{"id":63888,"date":"2014-08-27T09:00:36","date_gmt":"2014-08-27T14:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=63888"},"modified":"2019-11-06T16:47:46","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T21:47:46","slug":"new-orleans-voodoo-before-and-after-hurricane-katrina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2014\/08\/27\/new-orleans-voodoo-before-and-after-hurricane-katrina\/","title":{"rendered":"New Orleans Voodoo: Before and After Hurricane Katrina"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When Hurricane Katrina broke the levees of New Orleans and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/nova\/earth\/how-new-orleans-flooded.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">flooded 85% of the city<\/a>, 100,000 people were left homeless. Disproportionately, these were the poor and black residents of New Orleans. This same population faced more hurdles to returning than their\u00a0wealthier and whiter counterparts thanks to the effects of poverty, but also choices made by policymakers and politicians &#8212; some would say made deliberately &#8212; that reduced the black population of the city.<\/p>\n<p>With them went many of the practitioners of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.voodoospiritualtemple.org\/voodoo.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">voodoo<\/a>, a faith with its origins in the merging of West African belief systems and\u00a0Catholicism. \u00a0At <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/voodoo-rebounding-new-orleans-after-hurricane-katrina-266340\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Newsweek<\/em><\/a>, Stacey Anderson writes that locals claim that the voodoo community was 2,500 to 3,000\u00a0people strong before Katrina, but after that number was reduced to around 300.<\/p>\n<p>The result has been a bridging of different voodoo traditions and communities. Prior to the storm, celebrations and ceremonies were race segregated\u00a0and those who adhered to Haitian- and New Orleans-style voodoo kept their distance. \u00a0After the storm, with their numbers decimated, they could no longer sustain the in-groups and out-groups they once had. \u00a0Voodoo practitioners forged bonds across prior\u00a0divides.<\/p>\n<p><em>Cross-posted at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.psmag.com\/navigation\/books-and-culture\/new-orleans-voodoo-hurricane-katrina-89939\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pacific Standard<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<span class=\"ft_signature\"><em><a href=\"http:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/\">Lisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/American-Hookup-New-Culture-Campus\/dp\/039328509X?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">American Hookup<\/a><em>, a book about college sexual culture; a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Gender-Interactions-Institutions-Lisa-Wade\/dp\/0393931072?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/intro\/\">Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a><em>.\u00a0You can follow her on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lisawade\">Twitter<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/lisawadephd\/\">Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Hurricane Katrina broke the levees of New Orleans and flooded 85% of the city, 100,000 people were left homeless. Disproportionately, these were the poor and black residents of New Orleans. This same population faced more hurdles to returning than their\u00a0wealthier and whiter counterparts thanks to the effects of poverty, but also choices made by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15,126,285,1760,1757,42,37],"class_list":["post-63888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-culture","tag-disaster","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-blacksafricans","tag-raceethnicity-whiteseuropeans","tag-religion","tag-social-psychology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63888"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72960,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63888\/revisions\/72960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}