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Vodou has often served as a scapegoat for Haiti’s problems, from political upheavals to natural disasters. This tradition of scapegoating stretches back to the nation’s founding and forms part of a contest over the legitimacy of the religion, both beyond and within Haiti’s borders. The Spirits and the Law examines that vexed history, asking why, from 1835 to 1987, Haiti banned many popular ritual practices. To find out, Kate Ramsey begins with the Haitian Revolution and its aftermath. Fearful of an independent black nation inspiring similar revolts, the United States, France, and the rest of Europe ostracized Haiti. Successive Haitian governments, seeking to counter the image of Haiti ...
All over the world, Black and racialized women engage in the solidarity economy through what is known as mutual aid financing. Formally referred to as rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs), these institutions are purposefully informal to support the women’s livelihoods and social needs, and they act to reject tiered forms of neo-liberal development. The Banker Ladies – a term coined by women in the Black diaspora – are individuals that voluntarily organize ROSCAs for self-sufficiency and are intentional in their politicized economic co-operation to counter business exclusion. Caroline Shenaz Hossein reveals how Black women redefine the banking co-operative sector to be incl...
Puerto Ricans maintain a vibrant identity that bridges two very different places--the island of Puerto Rico and the U.S. mainland. Whether they live on the island, in the States, or divide time between the two, most imagine Puerto Rico as a separate nation and view themselves primarily as Puerto Rican. At the same time, Puerto Ricans have been U.S. citizens since 1917, and Puerto Rico has been a U.S. commonwealth since 1952. Jorge Duany uses previously untapped primary sources to bring new insights to questions of Puerto Rican identity, nationalism, and migration. Drawing a distinction between political and cultural nationalism, Duany argues that the Puerto Rican "nation" must be understood ...
In the summer and fall of 1964, a massacre took place in the small town of Jérémie, Haiti. After an ill-fated uprising, the brutal regime of François “Papa Doc” Duvalier ordered reprisals against the town that some of the insurgents were allegedly from. Entire families—all from the town’s upper class—were slaughtered. Through a rich historical ethnography of the massacre, Jean-Philippe Belleau offers a new account of the workings of the Duvalier regime and an innovative analysis of anti-elite violence. Killing the Elites meticulously reconstructs the various phases of the massacre, identifying the victims and perpetrators, tracing the social ties that linked them, and examining ...
Discrimination, stigmatization, xenophobia, heightened securitization – fear and blaming of "aliens within" – characterize the world infected by COVID-19. Such fears have a long cultural history, however, particularly in connecting pathology with race, poverty, and migration. This volume explores theory and narratives of disease, danger, and displacement through the lenses of cultural, literary, and film studies, historical representation, ethnics studies, sociology and cultural geography, classics, music, and linguistics. Investigations range from, for example, illness discourse in the ancient classics to images of perilous intruders in the Age of Trump, from the Haitian Revolution and ...
This collection highlights a key metaphor in contemporary discourse about economy and society. The contributors explore how references to reality and the real economy are linked both to the utopias of collective well-being, supported by real monies and good economies, and the dystopias of financial bubbles and busts, in which people’s own lives “crash” along with the reality of their economies. An ambitious anthropology of economy, this volume questions how assemblages of vernacular and scientific realizations and enactments of the economy are linked to ideas of truth and moral value; how these multiple and shifting realities become present and entangle with historically and socially situated lives; and how the formal realizations of the concept of the “real” in the governance of economies engage with the experiential lives of ordinary people. Featuring essays from some of the world’s most prominent economic anthropologists, The Real Economy is a milestone collection in economic anthropology that crosses disciplinary boundaries and adds new life to social studies of the economy.
These three Programming Notes build on the 2009 publication entitled Armed Violence Reduction: Enabling Development and cover urban armed violence, youth and armed violence, and the links between violence reduction and security system reform.
Today's world is changing at breakneck speed, shaking the very foundations of many societies. Increased mobility through massive urbanization and migration allows people unprecedented access to different cultures and ideas; advanced technologies speed the pace of human interaction; the globalization of communication offers new forms of social relationships that may directly contradict traditional norms for behavior. These changes create tremendous stresses on relationships in societies - affecting the way youth interact with their elders, the way women and men relate to each other, how urban migrants and refugees relate to their new environments, and so on. The impacts of these changes are f...
Vodou and Christianity in Interreligious Dialogue addresses both historical factors and ideological issues that created antagonism and conflict between Christians and Vodouists in Haiti. The book offers practical solutions and strategies to help create a harmonious and peaceful environment between religious practitioners associated with Vodou and Christianity. Toward this goal, this volume considers various perspectives and theories, such as autobiography, anthropology, ethnographic fieldwork, religious experience, and gender to examine the subject matter. This volume offers practical examples and resources on how to engage in interreligious dialogue and promote interreligious education in H...
A detailed ethnographic description of the AIDS epidemic in ten U.S. cities and the U.S. Virgin Islands.