Overview

Margaret Mitchell Armand presents a cutting edge interdisciplinary terrain inside an indigenous exploration of her homeland. Her contribution to the historiography of Haïtian Vodou demonstrates the struggle for its recognition in Haïti’s post-independence phase as well as its continued misunderstanding. Through a methodological, original study of the colonial culture of slavery and its dehumanization, Healing in the Homeland: Haitian Vodou Traditions examines the sociocultural and economic oppression stemming from the local and international derived politics and religious economic oppression. While concentrating the narratives on stories of indigenous elites educated in the western traditions, Armand moves pass the variables of race to locate the historical conjuncture at the root of the persistent Haïtian national division. Supported by scholarships of indigenous studies and current analysis, she elucidates how a false consciousness can be overcome to reclaim cultural identity and pride, and include a sociocultural, national educational program, and political platform that embraces traditional needs in a global context of mutual respect. While shredding the western adages, and within an indigenous model of understanding, this book purposefully brings forth the struggle of the African people in Haïti.

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9780739173619

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Reviews

Armand offers the first study of which . . . focus[es] on what she designates as the social (and racial) class/es of the 'Affranchi/bourgeois/elite,' and their often extremely private and/or secretive commitment to Vodou values. . . .Armand’s book resonates with Madelaine Hron’s work on storytelling and healing; Ren´e Lemarchand’s claims on the importance of 'reckoning' in the reconciliation process; and Patrick Bellegarde-Smith’s and Claudine Michel’s scholarship on the contemporariness of Vodou as a means to negotiate a new world order. For those readers unfamiliar with Vodou and working professionally with Haitian clients, the book is a thorough and concise introduction to a Vodou way-of-being; and for 'Haitianists,' Armand’s book. . . .offers a courageously self-reflexive look at the role of the elite, both historically and in the present, in edifying Haiti through a mise-en-oeuvre of a Vodou philosophy. * Nova Religio: The Journal Of Alternative And Emergent Religions * Margaret Mitchell Armand’s seminal work demonstrates the necessity for continued scientific research on the legacy of the Taínos in order to showcase, to the rest of the World, the knowledge that the people of the Caribbean wanted to transmit to the conquistadors at the end of the fifteenth century for the good of humanity. -- Ginette Pérodin Mathurin, Senior Researcher and Coordinator, Haïtian Indigenous Research Center Healing in the Homeland is a compelling Haitian story of conflict resolution and of decolonization. It is a narrative of the epistemological, ontological, pedagogical and psychological basis upon which to recreate and redeem a nation 209 years in the making. The tasks of creating a sovereign nation and people with a sovereign imagination and agency, made possible by the most radical modernizing revolution of the modern age, are not easy, entangled as they are in Western colonial dysfunctional culture and African marginality. Dr. Margaret Mitchell Armand, a dispute resolution specialist, has done well to weave a story of redemption guided by a conceptual/theoretical lens that is not only Haiti’s but for all peoples who were mired in colonial dystopia. -- Clinton Hutton, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica and author of The Logic & Historical Significance of the Haitian Revolution & the Cosmological Roots of Haitian Freedom

Margaret Mitchell Armand's seminal work demonstrates the necessity for continued scientific research on the legacy of the Tainos in order to showcase, to the rest of the World, the knowledge that the people of the Caribbean wanted to transmit to the conquistadors at the end of the fifteenth century for the good of humanity. -- Ginette Perodin Mathurin, Senior Researcher and Coordinator, Haitian Indigenous Research Center

Author Information

Margaret Mitchell Armand was born and raised in Haïti. A graduate of the University of Texas in Psychology, she also earned a Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution at Nova Southeastern University, a MA and licensure in mental health counseling and Certified Family Mediator. Her scholarship addresses transformative conflict resolution, historical and cultural studies. She has taught as a visiting professor at national and international universities and published in scholarly books and journal. She traveled extensively to indigenous communities in many parts of the world, including Africa, India, and the Caribbean. She is an artist and poet whose activism promotes dignity, self-respect, and social equity for all.

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