Healing in the Homeland: Haitian Vodou Tradition

(Paperback)

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Margaret Mitchell Armand presents a cutting edge interdisciplinary terrain inside an indigenous exploration of her homeland. Her contribution to the historiography of Hatian Vodou demonstrates the struggle for its recognition in Hatis 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 Hatian 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 Hati.

Reviews

Margaret Mitchell Armands seminal work demonstrates the necessity for continued scientific research on the legacy of the Tanos in order to showcase, to the rest of the World, the knowledge thatthe people of the Caribbeanwanted to transmit to the conquistadors at the end of the fifteenth century for the good of humanity. -- Ginette Prodin Mathurin, Senior Researcher and Coordinator, Hatian 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 Haitis 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

Author Bio

Margaret Mitchell Armand was born and raised in Hati. 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.