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  • Political instability in Haiti provided an important backdrop to the election of François Duvalier in September 1957. The new head of state, who soon established an authoritarian dictatorship (notably after 1964) and a hereditary regime (after 1971), justified both his victory and presidency trough a messianic message around the creation of a new Haiti. In the end, the duvalierist regime, stretching close to thirty years, was mostly a period marred by state-sponsored violence. Of the many repercussions of the dictatorship the creation of various Haitian diasporic communities, notably in Montreal, Quebec, during the second half of the 20th century remains one of the most notable. Despite the often critical tone employed by most specialists to make sense of the Duvalier period, Haitians, in Haiti and abroad, have remained divided in their assessment of the authoritarian regime. This doctoral thesis locates the emergence and creation of different collective memory scripts within diasporic communities by focusing on the particular case of the Haitian diaspora in Montreal between 1964 and 2014. By combining an analysis of “traditional” written documents and through the examination oral interviews, this research explores how, at different historical junctures between Quebec and Haiti, this population, marked by its heterogeneity, articulated different visions of the dictatorship in Haiti. This thesis was particularly inspired by the concept of “emblematic memory” advanced by the historian Steve Stern (2004) in his book trilogy which investigated different “memory camps” in post-Pinochet Chile. Our own research contends that the discourses and memories of Duvalierism that were forged within the Haitian diaspora in Quebec did not follow a linear trajectory and fell within a larger project where various conceptualizations of Duvalierist power and its place in Haiti’s national history were contested. It also shows that the very way in which many have understood duvalierism has evolved over time to adapt to new political realities in Haiti and in Quebec. Ultimately, it suggests that any reading of duvalierism, positive or negative, is always located within a broader appreciation (critic) of post-1986 Haiti.

Dernière mise à jour depuis la base de données : 18/07/2025 05:00 (EDT)

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