Theorizing world culture through the New World: East Indians and creolization.

The article presents an ethnographic inquiry regarding Creole's assumption of significance for theorists that work outside the Caribbean. The author analyzes how and why interculturation is transformed into acculturation when creolization theory is applied to East Indians in Trinidad. A call for reconceptualization of creolization theory through the recognition of the limitations imposed by such instances of epistemological collapse is presented.