Sex, Family and Fertility in Haiti

By: Timothy T Schwartz

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

"The sophistication of this book lies in the appeal of his work to the intellect based on extensive, long-term experiences in Haiti off and on over a period of 18 years. Readers will find that Schwartz’s hypotheses, conclusions, and supporting materials will engage their attention and command a thoughtful response. As a committed empiricist, Schwartz and his work are truly authentic and can be trusted to conform to the facts as he has assiduously gathered them. And this work is provocative in the sense that it counters the prevailing wisdom about fertility and family behavior in Haiti and is guaranteed to stimulate further research. As a genuine anthropologist, Schwartz lived with the people, spoke their language, engaged in their activities and, in addition to about six years of intensive participant-observation specifically for this book, he carried out five formal surveys with the help of his hired and trained staff including a three-month household survey of 1,586 households from the 22,827 households in the target area, a detailed opinion survey of about ten percent of the participants in the household survey, what he labels a 'household labor demands survey', a survey of livestock and gardens, and a survey of polygyny prevalence and activities. Insight into Schwartz’s outstanding skills as an ethnographer can be obtained from a reading of the more personal account of his fieldwork in Haiti in his 2008 Travesty in Haiti." Robert Lawless, Author of Haiti’s Bad Press Chair and Department of Anthropology, Wichita State University.