Dr. Chris Kovats-Bernat

Christopher Kovats-Bernat, PhD, is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Africana Studies and the inaugural Director of the Africana Studies program at Wilkes University. He is a cultural anthropologist and Africana Studies scholar whose work explores violence, poverty, resilience, and religion in the Caribbean—particularly in Haiti. Since 1994, he has conducted long-term ethnographic research in Port-au-Prince, where his scholarship has focused on the everyday lives of children navigating conditions of extreme precarity, as well as the role of Haitian Vodou in shaping community, identity, and survival.

He is the author of Sleeping Rough in Port-au-Prince: An Ethnography of Street Children and Violence in Haiti (University Press of Florida, 2008) and Anfans Difisil: A Study of Imperiled Childhoods in Haiti (Kendall Hunt, 2022), along with numerous articles and book chapters on childhood, violence, and Haitian culture. His publications have been nominated for the Margaret Mead Award and the Victor Turner Prize, and his research has been supported by the National Geographic Society, Wenner-Gren Foundation, and other institutions.

Before joining Wilkes, Chris taught at Shippensburg University, Gettysburg College, and The City University of New York. His teaching brings together anthropology, Black studies, and Caribbean studies, offering courses on Africana history and thought, cultural anthropology, and creole religions.

Beyond academia, Chris has worked as an applied anthropologist on human rights and humanitarian projects in Haiti, including post-earthquake relief efforts, advocacy for asylum-seeking minors, and as in-country director for a federal legal case addressing institutional abuse of Haitian street children.

• PhD, Anthropology – Temple University
• MA, Anthropology – Temple University
• BA, Philosophy – Muhlenberg College

• 2022 | Anfans Difisil: A Study of Imperiled Childhoods in Haiti. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt Publishers.
• 2008 | Sleeping Rough in Port-au-Prince: An Ethnography of Street Children and Violence in Haiti. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.
  • Nominated for The Margaret Mead Award and The Victor Turner Prize.

• 2019 | “When All Hell Breaks Loose: Rethinking Strategies for Fieldwork amid Gunplay, Catastrophe and Mayhem.” In The Secret Life of Anthropologists: Lessons from the Field. Routledge.
• 2013 | “After the End of Days: Childhood, Catastrophe and the Violence of Everyday Life in Haiti.” In Childhood, Youth and Violence in Global Contexts: Dialogues between Academics and Practitioners on Violence in Everyday Life. Edited by Karen Wells. New York: Palgrave/Macmillan.
• 2014 | “No Balm in Gilead: Childhood, Suffering and Survival in Haiti.” In Children in Crisis: Ethnographic Studies in International Contexts (Routledge Advances in Sociology). Edited by Manata Hashemi and Martin Sánchez-Jankowski. New York: Routledge.
• 2014 | “The Bullet is Certain: Armed Children and Gunplay on the Streets of Haiti.” In Adolescent Identity: Evolutionary, Developmental and Cultural Perspectives. Edited by Bonnie Lynn Hewlett. New York: Routledge.

• 2010 | “Haïti Chérie.” In Childhood: A Journal of Global Child Research 17(3): 426-429.
• 2006 | “Factional Terror, Paramilitarism and Civil War in Haiti: The View from Port-au-Prince (1994-2004).” Anthropologica. 48(1): 117-139.
• 2002 | “Negotiating Dangerous Fields: Pragmatic Strategies for Fieldwork amid Violence and Terror.” American Anthropologist 104(1): 208-222.
• 2000 | “Anti-Gang, Arimaj, and the War on Street Children in Haiti.” Peace Review 12(3): 415-421.