Yes. Haitians were in the nation-building business! This episode covers a little-known chapter in Haitian history. Dr. Regine Jackson offers a fascinating, multi-sited, and interdisciplinary study of the United Nations Organization in the Congo (ONUC), a civilian operation established after the Democratic Republic of Congo achieved independence from Belgium.

Through narrative interviews in New York City, Port-au-Prince, Montreal and Paris and analysis of archives in Haiti, Kinshasa, and at UN headquarters in New York and Paris, Dr. Jackson helps us understand better the lived experiences of the Haitian educators, engineers, and doctors in the ONUC during the Congo crisis. her previous research suggests that many of these Haitian professionals saw postcolonial Africa as a space of possibility (see Jackson 2014).

This episode seeks to answer crucial questions about our best and brightest: about their pre-migration experiences in Haiti under Duvalier, the role of international organizations such as the UN and WHO, relations between Haitians and the Congolese, as well the circumstances of their departure from the Congo under Mobutu Sese Seko.

Visit her guest page

https://neg.fm/dr-regine-ostine-jackson/

• Dr. Steiber turns to the written record to re-examine the building blocks of Haitian history.
• Picking up where most historians conclude, listen as Dr. Chelsea Stieber explores the critical internal challenge to Haiti’s post-independence sovereignty: a civil war between monarchy and republic. What transpired was a war of swords and of pens, waged in newspapers and periodicals, in literature, broadsheets, and fliers. In her analysis of Haitian writing that followed independence, Dr. Stieber composes a new literary history of Haiti, one I'm certain challenges our interpretations of both freedom struggles and the postcolonial.
• She also examines internal dissent during the revolution, Stieber reveals that the very concept of freedom was itself hotly contested in the public sphere, and it was this inherent tension that became the central battleground for the guerre de plume―the paper war―that vied to shape public sentiment and the very idea of Haiti.
• Stieber’s reading of post-independence Haitian writing reveals key insights into the nature of literature, its relation to freedom and politics, and how fraught and politically loaded the concepts of “literature” and “civilization” really are. The competing ideas of liberté, writing, and civilization at work within postcolonial Haiti have consequences for the way we think about Haiti’s role―as an idea and a discursive interlocutor―in the elaboration of black radicalism and black Atlantic, anticolonial, and decolonial thought. In so doing, Stieber reorders our previously homogeneous view of Haiti, teasing out warring conceptions of the new nation that continued to play out deep into the twentieth century.

Enjoy!

I'm thrilled to bring you another episode from our Lakou series, delving into the rich tapestry of Haitian culture living in the diaspora and in Haiti. Today, we have a very special guest joining us all the way from London, Guilaine Brutus, who is an integral part of the Haitian community there.

In this episode, we explored a taboo topic in Haitian culture - the practice of Restavek, and child slavery. I'm not going to sugarcoat the practice by calling it child servitude. When people work for free, it's slavery. Period. Full stop.

Guilaine shared her mother's personal experience as a Restavek in Haiti and in the Turks & Cacos. Listen to how Guilaine's mom and family coped with the hardships and sacrifices of being a Restavek.

We examined the role of women in Haitian society, discussed the lack of recognition for their contributions and the importance of understanding the trauma individuals may carry with them.

So, get ready for a thought-provoking, emotionally heavy, and insightful conversation as we delve into the world of Restavek and its long-lasting consequences on individuals, families, and Haitian culture.

In the meantime, here are some top 10 questions worth considering as you listen to this episode:

1. How does the experience of being a Restavek shape a person's life and their relationship with their family?

2. What are some possible reasons why the speaker's mother chose to leave two of her children behind when she returned to the Turks and Caicos Islands?

3. How does the theme of sacrifice play a role in the speaker's mother's life and the choices she made for her family?

4. In what ways do cultural differences impact the expression of love and affection within families?

5. How does the speaker challenge societal norms and expectations surrounding women's contributions and recognition in society?

6. What role do ancestral traditions and practices, such as creating altars, play in Haitian culture and the speaker's personal experiences?

7. How does trauma, pain, and unspoken experiences impact the speaker's relationship with the person they are communicating with?

8. How do cultural traumas, like the Restavek system, continue to affect Haitian communities and individuals today?

9. How does education play a role in Haitian society, particularly in the context of the speaker's mother's determination to provide opportunities for her children?

10. In what ways do personal experiences of pain and trauma shape an individual's perspective on life and their ability to overcome adversity?

Let's dive right in!

In this episode of the Nèg Mawon Podcast, we delve deep into the roots of Haiti's complex political landscape with Dr. Robert Fatton. From its foundation, Haiti has grappled with a social, economic, and political apartheid system that has marginalized the majority of its population. Dr. Fatton discusses how this system, rooted in divisions of color, class, and colonial hierarchy, has led to exclusionary practices in education and culture.
Our guest emphasizes the economic basis of this system, calling for a more democratic and egalitarian society that meets the basic needs of all Haitians. He critiques the simplistic savior narrative often applied to Haiti and explores the historical context of the country's authoritarian tradition, advocating for a revolutionary transformation of both politics and the economy.
Join us as we explore the persisting issue of authoritarian governance in Haiti, the challenges faced after the revolution, and the potential for a more inclusive and accountable society. This thought-provoking discussion sheds light on the structural forces shaping Haiti's past and present, offering crucial insights into the complexities of its history and the path to a more inclusive future.

So, how do scholars get their books published? Notice I didn't say self-published. That's a topic for another day. I mean published via established publishers. That's one of many questions I wanted some answers to. On today's show, we have two guests who will help us understand how the process of book publishing works.

We have the historian and author Dr. Yveline Alexis, Associate Professor of Africana Studies & Comparative American Studies at Oberlin College. Dr. Alexis is the author of "Haiti Fights Back: The Life & Legacy of Charlemagne Péralte". This book is the first US scholarly examination of the politician and caco leader (guerrilla fighter) who fought against the US military occupation of Haiti from (1915 to 1934). Dr. Alexis will walk us through the peaks and valleys of what it took to get published.

The next guest you will hear from in this conversation is the actual gatekeeper, and I mean that in the most positive sense. Her name is Kimberly Guinta, Editorial Director and Associate Press Director for Rutgers University Press, which published Dr. Alexis' first book Haiti Fights Back.

The Title of today's episode is "Ink & Insights: A Scholar's Path to Publication." Hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

Winner, of the Gilbert Chinard Prize, of the Society for French Historical Studies & the Institut Français d'Amérique.

Encountering Revolution looks afresh at the profound impact of the Haitian Revolution on the early United States. The first book on the subject in more than two decades, it redefined our understanding of the relationship between republicanism and slavery at a foundational moment in American history.

For postrevolutionary Americans, the Haitian uprising laid bare the contradiction between democratic principles and the practice of slavery. For thirteen years, between 1791 and 1804, slaves and free people of color in Saint-Domingue battled for equal rights in the manner of the French Revolution. As white and mixed-race refugees escaped to the safety of U.S. cities, Americans were forced to confront the paradox of being a slaveholding republic, recognizing their own possible destiny in the predicament of the Haitian slaveholders.

Historian Ashli White examines the ways Americans―black and white, northern and southern, Federalist and Democratic Republican, pro- and antislavery―pondered the implications of the Haitian Revolution.

Encountering Revolution convincingly situates the formation of the United States in a broader Atlantic context. It shows how the very presence of Saint-Dominguan refugees stirred in Americans as many questions about themselves as about the future of slaveholding, stimulating some of the earliest debates about nationalism in the early republic.