Abstract
Maman ma trouvé klé-la/ klé-la pou ouvé pot-la/ pot-la si lakarayib ("Kavalyé o Dan’", Kassav’). In the song "Kavalyé o Dam" by Kassav’, which reuses the calls that gather people to dance the quadrille, the key to understanding the Caribbean is the quadrille itself, in creolised form. The creolised quadrille is also a key connecting the Caribbean to other sites in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans, where versions of it flourished and are still cherished as heritage. The transoceanic creole quadrille illustrates how creolisation as a process unfolded in vastly different places as responses to European expansionism and different local impulses. The results of creolisation across the connected oceans thus exhibit both variation and constancy, polysemy and structural recognisability. Through an archipelagic approach, I propose a reappraisal of these characteristics of creolised cultural products, that helps us understand their value for history, theory, and sustainable heritage.
