Michel Degraff
Bio
Michel DeGraff, born in Haiti, is Professor of Linguistics and “Faculty at Large” in MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. Michel and his family dance as often as they can at JAE’s Afro-Haitian classes at the Dance Complex in Cambridge, where dance is synonymous with collective joy and healing through live and vibrant connections to Haiti’s culture.
Michel’s scholarly and activist work lives at the crossroads of language, power and liberation. Rooted in Haiti and in the study of Creole languages, especially his native Haitian Creole (Kreyòl), his research explores how language can both sustain systems of domination and become a tool for radical decolonization among the “Wretched of the Earth” from Haiti to Palestine and beyond. A Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America and former recipient of a $1 million National Science Foundation grant, Michel is also a founding member of the Haitian Creole Academy and co-founder and co-director of the MIT–Haiti Initiative.
Across classrooms, communities and collaborations at MIT, in Haiti and in the Haitian diaspora, his work seeks to make knowledge accessible in the languages that people breathe and live in. Most notably, the goal of the MIT-Haiti Initiative is to make high-quality learning accessible to the greatest number of Haitian students while strengthening the foundations of Haiti’s linguistic and cultural identity.
Michel’s publications span theoretical and applied linguistics as well as liberatory scholarship on language, education and social justice. His writings have appeared in venues such as Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Language, Language in Society, Curriculum Inquiry, The Journal of Haitian Studies, and The Journal of Postcolonial Linguistics, as well as in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Newsweek, The Boston Review, Le Monde Diplomatique, Middle East Eye, Mondoweiss, Sampan, and CounterPunch. His forthcoming bilingual (Kreyòl/English) book is titled Our Own Language: Harnessing the Power of Kreyòl and Other Mother Tongues for Education and Liberation / Lang a nou: Kreyòl ak lòt lang manman se zouti pou edikasyon ak liberasyon (MIT Press, 2026).
In deep resonance with Jean Appolon Expressions, Michel’s work affirms what Frantz Fanon taught us in The Wretched of the Earth: culture—in language, dance and all other forms—is a living force for transformation and liberation. A truly sovereign Haiti must be rooted in the wealth of its linguistic, historical and cultural assets, nourished by the same ancestral spirits that animate JAE’s mission.
Wi, se kon sa Ayiti ap djaye ak bèlte pou tout pitit li !
For more information about Michel DeGraff’s projects, see http://mit.edu/degraff and http://MIT-Ayiti.NET
