Introduction Tè glise, Continents à la dérive

Abstract

The book opens with analysis of Yanick Lahens’ reflection on the disastrous convergence of geological and political time in the Haitian earthquake of 2010. Lahens contemplates the imbrication of geological, political, and social fault lines to complicate the exceptional image of Haiti as a site of disaster. The introduction considers Lahens’ understanding of fault lines, below and above ground, in light of Rob Nixon’s critique of the slow violence of environmental injustice and Michel Serres’ idea of a natural contract with the planet. It brings together Lahens, Nixon, and Serres to illustrate the different conceptions of time and space that inform the ecological thought of a Haitian writer, an American critic, and a French philosopher. Taking this comparative analysis as its point of departure, the introduction begins to develop a theory of an eco-archive as an ethical and imaginative writing on the environment. It merges ecocriticism with the historical awareness of Haitian studies to argue that Lahens and other Haitian writers challenge the neocolonial and neoliberal political economies that feed the dominant narratives of the Anthropocene.