Re-Thinking the Haitian Other ‘in Relation’ as ‘Prochain’: A Reading of Édouard Glissant and Lyonel Trouillot

Abstract

Haitian writer Lyonel Trouillot criticizes the long tradition of neverending prejudices and sterotypes about Haiti. In Western discourse the country is still frequently represented as the "barbaric" antipole of modernity, condemned to an endless story of chaos and violence. From this notion arises the perpetuity of a (neo)colonial construction of the Haitian Other in strict opposition to a Western identity, a construction that has left its mark on Haiti's reputation in the global opinion until the present.