Martha Ellen Davis


Martha Ellen Davis[Music of Haiti|] is an emeritus professor from the University of Florida, anthropologist and ethnomusicologist known for her multifarious work on African diasporic religion and music. Professor Davis' research has defied conventional tenets about
Haitian and Dominican folk music, and her cultural preservation projects has raised awareness of the significance of the Samaná Americanos' enclave.

Education and early work

Davis received her B.A. in Anthropology from the University of California and a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. Her graduate field work took her to various Caribbean islands, of which she has published, but it was in the Dominican Republic where early on in her graduate career she established her reputation as an iconoclast, critic and dedicated scholar to Black culture. In 1972, she arrived at the island of Hispaniola with the suspicion that Dominicans owned more to the Afro-Caribbean culture than what had been documented yet. In an article published in a leading Dominican newspaper, Xiomarita Perez wrote candidly about Davis' style and links to the country: "Martha works from the heart and with the heart... Her job is essential to the country's social memory".

Institutional involvement

Part of Davis' legacy includes co-founding the Committee of Applied Ethnomusicology within the Society for Ethnomusicology in 1998, writing four seminal books, producing documentaries, and writing numerous scientific articles. She has been considered an authority in Afro-Caribbean music and is quoted extensively in the literature. Davis' book, La otra ciencia, earned the National Nonfiction Award of the Dominican Republic. While continuing as an affiliate professor at the University of Florida, since ca. 2003 Davis has spent most of her time in the Dominican Republic as honorary researcher of the Museo del Hombre Dominicano and oral-history expert and researcher of the Archivo General de la Nación, offering lectures, advising young scholars, and writing. In November 1, 2012, the Museo celebrated her 40 years of research in the country.

Scholarly contributions

Davis' long-standing interest in the Dominican and Haitian cultures derives from her belief that "The island of Hispaniola—the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo and first colony in the New World—was the initial diasporal crucible and cultural bridge of the Americas." In 1976, Davis, who rivals Fernando Ortiz in years of research into Afro-Caribbean culture, challenged the Dominican cultural establishment. According to Peter Manuel from CUNY, she convincingly suggested "that if there is any rightful ‘national’ music of the Dominican Republic, it would be not the Merengue, with its specifically regional origin in the Cibao, but rather the various types of salve, which have flourished throughout the country." Her work has also crossed into the realm of religion, and here she also suggested that what is commonly called Dominican "Folk Religion" is more accurately described as folk Catholicism of which one component is "Dominican Vodou."

Select publications