My Soul Is in Haiti

Offers a greater understanding of the spread of Protestant Christianity, both regionally and globally, by studying local transformations in the Haitian diaspora of the Bahamas.





In the Haitian diaspora, as in Haiti itself, the majority of

Haitians have long practiced Catholicism or Vodou. However, Protestant forms of

Christianity now flourish both in Haiti and beyond. In the Bahamas, where

approximately one in five people are now Haitian-born or Haitian-descended,

Protestantism has become the majority religion for immigrant Haitians.







In My Soul Is in Haiti, Bertin M. Louis, Jr. has

combined multi-sited ethnographic research in the United States, Haiti, and the

Bahamas with a transnational framework to analyze why Protestantism has

appealed to the Haitian diaspora community in the Bahamas. The volume

illustrates how devout Haitian Protestant migrants use their religious

identities to ground themselves in a place that is hostile to them as migrants,

and it also uncovers how their religious faith ties in to their belief in the

need to "save" their homeland, as they re-imagine Haiti politically and morally

as a Protestant Christian nation.







This important look at transnational migration between

second and third world countries shows how notions of nationalism among Haitian

migrants in the Bahamas are filtered through their religious beliefs. By

studying local transformations in the Haitian diaspora of the Bahamas, Louis

offers a greater understanding of the spread of Protestant Christianity, both

regionally and globally.