Haiti: in Context
| Part 1 of 3 - Haiti In Context: Perspective On the Current Crisis |
| Part 2 of 3 - Haiti In Context: Perspective On the Current Crisis |
| Part 3 of 3 - Haiti In Context: Perspective On the Current Crisis |
Why?
On January 12, 2010 a major earthquake of 7.0 on the Richter scale struck Haiti’s capital city of Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas. Current counts estimate the affected at 3.5 million and the dead at perhaps 200,000 men, women, and children. In Port-au-Prince, major government buildings collapsed, as did the headquarters of the UN Peacekeeping Mission (MINUSTAH) and the headquarters of many NGOs and aid organizations active in the country. Major cultural sites collapsed too: churches, schools, universities, libraries, and archives. Outside Port-au-Prince, the cities of Carrefour, Leogane, and Jacmel have been almost leveled.
A major relief effort was launched almost immediately, with participation of the United States and nations across the globe, as well as the United Nations and many international aid organizations. But efforts were hampered, on the one hand, by the massive damage to existing infrastructure and, according to groups such as Doctors without Borders, by an emphasis on security rather than relief. The crisis is still unfolding and will be for some time to come.
With so much attention focused on Haiti, many people are asking similar questions: Why have the effects of the earthquake been so devastating? Why is Haiti so poor? Where is the Haitian state? Why was the UN already there and what was it doing? What is the history of democracy in Haiti? Where can I learn about Haitian culture? What is the history of the relationship between the United States and Haiti, and what is the role of the U.S. at this current critical juncture? What can we do to help?
These pages provide resources that can be used to help people address those questions. The site contains suggestions for further readings, links to important sources of information, links to the best news coverage of Haiti, and information on events on Haiti at NYU and beyond.
If you are a teacher interested in having someone come to your school to talk about Haiti, please contact Jen Lewis, Assistant Director, jal15[at]nyu.edu
| Haiti/NYU Events at NYU/CLACS Commentaries from NYU Faculty Haitian Elections 2011 Current Crisis Multimedia Resources Continuing Media Coverage Haitian Media Selected Opinion Pieces Recommended by NYU Faculty Local and International Responses How to Help Educational Materials Resources for K-12 Teachers | Resources on the Cultures of Haiti Literature Religion and Vodou Music Art Language Resources on the History of Haiti Useful Surveys and Overviews The Haitian Revolution, 1791-1804 Independent Haiti The United States Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934 Duvalierism Aristide Haiti and the Dominican Republic |
Haiti/NYU
Events at NYU/CLACS
Children and Human Rights in Haiti
Friday, February 12, 2010, 4pm, King Juan Carlos Center, Room 404W
Nadine Perrault, UNICEF Regional Advisor on Child Protection
Haiti in Context: Perspectives on the Current Crisis
Wednesday, January 20, 2010 5-7pm King Juan Carlos Center Auditorium
Ada Ferrer (NYU History/CLACS) Moderator; Michael Dash (NYU French/SCA); Sibylle Fischer (NYU, Spanish); Karen Greenberg (NYU Law, Center for Law and Security); Millery Polyné (NYU, Gallatin); Meg Satterthwaite (NYU Law, Center for Global Justice and Human Rights); Gina Athena Ulysse (Wesleyan, Anthropology)
Video of this event is available on YouTube.
Watch Part One (also featured at the top of this webpage)
Watch Part Two
Watch Part Three
Many of the presentations have been subsequently published in
Social Text’s web forum.
“A History of Haiti’s Poverty”
March 10, 2010, details to be confirmed.
Jean Casimir, Professor of Social Sciences, Université d’État d’Haïti and former Haitian Ambassasor to the U.S.
View information on other events at NYU
View information on events at Columbia University
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Commentaries from NYU faculty on Haiti
Michael Dash in The New York Times: The Help that Haiti Needs
William Easterly in The New York Times: Haiti Is Again a Canvas for Approaches to Aid
Sibylle Fischer on PRI's The World: Haiti's Vodou Religion
Fabienne Doucet discusses Haiti Earthquake and Challenges to Haiti’s Education System
The Haiti Memory Project, launched by NYU PhD student Claire Payton, is an online archive of oral testimony about the January 12, 2010, earthquake and post-earthquake life. It includes over one hundred audio-recorded interviews with Haitians in Port-au-Prince in the summer and fall of 2010.
Junot Diaz reflects on Apocalypse: What Disasters Reveal in the Boston Review.
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Haitian Elections 2011
The Miami Herald, As elections loom, how will Haiti react?
