In 1915, United States marines arrived in Haiti. Their landing signaled the beginning of an occupation that would cripple Haiti long after it ended in 1934. Scholars have offered compelling insights into African American opposition to the erosion of Haitian sovereignty. But this scholarship has prioritized the activism of Black men and male-dominated institutions while deemphasizing the complex reaction of Black women to the occupation. This article highlights that overlooked reaction. It shows that some leading Black women continued to speak of the need to civilize Haiti.

This article discusses the torturous conditions and suffering of enslaved men and women during the years of the French colony of Haiti before the French revolution of 1791. Boisvert focuses on the living conditions of female slaves and their different forms of resistance against their colonizers. The articles original contribution stems from and questions a biased historical neglect of racialized women as subjects of resistance and change during periods of revolution. (Summary by Mouka)

This article offers a detailed literary analysis of the novel Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat. Christophe demonstrates how Danticat was able to blend the real and the imaginary in order to further explore how truth and lies exist within artistic fictional works and how they create both an imaginary and grounded portrayal of reality. (Summary by Mouka)

This publication analyses what is identified by H’éros-chimères (2001) and Miraculeuse (2003) by Frankétienne about what is miraculous about the Haitian revolution, how it was once perceived and how it is presently perceived. Frankétienne explains how the “miracle” of the revolution has been aborted and questions the possibility of the “aborted” fetus (post-slavery and revolutionary Haiti) developing fully.

In this essay, Larrier analyses literary several texts, the main one being Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones, so as to explore themes of testimony among women in literature. The author analyses how in Caribbean cultures, women are positioned to see and hear, but they are not always publicly acknowledged as oral historians and storytellers. Many of the female characters mentioned experience trauma and are positioned as witnesses who must transmit information to others but their testimony is almost never given in a courtroom, which reflects the distrust in the current systems.

The author argues that the sustained representation of rape purposefully draws our attention to gendered violence that has often been obscured in favour of broader forms of violence (in the forms of slavery, dictatorships, coups, occupations, etc.). Moreover, this paper deals with a writer whose approach to sexual violence also unveils its occurrence outside of contexts that are overtly political.

This text compares the theologies of Vodou and Neopaganism through a feminist lens. Pizza does this by drawing from the work of Karen McCarthy Brown who has completed similar comparisons. The author achieves this by highlighting the duality of certain spirits within Vodou and their similarities with Western theologies. The difference in concepts and experiences of the divine feminine in Vodou and Neopagan traditions is rooted in difference in acculturation, philosophy, and theologies between African and Western cultures.

This interview between Renée H. Shea and Edwidge Danticat focuses on Danticat’s latest work: her stories in The New Yorker Magazine, her upcoming children’s novel Behind The Mountains and a travel memoir about Jacmel called After The Dance. (Summary by Mouka)

Cet entretien entre Renée H. Shea et Edwidge Danticat porte sur les derniers travaux de Danticat, comme ses histoires dans le New Yorker Magazine, son prochain roman pour enfants Behind The Mountains et un mémoire de voyage sur Jacmel intitulé After The Dance. (Résumé par Mouka)

This essay analyses three texts written by women in three different Caribbean Creole: Deyita’s Esperans Dezire (1988) written in Haitian Creole, Sistren’s Lionheart Gal (1986) written in Jamaican Creole, and Mamita Fox’s Identifikashon (1997) written in Curaçaoan Papiamentu. Strongman places these texts within the diachronic tradition of Creole writing, establishing a synchronic dialogue among them and tracing the emergence of a subjectivity, which is dually linguistic and gendered.

In this ethnographic montage, the author revisits the development of her feminist consciousness as a young Haitian teen in the US after migration. She interprets her struggles with her parents’ patriarchal authority. Her responses to this authority serve to highlight the significance of self-definition as a primary tenant of US Black Feminism. She demonstrates how tales of experimental feminist anthropologists whose ethnographic storytelling crosses the boundaries of the personal and the social.