DIGGING THE ROOTS or Resistance and identity politics of the mouvman rasin in Haiti

Abstract

The ideological, cultural, and physical means which brought François Duvalier to power in 1957 created a process whereby the state idea became the metonym for all Haitian identity. In what is now called the Roots movement, some people working on the grassroots level began resisting the Duvaliers and asserting a new Haitian identity for themselves. Among the several parts of the movement, people calling themselves sanba-s began experiencing and living according to what they considered “traditional” means, wherefrom they created a new music, mizik rasin. An analysis of the sanba-s’ politics of identity regarding history, music, dress, language, and religion conveys a cultural critique of late Duvalierism and other contemporary social issues.