The New York Times: Timecast, Gearing up for elections in Haiti
The Huffington Post, Haiti's Electionaval 2010
BBC, Wide backing for Haiti elections
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Current Crisis
Multimedia Resources
New York Times, Haiti Earthquake Multimedia: Videos, photos, and interactive features
New York Times, Perspectives on the Earthquake: Interviews with aid workers, Haitian citizens, and others
Immersive Media, Disaster Recovery Planning: 360° Coverage in Haiti
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Continuing Media Coverage
C-SPAN:Video coverage of meetings, hearings, testimony in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Defense Department, World Economic Forum, and others
The Guardian: World News: Americas
Latin America News Dispatch: a news website founded by four graduate students in the Global Joint Master’s program in Journalism and Latin American Studies at New York University. The Latin America News Dispatch produces original news stories about Latin America, the Caribbean, U.S. foreign policy, and Hispanics in the United States.
Focus on Haiti: a blog by the Association of Black Anthropologists
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Haitian Media
Radio Television Caraibes, Nouvelles d’Haiti [French]
Radio Kiskeya [French]
Radio Metropole Haiti [French]
Haiti Progres [French/multilingual]
Alter Presse [Multilingual]
The Haitian Times [English]
Haiti Press Network [French]
Haiti en Marche [French]
Ciné InstituteThis is the web page of the Ciné Institute in Jacmel, where local film students have been recording the aftermath of the quake in their city.[English]
Libération, Special issue from January 19, 2010. Features pieces by many important Haitian writers responding to the quake. [French]
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Selected Opinion Pieces Recommended by NYU Faculty
January 14, 2010, Devil’s Logic: Behind Pat Roberton’s Haitian Blame Game, Elizabeth McAlister, Forbes.com
January 15, 2010, IMF to Haiti: Freeze Public Wages, Richard Kim, The Nation
January 15, 2010, Voodoo’s View of the Quake in Haiti, Elizabeth McAlister, The Washington Post
January 16, 2010, Haïti: le témoignage bouleversant de l'écrivain Dany Laferrière, Christine Rousseau, Le Monde
January 18, 2010, Why Does Haiti Suffer So Much?, Elizabeth McAlister, CNN.com
January 17, 2010, Haiti - the Price of Freedom, Carolyn Cooper, Jamaica Gleaner
January 19, 2010, How to Help Haiti Rebuild, Foreign Policy
January 20, 2010, Aftershocks, Évelyne Trouillot, The New York Times
January 20, 2010, Understanding the Haiti Earthquake, Interfaith Radio
January 21, 2010, To Heal Haiti, Look to History, Not Nature, Mark Danner, The New York Times
January 23, 2010, Tales from the front: Amazing rescues, heroic Haitians and hard lessons from the past, Drs. Paul Farmer, Louise Ivers and Claire Pierre, Miami Herald
February 7, 2010, The Dechoukaj This Time , Amy Wilentz, New York Times
February 13, 2010, Education Was Also Leveled by Quake in Haiti, Mark Lacey, New York Times
February 17, 2010, France's Sarkozy visits earthquake-ravaged Haiti, BBC News
March 14, 2010, Haiti's Do-It-Yourself Recovery, Lawrence Downes, The New York Times
March 16, 2010, Haiti: Stealth Zone, Richard Morse, The Huffington Post
Where Solidarity Means Survival: Lessons for the Policy Makers (Part 1)
Where Solidarity Means Survival: Lessons for the Policy Makers (Part 2)
March 21, 2010, How Haiti Saved America, Ted Widmer, The Boston Globe
March 23, 2010, Haiti: Why Ground Reports Still Matter, Adam Clark Estes, The Huffington Post
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Local and International Responses
There are many groups doing valuable aid work in Haiti since the earthquake. Below are links to information on Haiti initiatives by some of those groups. The list is by no means exhaustive.
Pages of Groups doing Work in HaitiInternational Monetary Fund, Haiti and the IMF
Partners in Health, Haiti page
Libraries Without Borders, Haiti page
United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH)
Haitian-American Associations
List of local Haitian organizations from The Haitian Consul of New York
Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees, New York, NY
Haitian American Cultural and Social Organization, Spring Valley, NY:
The United Haitian American Society, Norwalk, CT
Haitian American Association of Filmmakers
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How to Help
Links to debates about how best to conceive of relief and aid for Haiti; practical suggestions on how to help as a volunteer or donor; evaluations of charity organizations working in Haiti.
USAID Soliciting Input on Innovation: USAID encourages you to email your input for how to rebuild Haiti
Good Intentions Are Not Enough: An Honest Conversation about the Impact of Aid
Haiti: Help with money, not stuff from GlobalPost, January 13, 2010
Help Survivors of the Earthquake in Haiti from Charity Navigator: Your Guide to Intelligent Giving
Haiti, Now and Next from Social Science Research Council
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Educational Materials
Resources for K-12 Teachers
On the WebTeaching About Haiti: Educational materials produced by Teaching for Change
Reflecting On and Teaching About Haiti: Information about teaching about Haiti published by the National Writing Project
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Resources on the Cultures of Haiti
Literature
Books (in English)Danticat, Edwidge. Breath, Eyes, Memory. New York: Soho Press, 1994.
