A Haitian-American
anthropologist makes sense of her homeland in the wake of the 2010
earthquake
Winner
of the Haitian Studies Association Excellence in Scholarship Award
(2015)
Mainstream
news coverage of the catastrophic earthquake of January 12, 2010,
reproduced longstanding narratives of Haiti and stereotypes of
Haitians. Cognizant that this Haiti, as it exists in the public
sphere, is a rhetorically and graphically incarcerated one, the
feminist anthropologist and performance artist Gina Athena Ulysse
embarked on a writing spree that lasted over two years. As an
ethnographer and a member of the diaspora, Ulysse delivers critical
cultural analysis of geopolitics and daily life in a series of
dispatches, op-eds and articles on post-quake Haiti. Her complex yet
singular aim is to make sense of how the nation and its subjects
continue to negotiate sovereignty and being in a world where,
according to a Haitian saying, tout moun se moun, men tout moun pa
menm (All people are human, but all humans are not the same). This
collection contains thirty pieces, most of which were previously
published in and on Haitian Times, Huffington Post, Ms Magazine, Ms
Blog, NACLA, and other print and online venues. The book is
trilingual (English, Kreyòl, and French) and includes a foreword by
award-winning author and historian Robin D.G. Kelley.
