AT THE CROSSROADS: An Exploration of New Orleans Vodou, Disaster, and Literary Anthropology

Abstract

Vodou has been an object through which white hegemonic social structures have exercised judgment. These judgments included racist rhetoric that draws on civilizing narratives. Vodou, as a valid religion with historical links to rebellion of enslaved populations in the Caribbean, power, and healing, deserves more credit than its simple relegation to a fantastical void. From this void springs misrepresentations reflected in popular culture that then feed into the manifestation of “voodoo,” a tourism-invented shadow that plays on the authentic religion by accessing its material. Voodoo is a phenomenon with ties to capitalism, political forces, and identity transformations in the city. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which spurred reconstruction projects throughout New Orleans, the religion of Vodou has found itself plunged further into the shadows of the city’s cultural landscape. However, such a movement is only the beginning of Katrina’s effect on Vodou. Voodoo’s rise as an object of spectatorship subjects Vodou to transformations regarding the religion’s inheritance by one generation from the previous and its healing capabilities for the communities which consider it a spiritual pillar. Furthermore, as this thesis is appended by a collection of fictional short stories, At the Crossroads, I end the paper with a discussion on creative writing within the discipline of anthropology. What work can a polyphonic, fictional piece of writing do for the reconceptualization of Vodou as a historically misrepresented and fading phenomenon? These stories work to answer this question, bringing Vodou into the mundane lives of characters and, hopefully, symbolically, back to New Orleans.