Danticat, Edwidge. Krik? Krak! New York: Soho Press, 1995.
Danticat, Edwidge. The Farming of Bones.New York: Soho Press, 1998. (Historical novel on the 1937 massacre of Haitians in D.R).
Dash, J. Michael. Literature and Ideology in Haiti: 1915-1961. Totowa: Barnes & Noble Books, 1981.
Dash, J. Michael. The Other America: Caribbean Literature in a New World Context. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998.
Dash, J. Michael. Culture and Customs of Haiti. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2001.
Dayan, Joan. Haiti, History, and the Gods. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
Laferrière, Dany.An Aroma of Coffee. Translated by David Homel. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1993.
Laferrière, Dany. Dining with the Dictator. Translated by David Homel. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1994.
Laferrière, Dany. Down Among the Dead Men. Translated by David Homel. Toronto: Douglas and McIntyre, 1997.
On the Web
From The New York Times: Haiti in Ink and Tears: A Literary Sampler
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Religion and Vodou
Books (in English)Brown, Karen McCarthy. Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn: Updated and Expanded Edition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.
Deren, Maya. Divine Horsemen: Voodoo Gods of Haiti. New York: Chelsea House, 1970.
Desmangles, Leslie G. The faces of the gods: Vodou and Roman Catholicism in Haiti. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992.
Dunham, Katherine. Island Possessed. Garden City: Doubleday, 1969.
Hurbon, Laennec. Les mystères du vaudou. Paris, France: Gallimard, 1993. [In French]
McAllister, Elizabeth. Rara! Vodou, Power and Performance in Haiti and Its Diaspora. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.
Métraux, Alfred. Voodoo in Haiti. New York: Schocken Books, 1972 [1959].
Michel, Claudine and Patrick Bellegarde-Smith. Vodou in Haitian Life and Culture: Invisible Powers. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Ramsey, Kate. The Spirits and the Law in Haiti. Forthcoming.
Richman, Karen. Migration and Vodou. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005.
Wilcken, Lois. The Drums of Vodou. Tempe: White Cliffs Media Co, 1992.
On the Web
From the American Museum of Natural History
Living Vodou, from American Public Media's Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett
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Music
Books (in English)Averill, Gage. A Day for the Hunter, A Day for the Prey: Popular music and power in Haiti. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.
Courlander, Harold. The Drum and the Hoe. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973 [1960].
On the Web
Haiti's Musical Traditions, Past and Present on The Takeaway/WNYC Radio
Music
The Haiti Box: Alan Lomax Library of Congress Recordings, 1936-37 (10 CD box set + two books).
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Art
Books (in English)Cosentino, Donald, ed. Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou. Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 1995.
McCarthy Brown, Karen. Tracing the Spirit: Ethnographic Essays on Haitian Art: From the Collection of the Davenport Museum of Art. Davenport, Iowa: The Museum; Seattle: Distributed by the University of Washington Press, 1995.
Rodman, Selden. Where Art Is Joy: Haitian Art: the First Forty Years. New York: Ruggles deLatour, 1988.
Sullivan, Edward. Continental Shifts: The Art of Edouard Duval Carrie. Miami: American Art Corp, 2007.
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Language
On the WebOnline Kreyol-English dictionary, as a PDF
Free down-loadable Kreyòl course by Pimsleur Audio
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Resources on the History of Haiti
Below are lists of books and online resources on the essentials of Haitian history. No understanding of the depth of the current crisis is possible without some familiarity with Haiti’s rich and complex history.
The list is not exhaustive, and designed for a U.S. audience, it focuses primarily on English-language resources.
Useful Surveys
Books (in English)Arthur, Charles. Haiti in Focus: A Guide to the People, Politics, and Culture. New York: Interlink Books, 2002.
Arthur, Charles, and Michael Dash, eds. Libète: A Haiti Anthology. Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1999.
Dupuy, Alex. Haiti in the World Economy: Class, Race, and Underdevelopment since 1700. Boulder: Westview Press, 1989.
Farmer, Paul. The Uses of Haiti. Monroe: Common Courage Press, 1994.
Nicholls, David. From Dessalines to Duvalier: Race, Colour and National Independence in Haiti. London: Macmillan Caribbean, 1988.
Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. Haiti, State against Nation: The Origins and Legacy of Duvalierism. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1990.
