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26137: Richmond (announce) Re: new book on Haitian migration and religion (fwd)
From: Karen Richman <richman.2@nd.edu>
Anthropologist publishes
By: Shannon Chapla
Date: August 26, 2005
University of Notre Dame anthropologist Karen Richman examines the nature and
centrality of religion for Haitian migrants to South Florida in a new book
titled "Migration and Vodou," published by University Press of Florida as part
of the New World Diasporas series.
Discrediting myths of exotic and primitive vodou long used against Haitians,
?Migration and Vodou,? which is accompanied by a compact disc, provides a rare
excursion into the innovative ways a community of Haitian migrants to South
Florida has maintained religious traditions and familial connections, including
recording sacred songs and circulating them among communities.
The first ethnography of the religion, ritual, and aesthetic practices of a
single, transnational Haitian society, the text and compact disc were produced
in collaboration to give the reader intimate access to Haitians? ingenious uses
of cassette tapes to extend the boundaries of their rhetorical and ritual
spaces.
?The people at the center of this book and compact disc are a transnational
community,? Richman said. ?Ti Rivye (Little River), a coastal hamlet in
Léogane, Haiti, is their moral and material anchor, and although Ti Rivye spans
Haiti, the Caribbean, North America and France, its major outpost is Palm Beach
County, Fla. This study explores both how migration has affected the religion
and ritual practice of this mobile, long-distance community, and how religion
and ritual influence the experience of migration.?
Richman, assistant professor of anthropology and a faculty fellow in Notre
Dame?s Kellogg Institute for International Studies and Institute for Latino
Studies, specializes in Haitian society, language, religion, migration and
politics.
At 08:17 AM 8/30/2005, you wrote: