The Rights to Live Creatively: Haitian Feminist and Queer Worldmaking (May 20, 2025)

We convene for Haitian Flag Day (May 18) to honor Haitian creativities and celebrate the publication of a special issue of the Journal of Haitian Studies that centers intersections of race, gender, sexuality, spirituality, political movements and artistic  expression in Haiti and by Haitians. At a time when Haiti faces dire impediments to its sovereignty and stability as an independent Black nation, as renewed attacks against Haitians in the United States reanimate racist lies and xenophobia, and the substantial Haitian population in southern California faces an uncertain future, it is important to uplift and demystify Haitian culture, highlight  intellectual and artistic labor, and amplify homegrown visions for autonomy and justice.

The Rights to Live Creatively JOHS Special Issue Publication Launch (May 19, 2025)

We gather to celebrate Haitian Flag Day and the recent publication of “The Rights to Live Creatively,” a special double issue of the Journal of Haitian Studies. With 30 contributors who are academics, artists, and activists, and coming in at over 400 pages, “The Rights to Live Creatively” is the first time JOHS is centering the topics of gender and sexuality in Haiti and its diasporas – a major opening in intersectional and engaged scholarship.

"The Rights To Live Creatively," On Gender & Sexuality In Haitian Studies (Oct. 12, 2024)

The Sexualities Working Group is a group of Haitian and U.S. American scholars and practitioners who have, since 2015 in different configurations, mobilized in coalition with Haitian LGBTQ/M-community, Vodouyizan, and all those who do not conform to sexual/gendered norms. Working in collaboration and coalition, we are dedicated to documenting, sharing, and bolstering the work of queer crusaders and all those who dare to live creatively in Haiti and its diasporas. We assemble around forms of creativity across arts and activisms, political and cultural expressions, history-making and future-birthing. We are interested in different domains of knowledge production and activism that might register, resist, and/or repair the dire impacts on gendered/sexual formations caused by systemic violence, cis-hetero-patriarchy, homophobia/transphobia, religious vitriol, and neoliberal policies. We ask, how does close attention to the lived body and embodied expression illuminate gender/sexuality as foundational to a capacious sense of the rights to live creatively? What pedagogies and praxes have served to either forward or derail the possibilities for life in Haiti? In what ways do Haitian people seize joy, create pleasures, and rest amidst confinement?

The Rights to Live Creatively (October 20, 2021)

As the first official convening of the HSA Sexualities Working Group, this event builds on “The Rights to Live Creatively,” a series of conversations and roundtables we facilitated in Fall 2020. We gather to share knowledge and galvanize our commitments, interests, and labor. The first hour of this meeting will feature presentations by Haiti-based community organizers Merlin Jean and Vadson Nicholas, Directors of Cap Haitien-based human rights organization Heritage; Sandy Pierre, Community Activist of Organisation Arc-en-Ciel d’Haiti (ORAH); and Soeurette Policar, Executive Director of Organisation de Développement et de Lutte contre la Pauvreté (ODELPA). In the second hour, we will move into conversation and action planning with all attendees. What are the stakes of “living creatively” in Haiti at this moment? How might we build transnational solidarity projects together?

The Rights to Live Creatively: Artistic Expression, Visibility, Solidarity (Dec. 14, 2020)

In light of right-wing authoritarianism in Haiti today that exposes the clientelist nature of the justice system and increases violence against all who seek to live creatively, this Working Session convenes to hear from Haitian freedom fighters and artists on the ground in a series of webinar discussions and focused virtual gatherings. This second panel features cultural workers Maksaens Denis, independent artist, and Hetera Estamphil, director of KOURAJ, who will share with us the ways in which their works challenge gendered and sexual norms and offer us another vision of and for Haiti. The conversation will be moderated by Josué Azor, and feature performances by Yonel Charles and Jenny Cadet. The goals are to think together with attendees to design an action plan that supports and amplifies their efforts toward creative living in Haiti.

The Rights to Live Creatively: Artistic Expression, Visibility, Solidarity (Oct. 8, 2020)

In light of right-wing authoritarianism in Haiti today that exposes the clientelist nature of the justice system and increases violence against all who seek to live creatively, this Working Group convenes to hear from Haitian freedom fighters and artists on the ground in a series of webinar discussions and focused virtual gatherings. The first panel features cultural workers Josué Azor, Jenny Cadet, and Maksaens Denis who will share with us the ways in which their works challenge gendered and sexual norms and offer us another vision of and for Haiti. During the gathering that follows the webinar, they will think together with attendees to design an action plan that supports and amplifies their efforts toward creative living in Haiti.