
efforts may focus on the cognitive, metacognitive,
motivational, or attitudinal facets of the creative
process. The cognitive facets may be the easiest to
target (e.g., by suggesting tactics) and the motivational
the most difficult. The most effective enhancement will
take most or all facets of the creative process into
account.
Educators or managers may recognize the need for
enhancement efforts. They may investigate the pro-
grams which are designed to maximize creative efforts,
or they may take it upon themselves to create a
stimulating environment and provide the respect,
resources, and tolerance that will allow creative
thinking. Enhancement is, however, probably most
effective over the long run. Short-term programs may
be effective, but they may fail to generalize and may
not be maintained for very long. Creativity is the most
likely when enhancement is supported over a long
period of time. In this sense parents may be in the
position to best enhance creative thinking. They can
model creativity, provide opportunities for original
problem solving and self-expression, and appropri-
ately appreciate autonomy and risk taking—and they
can do so for an extended period of time. If the benefits
of enhanced creativity are recognized on a larger scale,
by society as a whole, enhancement is virtually
assured. If that occurs, parents, educators, managers,
and supervisors will all tolerate, appreciate, and
support enhanced creative thinking.
See also: Creativity and Cognition; Creativity and
Innovation in Organizations, Management of; Dis-
covery Learning, Cognitive Psychology of; Intrinsic
Motivation, Psychology of; Problem Selection in the
Social Sciences: Methodology
Bibliography
Adams J L 1986 Conceptual Blockbusting: A Guide to Better
Ideas. Norton, New York
Basadur M 1994 Managing the creative process in organizations.
In: Runco M A (ed.) Problem Finding, Problem Sol
ing, and
Creati
ity. Ablex, Norwood, NJ, pp. 237–68
Meador K S, Fishkin A S, Hoover M 1999 Research-based
strategies and programs to facilitate creativity. In: Fishkin
A S, Cramond B, Olszewski-Kubilius P (eds.) In
estigating
Creati
ity in Youth: Research and Methods. Hampton Press,
Cresskill, NJ, pp. 389–416
Richards R in press Millennium as opportunity: Chaos, creat-
ivity, and Guilford’s structure-of-intellect model. Creati
ity
Research Journal
Rickards T, deCock C in press Understanding organizational
creativity: Towards a multi-paradigmatic approach. In:
Runco M A (ed.) Creati
ity Research Handbook. Hampton
Press, Cresskill, NJ, Vol. 2
Rubenson D L, Runco M A 1995 The psychoeconomic view of
creative work in groups and organizations. Creati
ity and
Inno
ation Management 4: 232–41
Runco M A (ed.) 1997 Creati
ity Research Handbook. Hampton
Press, Cresskill, NJ
Runco M A, Albert R S (eds.) in press Theories of Creati
ity,
rev. edn. Hampton Press, Cresskill, NJ
Runco M A, Charles R E 1993 Judgments of originality and
appropriateness as predictors of creativity. Personality and
Indi
idual Differences 15: 537–46
Runco M A, Richards R (eds.) 1997 Eminent Creati
ity, E
ery-
day Creati
ity, and Health. Ablex, Norwood, NJ
M. A. Runco
Creolization: Sociocultural Aspects
The concept of creolization, so called by analogy with
the creolization of languages, has been used in anthro-
pology to refer to the process of social change that
takes place in societies characterized by rapid social
flux, and where cultural influences from various
origins are integrated into a new system of meaning
locally produced. Cultural creolization is found par-
ticularly in urban centers in association with sustained
cultural contact, more typically produced within the
hegemonical conditions of colonization, of World
system influences, and of globalization.
1. The Origin of the Concept
The concept of ‘creolization’ is borrowed from linguis-
tics, where it refers (a) to a process of transformation
of a pidgin language into the main language (and
often, into the mother tongue) of a new linguistic
community, and (b) to the creation of a creole
language out of different languages (at least two)
without an intermediate pidgin state (see Pidgin and
Creole Languages). It is this second meaning that has
been borrowed by anthropology, but as this process is
rather rarer than the preceding one, it would have been
more accurate to use the term of pidginization (form-
ation of a pidgin language) to refer to the cultural
phenomena that are now described with the concept of
creolization (Jourdan 1987, McKellin 1991). A pidgin
or a creole develops as a response to communication
pressures, in situations of intense cultural contact, and
incorporates features from languages available to the
pidgin\creole makers: the new language is distinct
from the languages that have shaped it, yet has
retained sufficient features of them, that their origin
can sometimes be traced and identified. Theories of
pidgin and creole genesis are highly debated in creole
studies, yet scholars agree that the characteristics of
pidgin and creole languages include the speed with
2903
Creolization: Sociocultural Aspects
which they form and develop; the sociological con-
ditions that have shaped them, most typically, col-
onization; and an almost instantaneous creativity.
