The Haiti Exception
：Anthropology and the Predicament of Narrative
( Francophone Postcolonial Studies )
Publication subTitle ：Anthropology and the Predicament of Narrative
Publication series ：Francophone Postcolonial Studies
Author： Benedicty-Kokken Alessandra Glover Kaiama L. Picard Byron Jhon Schuller Mark
Publisher： Liverpool University Press
Publication year： 2016
E-ISBN: 9781781384527
P-ISBN(Paperback): 9781781382998
Subject： I06 Literature, Literature Appreciation
Language：
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Description
This collection of essays considers the means and extent of Haiti’s ‘exceptionalization’ – its perception in multiple arenas as definitively unique with respect not only to the countries of the North Atlantic, but also to the rest of the Americas. Painted as repulsive and attractive, abject and resilient, singular and exemplary, Haiti has long been framed discursively by an extraordinary epistemological ambivalence. This nation has served at once as cautionary tale, model for humanitarian aid and development projects and point of origin for general theorising of the so-called Third World. What to make of this dialectic of exemplarity and alterity? How to pull apart this multivalent narrative in order to examine its constituent parts? Conscientiously gesturing to James Clifford’s The Predicament of Culture (1988), the contributors to The Haiti Exception work on the edge of multiple disciplines, notably that of anthropology, to take up these and other such questions from a variety of methodological and disciplinary perspectives, including Africana Studies, Anthrohistory, Art History, Black Studies, Caribbean Studies, education, ethnology, Jewish Studies, Literary Studies, Performance Studies and Urban Studies. As contributors revise and interrogate their respective praxes, they accept the challenge of thinking about the particular stakes of and motivations for their own commitment to Haiti.
- Takes the study of Haiti in a new direction through the intersection of anthropology and literary studies.
- Draws together perspectives from scholars from a range of disciplines together with activists and cultural commentators.
- The latest volume in the acclaimed Francophone Postcolonial Studies series published in association with the Society for Francophone Postcolonial Studies.
A collection of essays from international critics that considers the ways and extent of Haiti’s exceptionalisation – its perception in multiple arenas as definitively unique with respect not only to the countries of the North Atlantic, but also to the rest of the Americas.
Alessandra Benedicty-Kokken, Jhon Picard Byron, Kaiama L. Glover and Mark Schuller, ‘Editors’ Introduction’
I. Tracing Intellectual Histories
Jhon Picard Byron, ‘Transforming Ethnology: Understanding the Stakes and Challenges of Price-Mars in the Development of Anthropology in Haiti’
Mark Schuller, ‘The Intellectual Uses of Haiti’
Alessandra Benedicty-Kokken, ‘On “being Jewish”, on “studying Haiti”… Herskovits, Métraux, Race, and Human Rights’
Laurent Dubois, ‘Haiti, Gender and Anthrohistory: A Mintzian Journey’
II. Interrogating the Enquiring Self
Kaiama L. Glover, ‘“Written with Love”: Intimacy and Relation in Katherine Dunham’s Island Possessed’
Barbara Browning, ‘Dance, Haiti and Lariam Dreams’
Carlo A. Célius, ‘“Haitian Art” and Primitivism: Effects, Uses and Beyond’
III. On Nation-Building: Histories, Theories, Praxes
Deborah Thomas, ‘Haiti, Politics and Sovereign (Mis)recognitions’
Valerie Kaussen, ‘Haitian Culture in the Informational Economics of Humanitarian Aid’
Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis, ‘Thinking About the City – At Last!’
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