The question of an implied cultural homogeneity of the two African regions has been widely discredited, as has the vision of an identity underlying the paradigm of acculturation. More recent theories highlight the fluid, relational and contextual nature of identities, recognizing that they are formed in the local domain and are a product of the interactions between different groups, therefore serving as constructions based on multiple influences (Gosden, 2001). In emphasizing the interaction between groups over their fundamental cultural traits, theories of creolization are connected with this theoretical view of identities as constituted by relationships. North American colonoware and Afro-Caribbean ceramics may be easily slotted into this model, given that the sparse nature of the decoration and the limited morphological repertoire suggest the adaptation of Africans of distinct origins to a way of life in the senzalas that homogenized them and restructured their conditions according to the parameters imposed by colonial power.  
In emphasizing the essentialism of the traditional notion of culture and its link with the ideology of the modern nation-States and the traditions  
they established, this situational model of identity holds a strong appeal for academics who identify with post-modernist and post-colonialist approaches (Gosden, 2001). Such formulations do, however, tend to underestimate the dimension of historicity in the trajectories of groups and individuals. Values and world visions are instilled into individuals from the very first moment in the socialization process. These values determine their particular ways of relating to each other and attributing meaning to the world, therefore marking the formation of identities (Bourdieu, 1977). For the thousands of victims of the slave trade, the experience of crossing the Atlantic certainly did not erase the memory of their previous lives, practices, customs, traditions, languages and beliefs.