Rasanblaj: The Podcast (Formerly Nèg Mawon. All new episodes at rasanblaj.org exclusively.)

This compelling book and author offer a comprehensive analysis of the struggle for democracy in Haiti, set in the context of the tumultuous rise and fall of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Swept to power in 1991 as the champion of Haiti's impoverished majority and their demand for a more just, equal, and participatory democratic society, the charismatic priest-turned-president was overthrown by the military just seven months into his first term.  Popular resistance to the junta compelled the United States to lead a multinational force to restore Aristide to power in 1994 to serve out the remainder of his presidency until 1996. When he was re-elected for a second and final term in 2000, Aristide had undergone a dramatic transformation. Expelled from the priesthood and no longer preaching liberation theology, his real objective was to consolidate his and his Lavalas party's power and preserve the predatory state structures he had vowed to dismantle just a decade earlier. To maintain power, Aristide relied on armed gangs, the police, and authoritarian practices. That strategy failed and his foreign-backed foes overthrew and exiled him once again in 2004.  This time, however, the population did not rally in his defense. Written by one of the world's leading scholars of Haiti, The Prophet and Power explores the crisis of democratization in a poor, underdeveloped, peripheral society with a long history of dictatorial rule by a tiny ruling class opposed to changing the status quo and dependent on international economic and political support. Situating the country in its global context, Alex Dupuy considers the structures and relations of power between Haiti and the core capitalist countries and the forces struggling for and against social change.

This collection of writings from Haitian anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot includes his most famous, lesser-known, and hard-to-find writings that demonstrate his enduring importance to Caribbean studies, anthropology, history, postcolonial studies, and politically engaged scholarship more broadly.

Legal identity is universal, transcending national and socioeconomic borders. It is a central tenet of the UN’s 2030 SDGs and cuts across over 70 development indicators, including birth registration. Evidentiary proof of citizenship is now a necessary tool to ensure access to health, education, and welfare services. As Laurence Chandy, director of Data, Research and Policy at the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), recently stated: the prioritization of documentation within global policy, including the transition from paper to digital identity systems, is ‘one of the most under-appreciated revolutions in international development’. During a period of intense global political-economic reconfiguration, inter-governmental organizations, multi-lateral and national aid agencies have problematized under-documentation. They have contributed significant levels of financial and technical assistance to governments to improve civil registries and ensure that all citizens everywhere have their paperwork.  Over this time, formal identification has come to be considered a ‘prerequisite for development in the modern world’ (Gelb and Clark, 2013). It is now essential to development strategy planning and assumed in both policy and practice to constitute a common good for all beneficiaries. With a focus on the Caribbean, this book highlights how identification practices as promulgated by the World Bank, United Nations (UN) and the Inter-American Development Bank can force the thorny question of nationality, unsettling long-established identities, and entitlements. Notably, the book is the first to identify tensions in social policy over the use of social protection mechanisms promoting legal identity measures with disputes over race, national identity, and belonging.  The book illustrates how, while keen to follow the World Bank’s lead in promoting a legal identity for all – not least to continue benefiting from external funding and support – the Dominican Republic balked at pressure to recognize the national status of persons of Haitian ancestry. It used social policy programs and international donor funding to trace and register the national origins of persons of non-Dominican ancestry.  This culminated in the now notorious 2013 Constitutional Tribunal ruling that retroactively stripped tens of thousands of persons of Haitian descent of their Dominican citizenship. Significantly, these measures not only affected undocumented or stateless populations – persons living at the fringes of citizenship – but also had a major impact on documented citizens already in possession of a state-issued birth certificate, national identity card, and/or passport as Dominicans.

From 2015 to 2019, Laura Wagner was the project archivist for the Radio Haiti Archive at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University. She holds a PhD in cultural anthropology from UNC Chapel Hill, where her research focused on displacement, humanitarian aid, and everyday life in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Her writings on the earthquake and the Radio Haiti project have appeared in Slate, Salon, sx archipelagos, PRI’s The World, and other venues. She is also also the author of Hold Tight, Don’t Let Go, a young adult novel about the Haiti earthquake, which was published by Abrams/Amulet in 2015. In the fall of 2021, Laura will be a fellow at the Camargo Foundation, where she will be working on a book about the history and legacy of Radio Haïti-Inter,

