Être capable de transférer ses gènes ou pouvoir fonder une famille peut être difficile pour quelqu’un qui est considéré comme infertile. Si l’infertilité est une maladie biologique, elle est aussi connue comme un problème social de par le nombre de personnes (15% de la population) qu’elle touche et ses effets dans la vie des personnes désireuses d’un enfant. Toutefois, elle affecte les femmes d’une manière particulière, du fait de la stigmatisation qui est rattachée à l’infertilité féminine.

Previous research has shown a post-disaster increase of Gender Based Violence [GBV], suggesting a need for further investigation of the phenomena and its causes. This research draws together a wide-ranging collection of secondary data sets concerning disasters and gender based violence. It analyses the social environment in post-disaster settings that breeds an increase in GBV with focus on Sexual Gender Based Violence[SGBV] and Intra Personal Violence [IPV]. Through a comparison of two case studies: (a) post-earthquake Haiti and (b) post-hurricane Katrina.

La Voix des Femmes: Haitian Women’s Rights, National Politics, and Black Activism in Port-au-Prince and Montréal, 1934-1986 is a response to the haunting absence of scholarly attention to Haitian women in Caribbean and North American political history in the twentieth century. I consider the ways in which elite and middle-class Haitian women’s concepts and practices of activism and feminism both emerged from and influenced debates on race, nationalism, and international politics among black activists in Haiti and North America during the U.S.

Haiti is a Caribbean island with a humanitarian medical center providing healthcare services to 90,000 residents. Pregnant women visiting the medical clinic for prenatal care often do not return for delivery; instead, they return home to deliver alone or with the assistance of a traditional matron. Home-birth practices increase maternal-child health morbidity and mortality in an already fragile country. The purpose of this project was to gain a deeper understanding of Haitian pregnant women’s preferences to deliver at home or at the healthcare clinic.

My dissertation titled "Mambos, Priestesses, and Goddesses: Spiritual Healing Through Vodou in Black Women's Narratives of Haiti and New Orleans" reclaims the practice of Vodou as an integral African spiritual tradition through fiction by black women writers. I discuss how the examination of Vodou necessitates the revision of colonial history, serves as an impetus for reevaluating the literary representation of the black female migrant subject, and gives voice to communities silenced by systemic oppression.

Faced with the lack of formal employment, microentrepreneurship is a common activity among women in developing countries. While microentrepreneurship is often seen as a vehicle for these women to “succeed,” the asset structure conditions the degree of “success.” Even when human capital is abundant in many developing countries, other assets need to concur to make microenterprises viable. This is the case of Haiti, a country where women represent 70 percent of the informal market.

Ce projet de recherche présenté sous la forme d’un documentaire de création, d'une durée de 30 minutes, est intitulé Fanm Dan Vodou. Dans un effort pour mieux découvrir mon être véritable, j’ai mené une série d'entrevues avec des femmes, toutes
prêtresses du Vodou de différents milieux. À travers ces entrevues, j’ai tenté de discerner ce qu’est le Vodou et ce que cela signifie d'être une femme dans le milieu du

This dissertation applies the theoretical perspective of gender relations and develops methods to understand and analyze the movement of women from the center of social systems to its margins when these systems are undergoing rapid socio-economic and political change. This research responded to the pressing need for the application of newer, more appropriate theoretical and methodological perspectives to examine shifting power relations between women and men in areas undergoing transformation.