  We present a new model for the description of heavy-flavor hadronization in
high-energy nuclear (and possibly hadronic) collisions, where the process takes
place not in the vacuum, but in the presence of other color charges. We explore
its effect on the charmed hadron yields and kinematic distributions once the
latter is applied at the end of transport calculations used to simulate the
propagation of heavy quarks in the deconfined fireball produced in nuclear
collisions. The model is based on the formation of color-singlet clusters
through the recombination of charm quarks with light antiquarks or diquarks
from the same fluid cell. This local mechanism of color neutralization leads to
a strong space-momentum correlation, which provides a substantial enhancement
of charmed baryon production -- with respect to expectations based on $e^+e^-$
collisions -- and of the collective flow of all charmed hadrons. We also
discuss the similarities between our model and recently developed mechanisms
implemented in QCD event generators to simulate medium corrections to
hadronization in the presence of other nearby color charges.
