The Foundation of the Nation of Haiti: Colonial Pasts as a Problem of the Present
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Abstract
Within the context of the discussions on decoloniality and the politics of memory, there is a distinct point of contention: earlier colonial eras seem to anachronistically endure and remain within the sovereign “postcolonial” nations through ever-recurring structures of domination, exploitation, and segregation. This article delves into the experience of the “colonial within the postcolonial” by positing the following questions: What understanding of the concept of “historical truth” supports colonial pasts as a problem of the present? And what phenomenological construal of the past and the present is at play in such a conception? By recurring to the foundation of the nation of Haiti and its revolution as an example, the article analyzes history as an ontological as well as an epistemological entity, i.e., history as occurrence and as knowledge or narration of the occurrence.
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