Getting around the Poto Mitan

This chapter proposes one path for teaching about Haitian womanhood from a perspective that moves beyond the ubiquitous figure of the poto mitan, or rather around it, acknowledging its centrality but also exploring its extant limitations. The term poto mitan translates literally to “post in the middle,” a central pillar around which the majority of the action of a Vodou ceremony unfolds. Equating Haitian women with the poto mitan indicates their centrality in society and points to the important role they occupy in the family. It also suggests character traits like strength, tenacity, and resilience. To develop and complicate this image, this chapter proposes a teaching model incorporating literature, film, and gender studies texts that accommodate strikingly divergent representations: Yanick Lahens’s Guillaume et Nathalie, Edwidge Danticat’s Claire of the Sea Light, and Roxane Gay’s An Untamed State; films Woch Na Soley and Poto Mitan: Haitian Women Pillars of the Global Economy; and essays from Gina Ulysse’s Why Haiti Needs New Narratives and Myriam Chancy’s Framing Silence: Revolutionary Novels by Haitian Women. Taken together these works help create a more dynamic picture that allows students to interrogate rigid notions of what it means to be a Haitian woman.