HESBURGH LECTURE SERIES 2013 Program - Alumni Association ...

Karen Richman, Ph.D.
Director, Migration and Border Studies, Institute for Latino Studies;
Concurrent Associate Professional Specialist, Anthropology
Biography
Karen Richman is a cultural anthropologist. Her areas of research, scholarship, and teaching are
immigration, culture, and religion in Haitian and Mexican transnational communities. She is
the author of Migration and Vodou (2005), a multisided ethnography of a transnational Haitian
community and of numerous articles and book chapters on Haitian and Mexican migration,
family, religion, and expressive culture. Richman won the 2009 Heizer award for the best
article in the field of ethnohistory for her article, “Innocent Imitations? Mimesis and Alterity
in Haitian Vodou Art.” She is director of Academic Affairs in Latino Studies, a member of the
Anthropology Department, and a Fellow of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies.
Lectures
Immigrants, Social Investments, and Social Capital: A Mexican Immigrant Case Study
Mexican immigrants have lower savings and pension participation than any other major demographic cohort in the U.S. This
lecture presents results of an in-depth study of the social and cultural factors influencing Mexican immigrants’ economic, savings,
and consumption behavior. Through its innovative combination of anthropological and economic theories and methods, the
study enhances conventional theories of retirement savings and explains how underappreciated, non-economic factors affect
Mexicans’ savings in general and savings for retirement in particular.
A More Powerful Sorcerer? Magic and Conversion in a Haitian Transnational Community
The popular religion of Haiti, known to outsiders as Vodou, is a complex, dynamic blend of European, African, and Creole
religious ideologies and practices centered around the material reality of spiritual affliction, sorcery, and magic. Haitian migrants
have been publicly disavowing this religion and joining ethnic evangelical churches, the repatriated, indigenized offspring of
North American mission. Yet underneath the evangelical’s modern, ascetic cloak, representations of instant money and private
ambition–the illicit rewards of sorcery and magic–remain at the heart of their instrumentalist rhetoric. Religion conversion may
not entail the radical break that separatist Protestants, and some believing scholars, assert it to be.
Religion at the Epicenter: Facts and Fables
The earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, 2010 took a devastating toll on property, resources, and human life. An estimated
230,000 people died, 300,000 were injured and 1,000,000 made homeless. The impacts of the earthquake on religious faith and
practice are less clear. The lack of data on the religious implications of the earthquake, however, has not hampered the production
of speculative claims about the role of Vodou in Haitians’ experience of the catastrophe. This lecture explores how Haitians’
religious beliefs have influenced their perceptions of the earthquake. The discussion will also consider whether and to what extent
the earthquake has affected their religious beliefs and practices.
Run From the Earthquake, Fall into the Abyss: A Léogane Paradox
Koridò, (Corridor), is a hamlet in the rural community of Ti Rivyè, Léogane, Haiti and the anchor of a transnational community.
The home base of Koridò lies closer to the epicenter of the earthquake on January 12, 2010, than the capital city, Port-au-Prince,
to the east and the town of Léogane to the west. Whereas losses in the capital and the town were catastrophic, the people of
Koridò survived the cataclysm almost unscathed. This lecture explains how the everyday practices of the people of Koridò got
them out of the way of the earthquake and why, despite both their survival of the cataclysm and their intimate and intricate ties to
migrants “outside,” they are nonetheless standing precariously at the edge of the abyss.
Categories
Social Concerns, Spirituality
The Hesburgh Lecture Series, 2013 Program 85