Tree of knowledge, tree of life: materials, intimacy and being Creole in London and Seychelles
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Date
25/11/2019Author
O'Gorman, Mairi Stella
Metadata
Abstract
This thesis interrogates discourses of kreolite (Creoleness) in the small island state of
Seychelles, and among the Seychellois diaspora in London. While the literature on
creolization often treats it as mobile and processual, transgressing the boundaries of the
nation-state, for Seychellois in both places being Afro-Creole is underpinned by an idea of
rootedness and tradition. Throughout the chapters, the thesis explores how relationships
predicated on movement and variation can be accommodated within this understanding of
kreolite, and how intersecting scales of national and familial intimacy are constituted by
engagements with particular objects and materials. The chapters examine the arborescent
imagery central to kreolite at the level of the nation-state, arguing that in Seychelles these
must be understood in terms of plantation – as the central institution around which
‘traditional’ Creole life was historically centred, and as a process that implies the rooting of
persons in the islands. The legacy of the plantation engenders particular relationships with
land and property, the house and its contents, and inside and outside spaces that are
understood by Seychellois in terms of a general tendency of living things to regenerate
themselves. This regenerative capacity is extended by state actors – especially those
working within cultural heritage and adjacent fields – beyond everyday objects, to include
the nation. The Creole house, in particular, emerges as a central object of attention for
cultural heritage practitioners, bringing together idealised notions of nation, family and
gendered behaviour whilst, through its materiality, functioning as a point at which the
negative aspects of intimacy (both mundane and occult) are operative. Through engaging
the literature on material culture, the chapters show how the racialized notion of property
on which the institution of the plantation was based informs present-day encounters with
objects and artefacts among Seychellois artists, heritage practitioners, educators, and
families. Treating these encounters as intimate ones, I show the ways that objects and
materials are unruly, divergent, or accommodate meanings other than those endorsed by
state-led conceptions of Seychellois heritage. Together, the chapters argue that it is the
specific qualities of particular materials that constitute Creoleness at familial, national and
transnational scales. It thus engages broader questions about the material qualities of
national and racial imaginaries, and the role of historicity and culture concepts in
naturalising them.