Presenting incisive original readings of French writing about the Caribbean from the inception of colonization in the 1640s until the onset of the Haitian Revolution in the 1790s, Doris Garraway sheds new light on a significant chapter in French colonial history. At the same time, she makes a pathbreaking contribution to the study of the cultural contact, creolization, and social transformation that resulted in one of the most profitable yet brutal slave societies in history.

Since the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, violence against women has frequently appeared in the media as one of the gravest consequences due to insecure living situations in settlement camps. This, however, is not newly arisen issue and has been occurring in the country at relatively high rates prior to the disaster. Violence against women presents an unconventional portrait in Haiti, meaning the characteristics of the situation run counter to the usual circumstance of violence in which the poorest and least educated form the majority of victims.

This chapter reflects on the ways in which foreign volunteers, humanitarian workers, and even academic researchers are implicated in gender-based inequality, racialized and sexualized power relations in Haiti. The author considers this a crucial aspect of transnational solidarity work that is often ignored by foreign participants who keep such aspects hidden, while they publicly present themselves as moral do-gooders helping Haiti.

Along with the other authors in this volume, I aim to better understand the intersection of diaspora, race, and gender as defining forces in the lives of Black Pentecostal women. My focus is on how Haiti fares conceptually in one rather extreme yet influential strand of Pentecostal thought: Third Wave evangelicalism.

This thesis explores the anthropological documentation of reproductive illnesses in Haiti and how these illnesses shape maternal and infant health outcomes. Through examining gender roles, health infrastructure, and medical beliefs in Haiti, I provide context for a framework that posits these illnesses as embodied history, trauma, and experience. Furthermore, I examine the evolving intersection of Vodou and biomedicine and its role in informing reproductive illness discourse and treatment.