The notion of syncretism is frequently invoked as a pacifying category capable of explaining the complex dynamics of our culture. This use is far from innocent. The term survived political independence because the colonial order designed it to continue administering, in the realm of ideas, what it could no longer subdue by force. It is cited in academic and community spaces to simulate a harmonious encounter between disparate traditions, but this notion proves insufficient, as it operates under a logic of addition that neutralizes the constitutive violence of the colonial era and closes off the political potential of its expressions. A critical examination of this concept reveals at least three dimensions in which its explanatory power is alien to our historical and cultural experience.
The first limitation is epistemic. Syncretism describes the visible result of a process and confuses this superficial description with an explanation of its underlying dynamics. Tracing the influence of the Spanish décima espinela in the galerón or the African components in the percussion is not explaining what happened, but rather compiling an inventory from the perspective of an external observer seeking to recognize the familiar. This procedure violates opacity as an ontological right, as Édouard Glissant argues, because it transforms into manageable data what possessed political power precisely because it defied any prior classification. Jazz was not born as the peaceful union of African traditions and European music, but as a phenomenon that no pre-existing theory could have predicted. This is why syncretism imposes the label of mixture: to codify what eludes it and to exert domination under the guise of peaceful integration.
The second problem is political. Syncretism neutralizes conflict by simulating a harmony between the sources. Caribbean cultural forms did not emerge from a symmetrical dialogue, but from colonial violence, the enslavement of bodies, and the systematic attempt to destroy languages. By decreeing that a practice simply combines elements, the original power asymmetry is erased. There is an insurmountable distance between mixing and marooning. While mixing assumes a fictitious parity, in marooning, the tool of the dominator is captured and forced to respond to the needs of the dominated. The marooned décima espinela is not a European structure seasoned with local elements; it is colonial metrics forced to say what they should never have said, circulating from within to maintain the external form while completely subverting its function.
The third conflict lies in the difference between synthesis and conflictive coexistence. Syncretism operates with an integrative anxiety that needs to produce a harmonious result, but practices of resistance demonstrate that synthesis is neither the only nor the most powerful form of relationship. The Aymara language, ch'ixi, maintains its distinct colors without merging them; seen up close they are distinct, and from afar they appear as one, but they never cancel each other out. When the Palenquero language coexists with the Spanish of a state that folklorizes it as heritage to avoid listening to it as an argument, a stable third party is not generated, but rather a permanent friction that refuses to be resolved. While syncretism is in a hurry to decree a pacified outcome, critical thinking lingers on the conflict, recognizing it as an enduring condition and not as a provisional state toward future reconciliation.
In the Caribbean experience, cultural relationships cannot be predicted in advance. Syncretism blocks unpredictability because it assumes that every manifestation is merely a combination of already known ingredients, thus negating the possibility of something truly new emerging. What this notion fails to name is the surplus, that result that transcends the original components and that the dominant order cannot absorb without being forced to transform itself. Since Cubagua, that fissure has been overflowing the colonial power for five centuries… meanwhile, that living, rebellious, and untamed force continues to flourish in our territories.
