Georges Anglade's map of La Diaspora is the point of departure for this collection, which takes his blueprint for studying Haitian settlement abroad and asks what geography does to migration and to the positions Haitians occupy once they arrive. Jackson resists treating diaspora as a seamless web of connection; the contributors do not assume the term means anything in particular to the people they study, asking instead how it is used locally and to what end.

Three parts organise the essays. The first follows movement within the Caribbean, from exile in Jamaica and marginality in Guadeloupe to exclusion in the Dominican Republic, rural enclaves in eastern Cuba and the Bahamas as a way station, where moving is often a sideways step rather than an escape.

The second turns to Paris, Boston, Michigan and the machinery of deportation. The third treats diaspora itself as a way of mapping the world.