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Producing Space and Locality Through Cultural Displays: A Creole Case Study

Space and Culture

Published online on

Abstract

The cultural complexity—and potential for identity building—of museums and cultural displays can be potentially powerful spaces of cultural negotiation; in a postcolonial or diasporic setting, the production of locality through cultural displays can serve as a home surrogate (albeit temporarily) for deterritorialized peripheral subjects. However, when these productions (whether they be museums, festivals, or other events of representation) are commoditized and sponsored by socially dominant groups (such as the French government), so that outsiders (nondiasporic people, i.e., the general public) can consume them, what kinds of interactions and clashes can take place? This article aims to answer this question, through the examination of space in a French Antillean festival in Paris: Rue Créole, illustrating the production of locality in Rue Créole through the spatial construction of the venue, and then by examining the production of space and its implications in the festival’s musical performances. Ultimately, I argue that in postcolonial situations, socially produced space can result in polyrhythmic, performatively doubled ensembles and that this in itself is a mark of colonial relation.