Intangible Cultural Heritage as Development of an Indian Ocean Island Afrodescent Community

New cultures emerging from cross-cultural interactions between Europeans and Asians widened the cultural spectrum of the Indian Ocean. Contact over both land and sea brought people together, interweaving subsets of Asian cultures within a patchworked landscape. Geographical spreads, and heterogeneous cultural productions, draw these communities apart. But shared histories of forced migration linked to the slave trade and colonisation unite them. Their resilience and creativity are apparent in their cultural production. This chapter explores the complexities and potentialities of creole cultures within the context of Indian Ocean creole communities. It also considers how intangible cultural heritage of migrant communities can be viewed within creolisation, a concept originating in linguistics and borrowed by sociologists. This leads to the incorporation of Intangible Cultural Heritage into a framework of development for these communities. In parts of the Indian Ocean, this has already been established. But in others, where a creole or hybrid identity lacks political force, the potential is under utilised. For such communities, recognition of the power of their intangible cultural heritage is a precursor to the process of tapping into their cultural memories. As an example, links between performance and economic enhancement of an Afrodescent community in the Indian Ocean Island of Sri Lanka will be highlighted in order to carve out a path for the development of marginalised communities.