2. Creolization and Anthropology
Despite the epistemological difficulties inherent to the
borrowing of theories and analytical models across
disciplines, the concept of creolization seems to have
captured the imagination of some scholars as a way of
talking about and analyzing rapid cultural change
associated with contact between societies of different
ideological and technological orientation. The fact
that the label ‘creolization’ was retained, rather than
the more technically appropriate ‘pidginization’ is
linked to two factors: first, the word ‘creole’ already
existed in anthropology to refer to the people and
plantation societies of the Caribbeans and the Indian
Ocean, typically characterized by a high degree of
cultural diversity and intense contact, but nevertheless
full-fledged cultural formations, most often sustained
by creole languages. Second, for a long time pidginiza-
tion has been thought of as a process of linguistic
impoverishment, whereas creolization was always
associated with linguistic enrichment and elaboration.
Using the former label could have been seen as a
pejorative and inadequate label to describe a process
of cultural creativity where ‘loss’ had no place. In this
case, the metaphorical power of creolization won over
the more technically correct pidginization. The earlier
examples of such usage appear in the works of
Drummond (1980), and Hannerz (1987). In parallel,
French linguists and anthropologists working in West
Africa and in the Pacific have introduced the concept
of creT oliteT to talk about the creole-like features of the
societies where they work (Mannessy 1987), of ‘creoli-
city’ to talk about the socioeconomic and ideological
conditions fostering the development of creolized
societies (Jourdan 1985) and of cultural meT tissage
(Amselle 1990).
In anthropology, creolization has been used in two
different ways. First, as a metaphor capturing elusive
processes of integration of new cultural forms, a
synonym of hybridization associated with globaliza-
tion. Second, as an analytical model for the study of
social change directly mapped onto the linguistic
model of creolization–pidginization described above.
In all cases, creolization is used to refer to social
change. An example, yet not representative of all types
and domains of creolization, would be a Solomon
Island business man sending printed invitations to the
Catholic wedding of his daughter in the biggest hotel
of the city of Honiara, but who would make sure to
collect the bridewealth from the family of the groom,
and would subsequently redistribute it to his kin.
Used as a metaphor, the meaning of creolization
remains very akin to that of hybridization and creates
the same type of conceptual ambiguities: is it the
2904
process or is it the results of structural modification or
reorganization? The image that there is something that
gets mixed with something else to produce yet another
thing (e.g., the new form of marriage in Honiara), is
inherent to the metaphor. As such, it is an interesting
shortcut into the description of phenomena not easily
definable, but which seem to be clearly associated with
the complexification of social relationships. Used only
as a metaphor, creolization (and hybridity) fail to
explain how what is happening warrants the usage of
this new term rather than intersystem (Drummond
1980), syncretism (see Syncretism), or me! tissage, those
other concepts central to a study of social change that
focuses on the in-between. Creolization, in that sense,
is used to refer to a recombination of structures,
practices and meanings: a case of ‘new meanings in
old shells’ or ‘old meanings in new shells.’ In as much
as they focus on the dynamic intermixing and restruc-
turing of meanings, both concepts are similar. Both
capture the image of the in-between, of the neither\
nor, of flux and vanishing boundaries, but focus on the
result.
A stronger reading of the concept of creolization,
closest to the way the concept is used in linguistics,
proposes ways of identifying the cultural logic which
provides answers to the following questions: What
changes and what does not, and under which condi-
tions? What is the nature and the pace of the change?
If culture is practice, how does change affect the
practice of identity? If culture is text, is every aspect of
culture affected in the same manner and to the same
extent? If culture is grammar, are there parameters
and constraints for change? What makes the change
acceptable? This version of creolization rests on a set
of assumptions: (a) that moral–existential aspects of
culture can be differentiated from instrumental as-
pects; (b) that the latter change at a faster pace than
the former; (c) that, with regards to the pace of change,
they can be compared with the syntax and lexicon of a
language respectively. In situations of creolization,
local instrumental aspects of culture are often
replaced, along with their attending symbols and
meanings, with those from another source. The moral
–existential aspects of culture are now sustained by
new symbols, and may be given slightly different
meanings, but will still be perceived as essential to the
group’s definition of identity. The bridewealth pay-
ment mentioned above is essential to the father’s
standing in one of his networks (here his lineage) and
justifies his traveling back to the home village to
collect it. All participants in the transaction agree that
the meaning of such bridewealth is now very different
from what it used to be, and that the amount is
inflated. Yet bridewealth has to be paid, even against
the wishes of the parish priest, because this form of
exchange is essential to the integration of lineages, and
therefore to the father’s identity as a member of the
group. As with any form of social process, creolization
rests on people’s agency and ability to engage the

world, and is associated with a reconfiguration of self
and of the practice of identity. Undoubtedly, there is a
distinct advantage in identifying the processes that
lead to a redefinition of people’s practice of identity,
even if, initially, this identification may start with an
analysis of the features and elements that are being
transferred across cultures, with or without attendant
localization.
