Préserver pour transmettre et faire vivre : la Citadelle Laferrière, patrimoine de l'humanité, du roi Christophe aux Nations-Unies

Abstract

The Citadelle Laferrière is not only an unrivalled identitarian beacon of meaning for Haiti, a monument to preserve for today’s citizens of the first black republic in the world, but also a memory site quite unique in its style, and probably the most important military building in its dimensions, and the most well-known one, in the whole Caribbean. It was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1982; however, its transmission until now has not always been warranted. The programme was designed, desired, implemented and followed by local actors, starting with the Haitian Society for History and Geography, and the young team of Ispan. In spite of a difficult political context, the programme rapidly proved to be transdisciplinary. It was carried out over a dozen years and met the imperatives of preservation but was also able to produce a reflexive body of fair practices. In turn, such a programme has generated other comparable projects and has opened up horizons in a wide range of research fields–historical, natural and human, agronomical, economic–in order to foster further sustainable actions. Established knowledge of a fair heritage transmission therefore meets a progressive future-building.