Full Description
Haiti, long noted for poverty and repression, has a powerful and too-often-overlooked history of resistance. Women in Haiti have played a large role in changing the balance of political and social power, even as they have endured rampant and devastating state-sponsored violence, including torture, rape, abuse, illegal arrest, disappearance, and assassination.
Beverly Bell, an activist and an expert on Haitian social movements, brings together thirty-eight oral histories from a diverse group of Haitian women. The interviewees include, for example, a former prime minister, an illiterate poet, a leading feminist theologian, and a vodou dancer. Defying victim status despite gender- and state-based repression, they tell how Haiti's poor and dispossessed women have fought for their personal and collective survival.
The women's powerfully moving accounts of horror and heroism can best be characterized by the Creole word istwa, which means both "story" and "history." They combine theory with case studies concerning resistance, gender, and alternative models of power. Photographs of the women who have lived through Haiti's recent past accompany their words to further personalize the interviews in Walking on Fire.
Contents
Foreword, by Edwidge Danticat
Preface: Beat Back the Darkness
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Women of Millet MountainPart I: Resistance in Survival
YOLANDE MEVS - My Head Burning with the Burden
ALINA "TIBEBE" CAJUSTE - A Baby Left on the Doorstep in a Rotten Basket
LOVLY JOSAPHAT - I Always Live That Hope
ROSELIE JEAN-JUSTE - A Woman Named Roselie Who Fought Back
VENANTE DUPLAN - I Don't Have the Call, I Don't Have the Response
MARIE SONIA PANTAL - SchoolPart II: Resistance as Expression
LELENNE GILLES - I'll Die with the Words on My Lips
MARCELINE YRELIBN - Singing a Woman's Misery
ALINA "TIBEBE" CAJUSTE - Getting the Poetry
YANIQUE GUITEAU DANDIN - The Struggle for Creole
GRACITA OSIAS - Chaleron's Lesson
FLORENCIA PIERRE - The Cultural Soul
MARTINE FOURCAND Expanding the Space of ExpressionPart III: Resistance for Political and Economic Change
ALERTE BELANCE - My Blood and My Breath
YANNICK ETIENNE - A Grain of Sand
CLAUDETTE PHENE - A Little Light
YOLETTE ETIENNE - Jumping over the Fire
LOUISE MONFILS - The Samaritan
VITA TELCY - Five Cans of Corn
MARIE JOSEE ST. FIRMIN - Sharing the Dream
SELITANE JOSEPH - Chunk of Gold
ROSEMIE BELVIUS - Reshuffling the CardsPart IV: Resistance for Gender Justice
LISE-MARIE DEJEAN - Minister of the Status and Rights of Women
GRACITA OSIAS - The Marriage Question
LOUISE MONPILS - Walking with My Little Coffin
CLAUDETTE WERLEIGH - Women's Business
YOLANDE MEVS - Support for the Children
YANIQUE GUITEAU DANDIN - A Country's Problems, A Woman's Problems
MARIE ]OSEE ST. FIRMIN - Deciding My Life
OLGA BENOIT - Assuming the Title "Feminist"
JOSETTE PERARD - The Carriage Is LeavingPart V: Resistance Transforming Power
CLAUDETTE WERLEIGH - Lighting Candles of Hope
MARIE SONIA DELY - Sharing the Breadfruit
LISE-MARIE DEJEAN - The People Say Jump
MYRIAM MERLET - The More People Dream
YANNICK ETIENNE - You Can't Eat Gumbo with One Finger
MYRTO CELESTIN SAUREL - Rocks in the River
KESTA OCCIDENT - A Stubborn HopeEpilogue: Resistance as Solidarity
ALERTE BELANCE - Get Up, Shake Your BodiesNotes
Glossary
For Further Research and Involvement
Bibliography