3. Essentialism
Contra critics have argued that creolization theory is
essentialist because it presupposes the existence of
pristine cultures that will subsequently join, mix,
overlap, and be reshaped; proponents of creolization
reject this notion, and point to culture as a locus of
permanent change, made even more spectacular at
particular times in the history of societies. They also
point to the shortcomings of a conception of culture as
a bounded pristine entity.
If creolization were an essentialist theory, the
concept of cultural loss would be integral to its
definition. Yet, it is not, for the simple reason that
talking about loss in connection with social change
implies a move away from the ideal, but unreal,
pristine state of tradition. Loss belongs to a theoretical
framework in which cultures are seen as essential
wholes, neatly bounded self-reproducing structures,
impervious to the passage of time and deriving
legitimacy from a primal pristine state. Cultures are
not less authentic because they are creolizing. The new
cultural practices, and the new cultural forms, that
have emerged out of the creolization process are not
any more authentic or spurious than the ones they are
derived from, or more spurious or authentic than
societies that have changed in other ways. They simply
exist. What is revealed by the creolization concept is
the endless negotiation of meaning that takes place
when groups and individuals engage in social relations
within societies. The pace and scope of these cultural
negotiations are more important in situations of rapid
social change. The strength of creolization theory is
that it points to (or foregrounds) elements that are not
easily captured by other models: heterogeneity rather
than homogeneity, process rather than stasis, frag-
mentation rather than integration, multiple rather
than singular identities, and above all at the domain of
culture as contested ground rather than public space.
4. The World System and Globalization
Typically, but not exclusively (see Hannerz 1996) the
creolization concept has been applied to the analysis
of social change in the so called Third and Fourth
World societies, in colonial and postcolonial situa-
tions. Colonial, postcolonial and hegemonical con-
tact relations are particular in the type and speed of the
Creolization: Sociocultural Aspects
sociocultural change they provoke and are best suited
to be studied with the paradigm of creolization that
holds the speed of change as a defining element. Critics
have argued that the quasi-exclusive application of
creolization theory to these societies disempowers
them and reinforces the fait accompli of colonization
by strengthening stereotypes. The argument is usually
framed in relation to the World System theory and to
the concepts of core and periphery. There may be a
reason for this affinity: the very sociocultural forma-
tions and ideologies that have fostered the devel-
opment of creole languages have reappeared under a
new guise, that of the World System, economic and
cultural, which creates even more pressures for change
in these societies than anywhere else at the same
moment. These types of contact-induced ideological
and experiential pressures resemble the superstrate
and substrate influences at work in the formation of
creole languages in that they juxtapose and confront
practices and meanings that are produced by different
social systems and ideologies. This raises the question
of the relationship of creolization to globalization.
Creolization shares with globalization an increase in
available modes of social organization and cultural
representation (Pieterse 1995), both offer more op-
tions. Both are associated with more culture and not
less, even if, on the surface, things look different. But
with globalization residing in a movement of ideas, as
much as in people’s engagement with new sets of
ideologies and practices, one could identity, as
Hannerz does in Stockholm (1996), creolizing forma-
tions in nontypical creolization sites.
5. Urbanization
It is in cities that creolization is the most obvious, if
only because of the rate and scope of change. As cultural
market places, cities are the loci of very fast socio-
cultural mutations that lead some observers to talk of
deculturation, and not only of adaptation to an urban
way of life. Creolization is neither. When full-fledged
towns and cities develop over mere 40 years, as is the
case in many parts of the Third World, in places where
there is no local tradition of urbanization, for instance,
it requires on the part of urbanites a reassessment of
the parameters of their identity (as with the father’s
behavior at the time of his daughter’s wedding) and
subsequent engagement in new types of social relations
of the type and scale that is not found in other forms
of sociocultural change. What is typical of cities is the
ebullition of cultural creativity. Only a close study of
the superstrate and substrate influences could reveal
why, despite the onslaught of a generic cultural and
economic World System (the superstrate) onto local
traditions (the substrate), the cultural formations of
urban Nigeria (Hannerz 1987) Solomon Islands
(Jourdan 1985), and Guyana (Drummond 1980) are
similar in very many ways, and yet very different from
2905
Creolization: Sociocultural Aspects
one another. This begs the question of the specificity of
creolized societies: are they any different from other
types of societies, given the fact that all societies are
changing, and that many contemporary non-Third
World societies have, at some point in their history,
lived in situations of colonization, invasion or
hegemony? May be they are, if only because of the speed
and the depth of change that characterize them, and
give the impression of a permanent flux. The lifespan
of creolization is also a subject of debate: is creoliza-
tion a transitional period in the life of societies, at
particular moments of their history, or is it a per-
manent state of affairs? One has to ask whether
anthropology will be better served by using creoliza-
tion as a universal synonym for fast cultural change
associated with globalization, or whether the concept
is not more useful when applied to some social contexts
of change and not to others.
