This collection of essays considers the means and extent of
Haiti’s ‘exceptionalization’ – its perception in multiple arenas as
definitively unique with respect not only to the countries of the North
Atlantic, but also to the rest of the Americas. Painted as repulsive and
attractive, abject and resilient, singular and exemplary, Haiti has long been
framed discursively by an extraordinary epistemological ambivalence. This
nation has served at once as cautionary tale, model for humanitarian aid and
development projects and point of origin for general theorising of the
so-called Third World. What to make of this dialectic of exemplarity and
alterity? How to pull apart this multivalent narrative in order to examine its
constituent parts? Conscientiously gesturing to James Clifford’s The
Predicament of Culture (1988), the contributors to The Haiti Exception work
on the edge of multiple disciplines, notably that of anthropology, to take up
these and other such questions from a variety of methodological and
disciplinary perspectives, including Africana Studies, Anthrohistory, Art
History, Black Studies, Caribbean Studies, education, ethnology, Jewish
Studies, Literary Studies, Performance Studies and Urban Studies. As
contributors revise and interrogate their respective praxes, they accept the
challenge of thinking about the particular stakes of and motivations for their
own commitment to Haiti.