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Love this shirt!

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Winners & Losers of the Government Shutdown

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♥My blog will make you smile ♥

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Hatian Voodoo

I was having an interesting conversation with my friend earlier.  She is doing an assignment for her Anthropology of Religion Class, and want's to use Marxism in her analysis of Hatian Voodoo.  Now, being a geek of an Anthropologist, I couldn't let this go unstudied.  At first, I was skeptical about the application of Marxism to Voodoo - Marx's center of focus is on the working verses the upper class, and I didnt know if Voodoo related much.  However, after a little digging, I was pleased to find that I was very much wrong.

Voodoo was very much involved with working class relationships, politics, and revolution in Haiti.  As I understand it, Haiti began as a French colony, used as a production site for Sugar.  Slaves were imported from the African continent to work on plantations, and the product was traded for provisions from North America and manufactured goods in Europe.  Certain mandates made practicing indigenous African religions illegal among slaves, so their practices remained underground.  However, because of the wide range of ethnic backgrounds and the need to hide these practices from French authorities, religious practices were modified over the years, incorporating practices from the various religions as well as catholicism.  Incorporating catholic practices allowed practitioners to hide their religious rituals from the French.

During 1791, Voodoo provided a vehicle for the Haitian Revolution. A high priestess of Voodoo gave the first official call for slaves to revolt, causing a violent lash-back against colonial authorities.  It is said that she was possessed by dome form of deity that prompted her to order outright revolution.  This ultimately ended up in Haiti becoming a politically independent state in 1803.

This was very interesting to look into.  Marxism presents us with a critical tool to analyze social change through class structures.  Voodoo was created within the working class of the Hatian slaves, serving as a form of solidarity in its most basic essence (I'm somewhat generalizing here, that may or may not be the entire case).  Through their exploitative practices, the French colonial authorities fueled outright resistance of the lower class, and Voodoo provided a vehicle for this.  

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FunSubstance.com - Endless Entertainment & Humor a We Heart It-on http://weheartit.com/entry/80647766/via/LoveCountdown

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This is a problem that I have really been struggling with lately.  What exactly is it that I want to do with my life?  You see the thing is - I already know what I want to do.  I want to be a college professor - I want to do research, write books, and teach students.  I also want the job to take me around the world, continually learning new things.  But how do I balance this with an incredibly competitive job market for professor positions?  Well, something deep inside me says do what you love to do, and I think that feeling really resonates with this video.  A must see for all, especially college students and grads.  This video has a very interesting point - we are training our kids and all the new generations to live like us, to think that the point of life is to make money and be stable.  However, for most of the world, being "stable" is never the norm.  Life is a constant struggle.  There are never any shortcuts to success.  So, might as well make the ride enjoyable.

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The basic reason for creating this blog is because my blogger account at Willamette University is soon to be deleted, since I have graduated.  But just because you take the geek out of the Anthropology department doesn't mean you can take the anthropology out of the geek :)  Let me mix two loves of mine for my first post - My Little Pony + Anthropology!!!  :D