See also: Cultural Assimilation; Culture Shock; Glob-
alization and World Culture; Hegemony: Cultural;
Hybridity; Pidgin and Creole Languages; Syncretism
Bibliography
Amselle J L 1990 Anthropologie de l’identiteT en Afrique et ailleurs.
Payot, Paris
Drummond L 1980 The cultural continuum: a theory of
intersystems. Man 15: 352–74
Hannerz U 1987 The world in creolization. Africa 57: 546–59
Hannerz U 1996 Transnational Connections. Routledge, London
Jourdan C 1985 Sapos iumi mitim iumi: creolization and
urbanization in the Solomon Islands. Ph.D. thesis. The Austra-
lian National University, Canberra, ACT
Jourdan C 1987 Des plantations a' la ville. Journal de la SocieT teT
des OceT anistes 85: 243–53
Mannessy G 1987 Cre! olisation et cre! olite! . En tudes CreT oles 10:
25–38
McKellin W 1991 Hegemony and the language of change: the
pidginization of land tenure among the Managalase of Papua
New Guinea. Ethnology 30: 313–24
Pieterse J N 1995 Globalization as hybridization. In: Feather-
stone M, Lash S, Robertson R (eds.) Global Modernities.
Sage, London, pp. 45–68
C. Jourdan
Copyright # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd.
All rights reserved.
Crime and Class
Does social class affect criminal behavior? If so, why
has the relationship been so difficult to document in
self-report crime surveys? If not, why are prisoners
drawn almost exclusively from the ranks of the poor?
These questions are important for stratification re-
searchers as well as those studying law, criminology,
and deviance. Criminologists are interested in class
because it is a fundamental indicator of social position.
2906
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences
If crime is related to social class, then social structural
factors such as inequality, poverty, and labor markets
are likely to be important causes of crime. If not,
criminologists must look to factors that may cut more
evenly across class lines, such as individual pathology
or dysfunctional family processes. Stratification re-
searchers are becoming interested in crime for anal-
ogous reasons. Individual-level evidence suggests that
crime and the societal reaction to crime can disrupt
individual attainment (Hagan 1993), while macro level
studies show that crime and punishment may alter
unemployment rates and economic performance
(Western and Beckett 1999). This article first reviews
empirical generalizations about class and crime, and
the conceptual and methodological tools used to
interpret them. It then outlines recent theoretical and
empirical developments and diverse research strategies
to further elaborate the relationship, concluding that
the relation between criminal behavior and social class
is likely to be reciprocal or endogenous.
1. Measurement
1.1 Measurement of Crime
The relationship observed between crime and class is
sensitive to the measurement of each concept. There
are three primary sources of crime data: the offenders,
the official enforcement agencies, and the victims.
Self-report studies, typically based on samples of high-
school students, generally report very weak relation-
ships between social class and delinquency (Tittle et al.
1978). However, social class is a strong and significant
predictor of official law violation, as measured by
arrest and punishment, all over the world (Braithwaite
1981). Surveys of prison inmates show that they are
educationally and economically disadvantaged rela-
tive to the general population. Prior to their most
recent arrest, only two-thirds of inmates in the USA
had completed high-school, one-third were not em-
ployed, and less than half reported annual income
greater than $10,000 (US Department of Justice 1993).
The relation between social class and criminal victimiz-
ation depends on the type of crime under consider-
ation. In 1998, in the USA, the violent victimization
rate among households reporting annual income
greater than $35,000 was only half the violent victimiz-
ation rate of households earning less than $7,500. For
property crimes such as theft, however, the highest
victimization rate occurs among households earning
$50,000 or more per year (US Department of Justice
1999).
It has proven difficult to reconcile the conflicting
pictures of the class–crime relationship provided by
self-report, official, and victimization data. Some
argue that the discrepancy arises because self-reports
generally capture a different domain of behavior than
official data. When self-reports are compared with
police records, the results show high rates of congru-
ISBN: 0-08-043076-7