| NSF Org: |
SES Division of Social and Economic Sciences |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | June 7, 2016 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | June 7, 2016 |
| Award Number: | 1637010 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Joseph Whitmeyer
jwhitmey@nsf.gov (703)292-7808 SES Division of Social and Economic Sciences SBE Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences |
| Start Date: | June 15, 2016 |
| End Date: | May 31, 2017 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $11,999.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $11,999.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
426 AUDITORIUM RD RM 2 EAST LANSING MI US 48824-2600 (517)355-5040 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
509 E Circle Dr East Lansing MI US 48824-7503 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | Sociology |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.075 |
ABSTRACT
Shared Consciousness and Collective Action
This dissertation investigates the origins and influence of Africans' collective consciousness (or shared identity and way of thinking) in the years prior to the 1791-1804 Haitian Revolution, the most successful slave uprising of the modern era. This research proposes to examine the relationship between collective consciousness and important forms of resistance between the years 1750 and 1791. The project addresses the following questions. What was the role of Africa-inspired rituals in shaping collective consciousness? How did this collective consciousness influence patterns of escape from enslavement? How and why did patterns of escape from enslavement change over time and space in the few decades before the Haitian Revolution?
Preliminary results suggest the following hypotheses. First, Africa-inspired ritual events were gathering spaces for rebels to raise oppositional consciousness, campaign for freedom, and mobilize recruits. Second, runaways' social ties, knowledge of specific destinations, self-assertive behaviors, and longer durations of escape seem to be reasonable indicators of an oppositional consciousness. Third, runaways strategically responded to structural and environmental windows of opportunity (such as natural disasters, changes in colonial law, and geographic proximity to isolated zones). To test these hypotheses, the Co-PI will perform (a) qualitative and quantitative content analysis of over 11,000 digitally archived Haitian runaway slave advertisements; (b) a systematic review of primary documents held in several key archives in the Americas and Europe; (c) a systematic review of critical secondary sources published during and since the period of study; and (c) qualitative field research in present-day Haiti. The findings on antecedents to the Haitian Revolution will improve our understanding of the role of shared consciousness, social ties and networks, and human cultural expressions in collective action processes.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The major goal of the project was to understand how diaspora populations’ shared consciousness translates into collective action. Specifically, the project combined theoretical literature from African Diaspora Studies and the social movements field with archival and field research data to study ritual life and escapes from enslavement (mawonaj) during the years leading to the Haitian Revolution.
Eddins travelled to France to conduct archival research at the Archives Nationale d’Outre-Mer in Aix-en-Provence and the Archives Nationale in Pierrefitte-Stains. Eddins also travelled to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to conduct archival and qualitative field research. She visited the Archives Nationale d’Haiti at Poste Marchand and the Bibliothèque des Peres du Saint-Esprit, and she did interviews at the Bureau Nationale d’Ethnologie in Port-au-Prince and in the town of Jérémie. The specific objective of the international travel was to collect archival data on the lives of Africans and African descendants in colonial Haiti (Saint Domingue) and on the ways in which they developed and expressed a collective consciousness for freedom from enslavement. After the archival work, the next objective was to do oral history interviews with scholars, activists, community leaders, and residents who have local knowledge of Haitian history.
The research yielded several key findings: 1. African-Saint Dominguans’ ritual gatherings at burial sites, in churches, and at nighttime calenda assemblies served as free spaces where they could re-produce aspects of their religious cultures. 2. Group escapes were one way runaways exhibited or cultivated relationships and trust. 3. Mawonaj can be thought of as a consistent repertoire tactic that was most characterized by a) the exploitation of structural cleavages, and b) population growth of enslaved people in Saint Domingue. 4. Oppositional consciousness may have continued to exist during the post-independence era in southwest Haiti during the peasant rebellion led by Jean-Baptiste Duperrier known as “Goman,” an Africa-born mawon leader of the Haitian Revolution.
One dissertation was completed based on this study, and a manuscript on the role of mothering in spreading collective consciousness is in preparation for submission to a peer-reviewed social science journal. Both studies employ quantitative and qualitative analyses of resistance and bring a systematic approach to processes of African Diasporans’ human meaning making and social change – issues that are at the core of the Black/African Diaspora Studies field. This research has importance for the study of solidarity and collective identity formation in social movement activity, and long-term perspectives to resistance also reveal important patterns associated with macro-level factors and conditions.
Eddins will use her experience with this NSF-funded effort as a basis for further research using tools from the digital humanities to house and display the coded data and project findings.
Last Modified: 08/02/2017
Modified by: Aaron M Mccright
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