Open Source Archives

We strive to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration and the implementation of progressive and  participatory research methods, with the goal of generating tangible, durable changes in the way research about Haiti is conceptualized, implemented and applied.

ABOUT US

Research Hub & Open Source Archives

EKO HAITI Research Hub is a research and knowledge mobilization platform focused on creative, collaborative and interdisciplinary research and associated research-based learning. We aim to become the intellectual “home” for research about Haiti by creating and providing open access to the largest crowdsourced research archive dedicated to Haiti, by fostering cross-disciplinary research and innovation, and by providing support for progressive research in the form of contextual expertise and training.

“The trees fall from time to time, but the voice of the forest never loses its power. Life begins.”

Jacques Alexis, Les Arbres Musiciens (Paris, 1957)
Haiti-bezienswaardigheden
LITTERATURE
HAITIAN LITTERATURE
Haiti is the birthplace of a rich literary heritage that deserves more attention. Haitian authors open a window into this Caribbean nation’s vibrant culture and tumultuous history.

Haiti-bezienswaardigheden
SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
ANTHROPOLOGY
EKO HAITI collections include all works, published and unpublished by Anthropologists Gerald Murray, Glenn Smucker and Timothy Schwartz
Haiti-bezienswaardigheden
PHOTOGRAPHY ARCHIVE
HAITI IN PICTURES
Dedicated to the late great, Kreyolicious (Katheline St. Fort), our photographs archives holds a large collection of images dating back to the late 1800's .
Haiti-bezienswaardigheden
DEVELOPMENT ARCHIVE
DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH
40 years of development reports, evaluations and survey databases many of which are not publicly available, are buried in drawers, closets, private libraries of NGOs and government donors.

ORAL HISTORIES

Oral histories are a powerful tool in developing historical understanding

Oral history offers an alternative to conventional history, filling gaps in traditional research with personal accounts of historically significant events or simply life in a specific place and time. Oral histories do more than provide charming details to dry historical accounts. In fact, oral histories help others recapture lived experiences that are not written down in traditional sources.

> Transcripts archive

" Bwa pi wo di li wè lwen, men grenn pwomennen di li wè pi lwen pase l "

The tallest tree says that it sees far, but the seed that travels says that it sees even further.

GET INVOLVED

Support EKO HAITI

As an independent institute, we rely on crowdsourcing and donations to continue expanding the depth and scope of our archives.  Your contribution enable us to provide open access to a vast collection of ethnographic and research material which in turn aims at fostering further research and contribute to a better understanding of the country.

Sex, Family and Fertility (Also published by Lexington Books as Fewer Men, More Babies) re-evaluates the debate over family patterns in the Caribbean with respect to the critical importance that child labor plays in peasant household livelihood strategies. Earlier anthropologists widely accepted and provided empirical evidence that the contributions made by children to the peasant household labor pool was a significant determinant of social patterns and high birth rates. In the 1960s researchers began to dismiss the economic utility of children. Children were conceptualized as economic burdens, wanted for emotional, religious, and cultural reasons. This ideational trend emerged in the context of changes in Western economies and corresponding shifts in ideology; it reflected agendas promoted and exported to the developing world by aid agencies; and it derailed the refinement of academic models that explain kinship and high fertility. This shortcoming is especially evident in the Caribbean.

Based on original ethnographic research, this book demonstrates how the process unfolds in contemporary rural Haiti; how intensive work regimes make children necessary; how this necessity conditions sexual behavior, gender relations, and kinship; and why, despite massive contraceptive campaigns, birth rates in rural Haiti continue to be among the highest in the world. Schwartz offers a solution to a demographic paradox that some of the most prominent sociologists and demographers of the 20th century noted but were never able to explain: among impoverished small farmers, when more men are absent due to male wage migration, the women remaining behind give birth to more, not fewer, babies.