On the Web
Bob Corbett’s Haiti History page
US State Department Country Report
Haiti: A Country Study (US Library of Congress)
Teaching About Haiti: Resources containing general information about Haiti designed to be used in the classroom
The Haiti Legal Patrimony Project – Model and Implementation
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The Haitian Revolution, 1791-1804
Haiti won its independence from France in 1804 as a result of an uprising against slavery and the slaveholding plantation regime. That revolution, relatively little known today, transformed the Western World. In 1794, it produced the first large-scale abolition of slavery in the modern world. It led as well to the expansion of citizenship rights beyond racial barriers for the first time ever. As historian Laurent Dubois and others have argued, “If we live in a world in which democracy is meant to exclude no one, it is in no small part because of the actions of the enslaved of Saint-Domingue (Haiti) who insisted that human rights were theirs too.”
Books (in English)Dubois, Laurent. Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005.
Fick, Carolyn. The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990.
Fiering, Norman and David Geggus, eds. The World of the Haitian Revolution. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009.
Fischer, Sibylle. Modernity Disavowed: Haiti and the Cultures of Slavery in the Age of Revolution. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004.
Geggus, David. Haitian Revolutionary Studies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002.
James, C. L. R. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. New York: Vintage Books, 1989 [1963].
Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995.
On the Web
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Independent Haiti
From its inception, Haiti was exceptional: a nation that had abolished slavery and was ruled by former slaves and free people of color. It represented the dramatic victory of anti-slavery in an era in which slavery was expanding rapidly, for example, in the U.S. South, Cuba, and Brazil. Not surprisingly, then, the newly independent nation was isolated and shunned by the major world powers. The Catholic Church refused to recognize independent Haiti, a refusal that limited the new state’s ability to provide education for its citizens. In 1825, France, its former colonial master, agreed to recognize Haiti on the condition that Haiti indemnify the French for the losses French citizens had sustained during the Haitian Revolution. Thus former slaves who had never received wages or compensation of any kind paid former masters for damages. Haiti was paying off the debt until 1925.
BooksCheesman, Clive, Marie-Lucie Vendryes, and Michaëlle Jean. The Armorial of Haiti: Symbols of Nobility in the Reign of Henry Christophe. London: College of Arms, 2007.
Hector, Michel, Laënnec Hurbon, and Unesco. Genèse de L'État Haïtien, 1804-1859. Paris: Maison des Sciences de L'Homme, 2009.
Saunders, Prince. Haytian Papers: A Collection of the Very Interesting Proclamations, and Other Official Documents: Together with Some Account of the Rise, Progress, and Present State of Kingdom of Hayti. Westport: Negro Universities Press, 1969.
Sheller, Mimi. Democracy after Slavery: Black Publics and Peasant Radicalism in Haiti and Jamaica. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000.
Polyné, Millery. From Douglass to Duvalier: U.S. African Americans, Haiti, and Pan-Americanism. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2010.
On the Web Early Haiti: 1804-1843 Haiti: 1844-1915
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The United States Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934
BooksPamphile, Léon Dénius. Clash of Cultures: America's Educational Strategies in Occupied Haiti, 1915-1934. Lanham: University Press of America, 2008.
Plummer, Brenda Gayle. Haiti and the Great Powers, 1902-1915. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988.
Renda, Mary. Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915-1940. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.
Schmidt, Hans. The United States Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1995 [1971].
Shannon, Magdaline W. Jean Price-Mars, the Haitian Elite and the American Occupation, 1915-1935. London: Macmillan Press, 1996.
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Duvalierism
Books (in English)Abbott, Elizabeth. Haiti: The Duvaliers and their Legacy. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988.
Fatton, Robert. Haiti’s Predatory Republic: The Unending Transition to Democracy. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002.
Fatton, Robert. The Roots of Haitian Despotism. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2007.
Nicholls, David. From Dessalines to Duvalier: Race, Colour and National Independence in Haiti. London: Macmillan Caribbean, 1988.
Smith, Matthew. Red and Black in Haiti: Radicalism, Conflict, and Political Change, 1934-1957. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009.
Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. Haiti, State against Nation: The Origins and Legacy of Duvalierism. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1990.
Wilentz, Amy. The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989.
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Aristide
Books (in English) Aristide, Jean-Bertrand. In the Parish of the Poor: Writings from Haiti. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1990.
Dupuy, Alex. The Prophet and Power: Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the International Community, and Haiti. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 2007.
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Haiti and the Dominican Republic
Books (in English)Danticat, Edwidge. The Farming of Bones. New York: Soho Press, 1998. (Historical novel on the 1937 massacre of Haitians in D.R).
Turits, Richard. Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in Dominican History. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. (Chapter 5)
Wucker, Michele. Why the Cocks Fight: Dominicans, Haitians, and the Struggle for Hispaniola. New York: Hill and Wang, 1999.
Television / On the Web
PBS Series: Black in Latin America - Haiti and the Dominican Republic: An Island Divided
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Photographs on this page are © 2010 Ellie Happel and Roberto Francois. All rights reserved.