Dr. Hadassah St. Hubert's dissertation focuses on the motivations of successive Haitian governments from the late nineteenth century to the 1960s in participating in world’s fairs abroad and in mounting expositions in Haiti. In particular, it explores why and how world’s fairs became a primary path through which Haitian officials and elites sought to represent and defend the nation’s image internationally. World’s fairs were mostly held in countries of the global north as showcases of national progress, imperial reach and power. Having overthrown French colonial rule in 1804 and been denigrated by detractors abroad for decades thereafter, Haitian governments sought to demonstrate through participation in late nineteenth-century expositions that they and people of African descent more broadly were capable of “civilization.” While colonized “others” were being displayed at human zoos at these international events, Haiti, the sole independent black nation participating, attempted to represent itself as a beacon of black progress through the nation’s pavilion architecture and displays. Haitian governments in the late nineteenth century also sought investment and new markets for Haitian goods and products through participation in and mounting of world’s fairs. The government of Sténio Vincent (1930-1941) participated particularly active in international expositions, even while Haiti was still under U.S. occupation. Vincent used each event to declare Haiti's sovereignty, seek European trade and investment, and highlight Haitian history and culture to attract tourism. His administration created a precedent for how future Haitian governments represented the nation abroad in these contexts. Under the presidency of Dumarsais Estimé (1946-1950), Haiti launched its own Bicentennial International Exposition (1949-1950), which transformed a portion of the capital of Port-au-Prince into a visionary “modern” city that celebrated the culture and production of the Haitian masses in order to draw tourists. My study concludes with an examination of Haiti’s participation in expositions in the 1960s during the dictatorship of François Duvalier (1957-1971). The Duvalier regime continued Haiti’s long-standing tradition of participation in world’s fairs and expositions to counter negative international portrayals of the country. In this case, the bad press Duvalier sought to counter stemmed from his authoritarian abuses of power. The Duvalier regime, known for its black nationalist rhetoric asserting Haiti’s autonomy, participated in these international events to attract foreign investment, revealing a dependency on the very Western nations from which it claimed its independence. My dissertation contributes to our understanding of how successive Haitian governments negotiated neocolonial relationships at these international events to uplift the nation’s image, open foreign markets for Haitian products, encourage foreign investment, and cultivate tourism.

(In Kreyol/French/Mostly English) This is part 2/2 where we dig deeper into Dr Fatton's latest book, The Guise of Exceptionalism, which compares the historical origins of Haitian and American exceptionalisms. It also traces how exceptionalism as a narrative of uniqueness has shaped relations between the two countries from their early days of independence through the contemporary period. As a social invention, it changes over time, but always within the parameters of its original principles. Guest Profile Page https://neg.fm/dr-robert-fatton-jr/

Mining The Haitian Archives. A Conversation with Dr. Hadassah St Hubert. Colorism in the archives; weaponized language. And you thought doing research was boring. 

[Episode is in French/English/Kreyol] To commemorate the anniversary of the assassination of Jean Dominique, Nèg Mawon Podcast gives you a taste of the archive of Radio Haïti-Inter and what it can still tell us today. Hear the voices of grassroots activists, intellectual luminaries, and, of course, Radio Haiti's journalists discussing human rights, artistic creation, US imperialism, dictatorship, memory, mobilization, and mawonaj. The voices you hear from Radio Haiti’s archive clips  include Sony Estéus, Magalie Marcelin, peyizan from Kay Jakmèl, a woman from Damassin attending a congress of the Mouvman Peyizan Papay, Emmanuel Ambroise, Roger Gaillard, Frankétienne, Rose-Marie Desruisseau, Konpè Filo, Charles Suffrard, Michèle Montas, and Jean Léopold Dominique. Useful links: Radio Haïti-Inter archive at Duke  Follow the archive on Twitter: @achivradyoayiti  (In the spirit of Konbit, ht/chapo ba goes to Dr. Laura Wagner for bringing Nèg Mawon Podcast's first-ever collaborative effort to fruition. It was truly a great and fun experience. This episode wouldn't have turned out as well as it did without her preeminent expertise on Radio Haïti-Inter--she's even got some post-production chops that are notable! Laura is truly a great human being, scholar, and permanent resident in the Lakou.)

This episode went looking for Haitians in London and we found them! We talked primarily in Kreyol about a range of subjects: from racism, opportunities in London, Haitian Chamber of Commerce, Queen Marie-Louise Christophe, immigration, census, and how the relatively small Haitian community living in London are thriving living abroad.  Wilford told me they've built a bridge in London for other Haitians to come. For those of you looking for a change, London may be the place for you. Join me in a fascinating conversation with Michelet and Wilford.

"THE DEAR REMOTE NEARNESS OF YOU speaks poetry's origin in new and startling ways. This is the precise intelligence that knows it must step carefully across the light on the surface of the water... These poems form the contiguous dance of language choosing its own body at will, traveling across light and the dimensions of unarticulated history. This is the word rubbed onto the palimpsest of our being, the careful solo soprano in the space where music ends and poetry moves in to name what is eternal and what is only in the abbreviation of now. What a delightful book from Boston's Poet Laureate."—Afaa Michael Weaver Guest Profile https://neg.fm/danielle-legros-georges/