Aimé Césaire, a poet from Martinique, travelled to Haiti in 1944, and Léon-Gontran Damas, a poet from French Guiana, visited Haiti in 1952 and 1964. How were these heralds of Negritude received in the first Black republic of the Americas? How did the racial issue, significant both locally and internationally, impact their visits? This article draws on specific sources, some of which are unpublished – including articles from the Haitian press, French diplomatic archives and public records from Martinique – to understand how this issue manifested itself locally, while also examining the influence of international conjunctures at very distinct times. From each poet’s feelings about their reception in Haiti, to the consideration given to debates about “race,” via an analysis of the interplay of actors grappling with racial stereotypes, this contribution explores the different ways in which the racial issue has manifested itself in Haiti.
Taxonomic diversity effects on forest productivity and response to climate extremes range from positive to negative, suggesting a key role for complex interactions among neighbouring trees. To elucidate how neutral interactions, hierarchical competition and resource partitioning between neighbours shape tree growth and climate response in a highly diverse Amazonian forest, we combined 30 years of tree censuses with measurements of water and carbon related traits. We modelled individual tree growth response to climate and neighbourhood to disentangle the relative effect of neighbourhood densities, trait hierarchies and dissimilarities. While neighbourhood densities consistently decreased tree growth, trait dissimilarity increased it, and both influenced climate response. Greater water conservatism provided a competitive advantage to focal trees in normal years, but water spender neighbours reduced this effect in dry years. By highlighting the importance of density and trait-mediated neighbourhood interactions, our study offers a way towards improving predictions of forest response to climate change.
