Talk:Cécile Fatiman/GA1

GA Review

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Nominator: Grnrchst (talk · contribs) 10:02, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Caeciliusinhorto (talk · contribs) 21:28, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Looks interesting – marking my spot to review this. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 21:28, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Okay, I've read through the article a couple of times now. In two places, it's somewhat unclear to me what is individual historians' theories and what is Historical Consensus(tm).

1. Fatiman's early life. The section starts by telling us in Wikipedia's voice that she was the daughter of an African woman and a Corsican prince. Then we get told a bunch of different historians' theories. It's unclear to me whether these theories are all compatible with 1) each other or 2) the African slave/Corsican prince theory. Do e.g. Khan and Césaire agree with this theory? Where does the suggestion that she was Kongolese come from? Where does Salnave get the name Attiman from – not from King Theodore of Corsica, as far as I can work out?!
2. The ceremony at Bois Caïman. The section on §Revolution makes it seem as though this is the historical consensus, but §Historiography suggests that whether the ceremony happened at all has been disputed! It says that Carolyn Fick "was able to say with certainty" that it happened – but the source for that is Fick herself. Is her view the historical consensus? (And unmentioned in either section is that, from a quick look at Fick, while she believes that the ceremony definitely happened, she seems to cast doubt on whether the priestess at the ceremony actually was Fatiman...)

In both cases, ideally there would be a good recent source that explicitly says "most historians believe X" which could then be used the cite what the historical consensus actually is.

Other than this, there are a few places where the article could do with some work to make it clearer to the layperson. For instance: She saw the body itself as a form of praxis, through which knowledge could be interpreted by entering an altered state of consciousness. Or filling in the archival gaps with diaspora literacy, through a dialectical method.

Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:27, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Aye, I think my trouble sorting through the conflicting narratives comes through in the text, thanks for bringing this up.

1. I think historical consensus does seem to accept the "African woman and Corsican prince" origin, as it comes up regularly and I haven't yet seen it challenged. The other hypotheses are almost certainly incompatible with each other, so I should probably make that clearer. Personally (so not adding this in) I think it's likely that these hypotheses are shaped by the individual biases of each claimant. Rodney Salnave has disagreed with the hypothesis that she was Muslim,[1] and the hypothesis that she was Kongolese was questioned by David Patrick Geggus. I didn't want to entirely exclude these hypotheses, but I definitely need to make it clearer that none of these are consensus. Any suggestions?
2. The factuality of the ceremony isn't disputed by historical consensus. Only Léon-François Hoffman and Franck Sylvain disputed it, and that was due to their own attempts to downplay the role of Vodou in the Haitian Revolution.

As for the clarity part, aye, Finch talks about some very deep concepts that are quite difficult to grasp at times. This is why I linked to the articles on diaspora literacy and praxis, as it would be too much of an aside to define each of these in the text. Happy to take suggestions on how to improve these. --Grnrchst (talk) 09:40, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

As for "Attiman", I've seen it written elsewhere that it might have come from Gregorio Attiman, who was (if I recall correctly) an adopted son of Theodore of Corsica. Finch didn't go much further into this, though. --Grnrchst (talk) 09:43, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

@Caeciliusinhorto: Hey, it's been a week since this last comment. I've tried to clarify some of these points, but may need some additional pointers for further improvements. Is there anything else you could add for this review? Cheers. --Grnrchst (talk) 09:00, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

@Caeciliusinhorto: It's been another week since my last comment and I want to know if there's anything else I need to do to improve this. Are you still planning on reviewing this? Or should I look for another reviewer? --Grnrchst (talk) 11:12, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

@Grnrchst: apologies for the delay here – Real Life has been hellishly busy for me recently. Glancing at your changes they certainly look to be an improvement. Will try to finish up this review ASAP. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:00, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

A question: why does the source "Haiti, History and the Gods" list both Colin and Joan Dayan as the authors? This is the same person - Joan Dayan later changed her name to Colin. Jaguarnik (talk) 16:25, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

@Jaguarnik: Thanks for catching this, it was just a mistake while importing the citation. I've corrected it now. --Grnrchst (talk) 09:01, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

@Grnrchst: Apologies again for taking so long to get back on this. Happy with the article generally now. Spotchecking sources:

• "According to Aisha K. Finch, Fatiman came to adopt the Enlightenment ideals of 'liberté, égalité, fraternité' and refashioned them for the Haitian context, upholding black women's bodily integrity and property rights". Not sure this is really supported by Finch. Finch says that Fatiman "helped to produce" a kind of liberty, equality, and fraternity: is this the same as adopting it? Even if so, I'm not seeing where Finch mentions property rights...
• "His regime, which lasted for only 10 months, was reportedly tumultuous and despotic." Mostly fine, but I'm iffy on "despotic". The source says it was reportedly characterised by "sinister practices" which is a bit vague: is there a better source for "despotic"?
• "In C. L. R. James' 1934 play ... in Isabel Allende's 2009 novel Island Beneath the Sea." This is all fine.
• "Despite her central role in the incitement of the Haitian Revolution, Fatiman is often missing from historical narratives of the period. In celebrations of male figures such as Boukman, Henri Christophe, Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Toussaint L'Ouverture, many women in the Haitian Revolution, including Fatiman herself, are often ignored entirely". Looks okay.
• "Fatiman presided over a ceremony at the Bois Caïman (English: Alligator Wood) in the role of manbo, together with Dutty Boukman as oungan": checked Finch, who supports this but mentions in a footnote that Geggus questions Boukman's role in this, suggesting it was purely military rather than acting as a Voodoo priest. Lundy and Fick also support this, though without explicitly calling Boukman oungan.

No issues with copyvio/close paraphrasing, but a couple of cases where I think the text strays too far from the cited sources: it may be that other sources do more explicitly support what is said in the article... Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 21:32, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for getting back on this! Regarding these points:

• Rewritten the bit about adopting them. As for the bit about property rights, from Finch: "Black women routinely and brilliantly appropriated these ideals for their own purposes, from bodily freedom to property claims."
• I've truncated this, as it's only tangential context.
• How would you recommend I handle the discrepancy with Boukman's role? I don't want to dedicate too much explanation to it, in order to keep focus on Fatiman. --Grnrchst (talk) 09:41, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
  • @Grnrchst: apologies for taking so long to get back to you on this! I think this is all okay now – re. the discrepancy with Boukman's role I don't think it really matters too much to this article, I just thought it was interesting. If you think it's important, you could put it in a footnote. At any rate, many thanks for your patience: I'm going to go ahead and pass the article now Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 18:38, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

    Hey! No worries, thanks for finishing off the review. Hope things are all well on your end :) --Grnrchst (talk) 08:41, 28 August 2024 (UTC)