Podcast Summary: Rewriting Haiti’s Narrative with Dr. Cécile Accilien
In this episode, I sat down with Dr. Cécile Accilien to discuss her book, Teaching Haiti: Strategies for Creating New Narratives. The conversation explored the urgent need to dismantle dominant, one-dimensional portrayals of Haiti—portrayals often shaped by outsiders with little understanding of the country’s history, complexity, and antifragility.
Dr. Accilien concludes by emphasizing the importance of collective effort. She acknowledges the many Haitians doing transformative work on the ground—people whose names are not in the headlines but who are actively building a different future. Her book, Teaching Haiti, is an invitation to rethink how Haiti is taught, discussed, and understood, ensuring that Haitians themselves define their own narratives.
We covered a lot in this episode. Here are some of the key topics we discussed:
