26137: Richmond (announce) Re: new book on Haitian migration and religion (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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: