Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs
CLACS

Hybrid Workshop • Haitian Feminism(s): Theoretical Contours and Practices

Haitian Feminisms poster Sabine Lamour

Friday, April 26, 2024

4:30-7:00 p.m.

Joukowsky Forum (155), 111 Thayer

About the Event
Inscribed in the long tradition of Haitian popular struggles, the contemporary Haitian feminist movement emerged in the early 20th century. Despite its long history and presence in the country's social mobilization, this movement is seldom considered an object worthy of study. As a result, the figures who contributed to its institutionalization at the turn of the 1930s remain little known to the general public, both inside and outside Haiti. Its memory sites and archives remain confined to feminist organizations and are almost exclusively preserved and studied by activists. However, since the late 1980s, the number of theses, studies, articles, and analyses associated with the movement has increased. Nevertheless, these reflections deserve to be better appropriated and, above all, deepened, to make this field of knowledge about Haitian women’s resistance more visible. This event is part of this quest to intensify reflections on the movement, to construct narratives regarding Haitian feminism by attempting to mobilize empirically and theoretically grounded research.

About the Host
Sabine Lamour, Professor, UEH (Université d'État d'Haiti) and Visiting Researcher at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Dr. Lamour is a sociologist trained in France and Haiti. Her research and teaching focus on the epistemology of point of view, participatory perspective, grounded theory, materialist feminism, Afro-feminism and decolonial feminism. Since 2018, she has been a professor at the Université d'État d'Haïti (UEH). Her research focuses on gender relations, female migration, Haitian feminist movements, family dynamics in the Caribbean and the Haitian political system. In 2018, she co-edited a book entitled: Déjouer le silence: contre-discours sur les femmes haïtiennes, published by Éditions Remue-Ménage (Montreal). Her current research project explores the philosophical roots of Haitian feminism. Several prestigious academic journals have published her work, including Recherches FéministesChemins Critiques and Women, Gender, and Families of Color. Since 2005, she has worked with women's organizations as a feminist activist, independent consultant and trainer in both rural and urban settings. She is the former national coordinator (2017-2022) of the feminist organization SOFA. She is currently working on a monograph entitled The Philosophical Roots of the Haitian Feminist Movement.

About the Speakers
Danièle Magloire, Sociologist, human rights activist, and founding member and spokesperson for the feminist organization Kay Fanm, which operates a shelter in Port-au-Prince for gender violence survivors and works to promote women's rights and economic development.
Célia Romulus, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies and the School of International Development and Global Studies of the University of Ottawa.
Grace Sanders, Associate Professor of Africana Studies, University of Pennsylvania

CoSponsors
Department of French and Francophone Studies
Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women
Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice
Sarah Doyle Center for Women and Gender