Cr´ eolit ´ e, (Im)Mobility, and Music in Dominica TIMOTHY ROMMEN Some may say that we are divided by the sea, I say we are linked by the sea. —Gordon Henderson, Antillais sans frontie ` res (2006) This article constitutes a preliminary attempt to wrestle with how and to what extent the concept of ‘‘creole,’’ as it applies to language, music, dance, and historical processes, serves to open dis- cursive and performative spaces within which Dominicans can effectively imagine themselves as both Dominican and Antillean Citizens—spaces within which they can envision themselves transcending the peripheral- ity of the island itself, or, to borrow C.L.R. James’s phrase, can explore moving ‘‘beyond a boundary,’’ while simultaneously charting possible paths toward a borderless Caribbean. 1 The article is thus concerned with how musicians, festival organizers, and their audiences negotiate two rather slippery concepts: the complex of creole/creolization/cr´ eolit ´ e; and The research for this article was made possible thanks to the generous funding afforded through the University Research Foundation at the University of Pennsylvania. A Mellon Faculty Fellowship at the Penn Humanities Forum provided institutional and collegial context. Thanks are due to my colleagues at the Penn Humanities Forum, whose insights and comments proved invalu- able to me. I also thank Ken Bilby, Andrea Bohlman, Richard Jankowsky, and Michael Largey for their productive readings and comments on later versions of the article. Finally, many thanks to Gordon Henderson, Cornell Phillip, Ashworth Simon, Anita Bullly, Daryl Phillip, and Natalie Clarke for their generous and enthusiastic assistance throughout this project. 1 C.L.R. James, Beyond A Boundary (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993 [1963]). 558 The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 32, Issue 4, pp. 558–591, ISSN 0277-9269, electronic ISSN 1533-8347.  2015 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permis- sion to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Reprints and Permissions web page, www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints. DOI: 10.1525/JM.2015.32.4.558