University of Florida and Duke University researchers and librarians have spearheaded a collaborative partnership project which has been awarded $240,804 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). This is the second largest award in Florida (one of only five major grants awarded in the state) and one of 244 nationally this year. The Archive of Haitian Religion and Culture: Collaborative Research and Scholarship on Haiti and the Haitian Diaspora grant, led by project director Benjamin Hebblethwaite (UF Languages, Literatures, & Cultures) and co-director Laurent Dubois (Duke), will improve the understanding of a central Haitian and Haitian-American spiritual tradition, the Vodou religion, by gathering the audiovisual and textual sources of communities, by interpreting the collected materials, by expanding the holdings through a self-submission tool, and by diffusing the knowledge via an open access digital library hosted within the existing Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC; www.dloc.com).
The Archive of Haitian Religion and Culture project is part of a tradition of scholarly work stretching back to the early 20th century that has sought to counter reductionist and racist visions of Vodou religion through ethnography, analysis of culture and music, and an exploration of the role of religion in Haiti’s founding revolution (1791–1803). Such work has long turned to the central texts of worship which are Haitian Creole language songs. This three year project will create a freely accessible multimedia digital library that uses audiovisual technologies to curate, elucidate, and facilitate the advanced search of the rich primary materials of a central Haitian and Haitian-American spiritual tradition in order to promote discovery and educate a broad public.
The Archive of Haitian Religion and Culture materials will be hosted by the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC), which is supported by the George A. Smathers Libraries at UF—both the largest public and academic library in the state of Florida. In addition to dLOC’s 29 international partners, which includes Duke University, the Archive of Haitian Religion and Culture includes collaboration from researchers at the University of Notre Dame, the Schrijversvakschool in the Netherlands, the Université des Antilles et de la Guyane, and City Lore, among others.
In support of the grant, Marilyn Graf of the Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University wrote: “The availability of this large body of work in a single location will dramatically improve access to these rare materials, a likely benefit to scholars in the fields of religion, ethnomusicology, history, anthropology, linguistics, and African Diaspora studies.” Albert Valdman, Rudy Professor Emeritus of French & Italian and Linguistics and the Director of the Creole Institute at Indiana University, added: “Ben Hebblethwaite directs by far the largest program in Haitian Studies in the United States, with a major emphasis on the teaching of the culture and language of Haiti, including to second generation members of the Haitian diaspora.”