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<p>In the face of dramatically reduced diversity, an outcome of accelerated globalised capitalism and state power, some respond by attempting to recover pre-modern ways of life. This intervention&#xa0;argues that such a solution is neither desirable nor possible. Instead, it looks to impurities, mixing, hybridity, and creolisation as a template for reconciling modernity with diversity both as regards culture and nature. A premise is that perpetual economic growth and runaway overheated globalisation are negative for diversity; and in fact that the moment relative isolation sets in and people are left to their own devices, half-forgotten skills and practices return. We saw this happen during the time of scarcity during the Second World War in Europe. Suddenly, urban people in societies struggling with scarcity discovered that they were able to raise and slaughter pigs and look after a potato patch.&#xa0;The discussion coalesces in a presentation of a couple of creolising projects, notably a Seychellois pandemic project called The Creole Garden. The ultimate significance of this&#xa0;project lies in its being both biological and cultural at the same time, without any pretense of purity or authenticity — both the people and the plants they grow are relatively recent arrivals —&#xa0;but rather is an attempt to create forms of diversity which are direct products of contact and trueborn descendants of the Columbian exchange. Hardly any of the plants in the Creole garden are endemic, and none of the people is Indigenous. At the same time, the garden, its produce, and the skills are unique, rooted, and localised.&#xa0;In a creole world, diversity is produced through contact rather than isolation, cross-pollination instead of separation. This is where the solutions to the loss of diversity, and of flexibility for the future, should be sought.</p>

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The Creole Option: A Future For Diversity in Nature and Culture

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年8月7日

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  • Kari Spjeldnæs,
  • Thomas Hylland Eriksen

摘要

In the face of dramatically reduced diversity, an outcome of accelerated globalised capitalism and state power, some respond by attempting to recover pre-modern ways of life. This intervention argues that such a solution is neither desirable nor possible. Instead, it looks to impurities, mixing, hybridity, and creolisation as a template for reconciling modernity with diversity both as regards culture and nature. A premise is that perpetual economic growth and runaway overheated globalisation are negative for diversity; and in fact that the moment relative isolation sets in and people are left to their own devices, half-forgotten skills and practices return. We saw this happen during the time of scarcity during the Second World War in Europe. Suddenly, urban people in societies struggling with scarcity discovered that they were able to raise and slaughter pigs and look after a potato patch. The discussion coalesces in a presentation of a couple of creolising projects, notably a Seychellois pandemic project called The Creole Garden. The ultimate significance of this project lies in its being both biological and cultural at the same time, without any pretense of purity or authenticity — both the people and the plants they grow are relatively recent arrivals — but rather is an attempt to create forms of diversity which are direct products of contact and trueborn descendants of the Columbian exchange. Hardly any of the plants in the Creole garden are endemic, and none of the people is Indigenous. At the same time, the garden, its produce, and the skills are unique, rooted, and localised. In a creole world, diversity is produced through contact rather than isolation, cross-pollination instead of separation. This is where the solutions to the loss of diversity, and of flexibility for the future, should be sought.