Creoleness (créolité)
Literary and cultural theory elaborated in the 1980s by a small group of Francophone authors from the Caribbean, particularly Martinique and Guadeloupe, the most prominent of whom are Patrick Chamoiseau, Jean Bernabé (1942—2017), and Raphaël Confiant. Its main theorist is Glissant, Édouard, who joined the group later, and acknowledges the influence of Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Félix. Creoleness was established in opposition to négritude, a literary movement established in the 1930s by the (also Francophone) Caribbean and African writers Césaire, Aimé, Senghor, Léopold, and Léon Damas. These authors sought to define themselves in terms of their links to the African continent, seeing their shared heritage as part of the black diaspora as a source of empowerment for colonial peoples. In contrast, the Creoleness writers reject this stance as backward looking, but also unfeasible inasmuch that Caribbean peoples and Africans are too unlike to ever be fully integrated, preferring instead to look forward to a post-essentialist future. Ultimately Creoleness is a celebration of diversity and a negation of what it sees as false universality.