Assistant Professor of Anthropology

B.A. Philosophy, Muhlenberg College, 1993.
M.A. Anthropology, Temple University, 1997.
Ph.D Anthropology, Temple University, 2001.
Dissertation:
"The Impact of Poverty, Violence, and State Repression on the Cultural Identity and Social Agency of Street Children in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Curriculum Vitae   Fieldwork, Research and Scholarship Education and Teaching Courses Taught  Professional Affiliations Public Service Books & Journal Articles Photography

Fieldwork, Research and Scholarship

Since 1993, I have been conducting research with street children in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, studying the effects of poverty and state violence on their economic strategies and the development of their cultural identity and social agency. I have also spent a considerable amount of time doing ethnographic research with youths in detention at the Prison Juvénile-Sous-Fort at Fort National in Haiti. In 1995, I served as an International Civilian Electoral Observer of the Haitian presidential elections that marked the first peaceful transition from one democratically-elected president to the next in that country. I returned to Haiti during the February-March 2004 rebel uprising to study the cultural and social transformations that occur at the epicenters of political conflict. My first book, Sleeping Rough in Port-au-Prince: An Ethnography of Street Children and Violence in Haiti (University Press of Florida, 2006), is a detailed, anthropological study of the intersection of youth, poverty and violence in the Haitian capital.

Since 1998, I have also been studying the ritual and sorcery in Haitian Vodou. My second book, Dangerous Crossroads: Vodou and the Crisis of Childhood in Haiti (Rutgers University Press, 2008), is based on this research and examines the relationship of Vodou to childhood and childrearing in Haiti.

In 2004, I traveled to São Paulo, Brazil to conduct ethnographic fieldwork among street children in the Centro district of the city. That research is in support of a book I am developing entitled The Contexts of Childhood: Youth, Culture and Place in the Americas, a cross-cultural examination of the politics of adolescence in Haiti, Jamaica, Brazil, and the United States. This research project is ongoing and will be taking me to Kingston and St. Andrew, Jamaica, as well as to the “Badlands” neighborhood of North Philadelphia to study the participation of impoverished youths in urban gun violence.

Dr. Kovats-Bernat with his Haitian Research assistant and close friend for over a decade, Jean-Role Jean Louis. The photo was taken in Port-au-Prince on the morning of the 1995 Presidential election, which saw the first peaceful transition of power from one democratically-elected president to another. Kovats-Bernat and Jean Loius served as international civilian monitors of those elections.	From left to right: former (now deposed) President of Haiti Jean-Bertrand Aristide, his wife Mildred Trouillot-Aristide, and Kovats-Bernat. Photo was taken at the home of the president in 1995.

Education and Teaching

I graduated from Muhlenberg College with a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy and with a minor in Anthropology in 1993. I did my graduate work at Temple University in beloved, rough-and-tumble North Philadelphia, where I received both my Master's and my Ph.D. in Anthropology. I returned to Muhlenberg in 2000 as an assistant professor after having taught at Temple University, Widener University, the University of St. Francis, and in the Pennsylvania State University system. My primary goal as a professor and an advisor is to assist students in their development as mature, independent and critical scholars. I believe that a liberal arts education should provide a fertile ground for intellectual curiosity and discussion, as well as opportunities for students to develop as a true academic community; one marked by its commitment to inquiry, integrity, honesty, and respect. With this in mind, I believe in teaching an engaged kind of anthropology, one that draws heavily on the ethnographic data and is grounded firmly in theory. Consistent with the academic standards of the Department of Sociology & Anthropology, I place a high premium on intellectual rigor in all of my courses. If the real value of anthropology as a discipline of the liberal arts is to promote a deep and critical understanding of the human condition worldwide, then I believe that it is the obligation of the teaching anthropologist to press students forward in this manner. I take it as a given that lecture and seminar discussion is enriched by active faculty research. As such, I bring much of my own fieldwork experience into the classroom, especially the data that I have garnered from a decade of working with children. The anthropology of childhood is a relatively new area of specialization in the discipline. Doing ethnographic research with children and childhood in this decade is akin to doing ethnographic research with women and gender in the 1960s. It is a revolutionary, yet oddly intuitive, way to think about society and culture. Children have a unique perspective on social and cultural problems that should be integrated into classroom discussions, so I believe they should have a more fundamental place in the thinking of the discipline. I try to incorporate their “knee-high” perspective into all of my courses. “The anthropology of childhood is a relatively new area of specialization in the discipline. Doing ethnographic research with children and childhood in this decade is akin to doing ethnographic research with women and gender in the 1960s. It is a revolutionary, yet oddly intuitive, way to think about society and culture. Children have a unique perspective on social and cultural problems that should be integrated into classroom discussions, so I believe they should have a more fundamental place in the thinking of the discipline. I try to incorporate their “knee-high” perspective into all of my courses.”

Courses Taught Cultural Anthropology Human Evolution Anthropological Theory Anthrpology of the Caribbean Anthropology of the Child Witchcraft, Magic & Sorcery Vodou in Haiti & the Diaspora Research Methodology I Ethnography of Violence Inequality & Power American Ethnic Diversity Senior Seminar in Sociology & Anthropology Photo by Jennifer Cheek - Pantaleon Kovats - Bernat has been studying childhood, violence, and Vodou in the Caribbean for over ten years. His research with the impact of civil violence on the lives of Haitian street children have led to a connection with the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, where Kovats-Bernat works to gain political asylum for endangered children.   Professional Affiliations I have held research affiliation with the Bureau of Ethnology at the National University in Haiti since 1995, and with the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of the West Indies in Mona, Jamaica since 2001. I sit on the Steering Committee of the Society of Small Arms Scholars as well as the Research Initiative on Small Arms (RISA), a research group affiliated with the Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy at Temple University.  I am also the Rapporteur on United Nations Policy for that group. I am an active member of the American Anthropological Association, the American Ethnological Society, the Society for Latin American Anthropology, the Association of Caribbean Studies, and the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences. Public Service My expertise as an anthropologist and a Caribbeanist has allowed me to work as an advocate on behalf of Haitian and Jamaican refugee children seeking political asylum in the United States. Since 2001, I have done consulting work for the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center in Miami, writing affidavits and providing expert testimony on the current social and political conditions in Haiti and Jamaica that make some children particularly at risk for unlawful arrest and detention in those countries. Books 2006 Sleeping Rough in Port-au-Prince: An Ethnography of Street Children and Violence in Haiti. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. READ MORE READ AN EXCERPT     Under Contract. Dangerous Crossroads: Childhood, Crisis and Vodou in Haiti. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Expected publication, 2008. Journal Articles 2006 “Factional Terror, Paramilitarism and Civil War in Haiti: The View from Port-au-Prince (1994-2004).” Anthropologica. Vol 48 (1). Download in PDF format     2002. “Negotiating Dangerous Fields: Pragmatic Strategies for Fieldwork amid Violence and Terror.” American Anthropologist 104(1): 208-222. Download in PDF format     2000. “Anti-Gang, Arimaj, and the War on Street Children in Haiti.” Peace Review 12(3): 415-421. Download in PDF format     1999. “Children and the Politics of Violence in Haitian Context: Statist Violence, Scarcity, and Street Child Agency in Port-au-Prince.” Critique of Anthropology 19(2): 121-138. Download in PDF format Photography Click to enlarge