New book on Haiti, religion, and politics. ? Celucien Joseph ...

Posted on July 12, 2011 by celucienjoseph

The book review editor of the Journal of Haitian Studies ?has invited me to review a new and important book entitled?The Spirits and the Law: Vodou and Power in Haiti ?by Kate Ramsey. Vodou and Power in Haiti ?is an intelligent text that demonstrates the relationship between the religion of Haitian Voodoo and Haitian politics. The book offers an excellent survey of? the Code Noir of 1685 that sanctioned? any religious practices and spirituality (i.e. African religions, Judaism, Protestant Christianity, ?etc) in the French colony of Haiti. The only?exception was Catholic Christianity which was imposed on enslaved Africans in the island.??Ramsey provides a careful? interpretation of the idea of ?Haitian modernity? and the meaning of the entrance of ?postcolonial Haiti into the nations of the world. Yet, what Ramsey does most excellently is her illuminating reading of?Haitian laws and codes that sought to eradicate the Voodoo religion, and the sensibility of?national leaders and?intelllectuals as Jean Price-Mars and Jacques Roumain?towards?the neo-African religion. Below, I reproduce editorial reviews for interested readers.

Editorial Reviews

Review

?A tour de force of research and interpretation, this book offers a
spellbinding history of the relationship between popular spiritual practice and
the rule of law in Haiti. With fine-grained detail and theoretical
sophistication, Kate Ramsey shows law to be a fickle spirit?a powerful but
capricious force, having the capacity to lie dormant for long periods and then
form suddenly into a dangerous weapon of church, state, and imperial oppression,
while remaining susceptible to popular efforts to harness legal powers for
beneficial ends. Can great scholarship work like medicinal magic? If, as Ramsey
argues, popular religion is a vital resource sustaining Haiti?s people, then
perhaps The Spirits and the Law can cure the toxic pathologies afflicting
so much of the ill-informed commentary on Vodou?s role in Haitian life.??Vincent
Brown, Duke University

(Vincent Brown)

?In The Spirits and the Law Kate Ramsey explores the links between
the construction of Vodou as malicious magic or a progress-impeding force and
the penalizing of superstitious practices by the Haitian state. This brilliantly
argued and exhaustively researched study examines questions of prohibition and
denial that are omitted by other works on Haitian popular religion. It is as
much a formidable feat of scholarship as a much needed argument against seeing
Vodou as responsible for Haiti?s underdevelopment.??J. Michael Dash, New York
University

(J. Michael Dash)

?Kate Ramsey is a gifted, sophisticated, passionate, and objective student
of Haitian life and history. In The Spirits and the Law she has left no
stone unturned. She sees Vodou as a modern invention of the Haitian genius, and
the book is a platform for analyzing all the big issues?from imperialism, to
slavery, neocolonialism, and US exceptionalism expressed as racial
paternalism?that have made Haiti what it has become. This is a very big
book.??Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, University of
Wisconsin?Milwaukee

(Patrick Bellegarde-Smith)

?In this compelling study of anti-superstition legislation in Haiti, Kate
Ramsey culls a remarkable set of materials to bring to bear on the topic,
ranging from colonial travel accounts, memoirs, State Department records, and
U.N. sorcery reports. The richness of her account is a testament to
indefatigable research, and she develops fresh insights into the related
literature as well. This fascinating book adds much to our knowledge of modern
Haiti as well as religion and cultural politics in Latin America and the
Caribbean in general.??Robin Derby, University of California, Los
Angeles

(Robin Derby)

Product Description

Vodou has often served as a
scapegoat for Haiti?s problems, from political upheavals to natural disasters.
This tradition of scapegoating stretches back to the nation?s founding and forms
part of a contest over the legitimacy of the religion, both beyond and within
Haiti?s borders. The Spirits and the Law examines that vexed history,
asking why, from 1835 to 1987, Haiti banned many popular ritual
practices.

To find out, Kate Ramsey begins with the Haitian Revolution
and its aftermath. Fearful of an independent black nation inspiring similar
revolts, the United States, France, and the rest of Europe ostracized Haiti.
Successive Haitian governments, seeking to counter the image of Haiti as
primitive as well as contain popular organization and leadership, outlawed
?spells? and, later, ?superstitious practices.? While not often strictly
enforced, these laws were at times the basis for attacks on Vodou by the Haitian
state, the Catholic Church, and occupying U.S. forces. Beyond such offensives,
Ramsey argues that in prohibiting practices considered essential for maintaining
relations with the spirits, anti-Vodou laws reinforced the political
marginalization, social stigmatization, and economic exploitation of the Haitian
majority. At the same time, she examines the ways communities across Haiti
evaded, subverted, redirected, and shaped enforcement of the laws. Analyzing the
long genealogy of anti-Vodou rhetoric, Ramsey thoroughly dissects claims that
the religion has impeded Haiti?s development.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: | Book Review, Haiit and Religion, Kate Ramsey's The Spirits and the Law: Vodou and Power in Haiti

Source: http://celucienjoseph.wordpress.com/2011/07/12/new-book-on-haiti-religion-and-politics/

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