ANTH 209 Study Guide - Final Guide: Mama Lola, Haitian Revolution, French Revolution
5 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
ANTH 209 final notes
Mama Lola
, Brown
➢Ethnographic research:
○Engage in conversation
○Immersive field work
○Active participation
○Questions of meaning, symbolism
○Make conversation:
■Bracketing: anthropologists must place observations into broader context
(voom out from everyday life)
○Primary method is field work
■Develop deep relationships
➢Doing ethnography of religion: thinking about religion as something bedded in social
world.
○** the significance of history on Voodou
➢Participant observation: Observe by participating, forming your observations through
type of interaction with people
○How people understand what they are doing
○Allow people to speak for themselves
○Highly dependent on human relationship
○Consequences: not objective, anthropologist is in a position of power
■better/ worse interpretations are possible
- Brown becomes a practitioner along the way
➢the ethnographic approach is not to tell Haitian ritual practices should be but what it is
in practice
➢Interpretive anthropology:
○ “culture as text” - Geertz
○“Thick description”
○Human beings are suspended in meaning - develops shared ways of making
meaning
○Anth is science of interpretation
➢Vodou: Haitian vodou in the context of Brooklyn New York.
○How did Karen Brown do her research?
■She engaged in conversation about what she was observing
■Experiencing bridge building - relation building
●Field work and asking questions
➢Aim of this research: how religion is practiced in given context and how individual
context contributes to ‘big picture’ (economy, politics)
➢Brown argues that Haitian Vodou is not a superstition but a religion by not only looking
at altar/offerings, but by studying rituals further and study the lives of devotees
○Anthropologist job is to figure out what a religion looks like.
➢History is crucial to understanding vodou:
○Vodou can not be separated from Haiti and its history
○Vodou is a synthesis of catholicism and african traditions
○It is animated by religious practices but also a historical path:
■Haiti is part of the colonization by the spanish/french and british
■Territory conflict: by 1660s, Spain gave ⅓ of Haiti to france, the french
economy relied on this island (plantations/ slave trade)
●France begins to bring slaves from africa to Haiti: slaves were
treated terribly
➢In 1789: French revolution - some people tried to make african people gain status
○Haitinas in frnace wanted political significace
➢Haitian revolution: 1791 - 1804: resulted in foundation of Haitian republic (first revolt)
○Resulted in the end of slavery
○Difficulties: population was systematically impoverished, how will these former
slaves live?
■Very small elite and large population of very poor former slaves. - still had
no real freedom and independence in society
➢It was only in 1825 when France recognizes Haitian independence
○Haiti pays 18 million USD to france for ‘loss of slave labor’
○Revolt did not free slaves completely - still no political significance or
independence
■This refusal of recognition is why religion of Vodou remains undisturbed
●Lack of european influence and intervention so it remains close to
its original tradition.
➢Recent Haitian History:
○President elected in 1957 “Papa Doc”
○Attempted assassination
○During his regime people feared military regime
■Many Haitians emigrated to New York
■In 1991, the first freely elected president
➢Vodou helps Haitians cope with hardship (In New York and Haiti)
○Important to dealing with stress throughout political unrest
■Remains important in NYC - life of immigrant
■Continual importation of slaves - influence from african culture
Vodou a religion?
➢It does not map onto what religion is in western context:
○ it is not scripturally based (bounded in text), it is not concerned with faith or
belief.
○But, there is a hierarchy, they believe in god's (supreme power), and there is
ritual
○“No one ever asked me if I believe”
■No obligation to believe no attempt or interest in converting Brown.
●There is no question of belief in the religion, it just is
●You live and interact with the spirits so obviously they are real
Ritual:
➢Pattern of actions with meaning
○Not necessarily religious (OCD, morning coffee)
○Must be repeated in certain context - specific place and time
○Question for anthropologists: are rituals important because of what they do or
what they represent through symbols?
■They have effect because of symbols
■Performance analysis of ritual: what rituals ‘do’
1) Malanowski:
➢Rituals are primarily psychological - series of actions people do to deal with
anxiety
2) Durkheim:
➢Ritual maintains cohesion of society
➢Social cohesion, keep society sane
➢I performing rituals people express themselves as larger collective
➢ritual/rite expresses society
➢Engage in ritual to remind yourself you are in this group and your role in this
group
3) Rappaport:
➢ Ritual should be understood as performance
➢Less concerned with symbolic representation
➢Thinks of ritual as core of social connection
➢Act of performing: a ritual brings into being a moral state of affairs
○If ritual is going to ‘work’, need smoral facid, individuals must agree to
terms
■Ex. Marriage, nothing actually (physically) change other than the
mental state and this would be meaningless without the
understanding of the collective that marriage was the purpose of
the ritual.
●The collective understand is what allows the performance
to do something
➢Repetition: same occasion, same content, same form
Document Summary
Bracketing: anthropologists must place observations into broader context (voom out from everyday life) Doing ethnography of religion: thinking about religion as something bedded in social world. ** the significance of history on voodou. Participant observation: observe by participating, forming your observations through type of interaction with people. How people understand what they are doing. Consequences: not objective, anthropologist is in a position of power. Brown becomes a practitioner along the way. The ethnographic approach is not to tell haitian ritual practices should be but what it is in practice. Human beings are suspended in meaning - develops shared ways of making meaning. Vodou : haitian vodou in the context of brooklyn new york. She engaged in conversation about what she was observing. Aim of this research: how religion is practiced in given context and how individual context contributes to big picture" (economy, politics)
