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Reflecting the power of Haitian Vodou across Southern Black feminisms

In the recent work of scholars Omise’eke Tinsley and Sokari Ekine, Haitian Vodou is a pathway toward liberatory Black subjectivities, feminist spirituality, and the making of queer genders. As non-Haitian Black critics, their books speak to a growing body of work in academic and popular writing which seeks to explore Vodou as a Black feminist and queer espistemology for Black Diaspora world-makers beyond the purview of Haitian identity. As I considered the impact of this stretching out the utility of Haitian Vodou, I was reminded of how earlier work in the bounty of Black women’s writing outside the Caribbean might also speak in a Vodoulanguage. As I discuss in this review, both Tinsley and Ekine ask that we follow the lwa, the spirit or energy of Vodou, as a way of Black feminist reading. Taking up their call brought me to Yvonne Vera’s Zimbabwe, and of course, back again to Haiti.