Yasmina Tippenhauer

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Yasmina Tippenhauer
Born	(1971-02-10)February 10, 1971 Bogotá, Colombia
🏳️ Nationality	Swiss
🏫 Education	University of Geneva (Ph.D., 2002) Princeton University (research, 1998–1999) EPFL (CREATE programme, 2002)
💼 Occupation	Scholar, educator, literary translator and anthologist, cultural entrepreneur, philanthropist
Known for	Ayiti Cheri (2017); Tierra Incógnita cultural centre; AWO Holocultura; Pachamama regenerative farm
🌐 Website	yasminatippenhauer.com

Yasmina Tippenhauer (born February 10, 1971, Bogotá, Colombia) is a Swiss-Haitian scholar, educator, literary translator and anthologist, cultural entrepreneur, and philanthropist. She works at the intersection of Latin American literary studies, holistic health, regenerative ecology, and impact development. She is the editor of Ayiti Cheri (2017), the first trilingual anthology of Haitian poetry in French, Creole, and Spanish, published jointly by Casa de las Américas and Legs Éditions. She is the founder of the cultural centre Tierra Incógnita in Geneva (2002–2012), founder of AWO Holocultura in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia (2025), and steward of Pachamama, a regenerative farm in Tavira, Portugal.

Family Origins and Heritage

Yasmina Tippenhauer was born in Bogotá, Colombia, to a Swiss mother and a Haitian father. The eldest of three siblings, she grew up in an open-minded and socially conscious family, living successively in Swaziland, Mozambique, Italy, Peru, and Syria, among other countries. Her heritage brings together European, Afro-Caribbean, and German-Haitian lineages across four continents.

Education

Yasmina Tippenhauer studied Letters and Philosophy at the University of Geneva (Université de Genève), specialising in Latin American literature. Her licence included a double specialisation (Branch A: Spanish literature; Branch B: Philosophy). She received a fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation (FNS/SNF) supporting a year of doctoral research at Princeton University (1998–1999). She obtained her Doctorate in Letters (Ph.D.) from the University of Geneva in 2002, with a dissertation on Latin American literary studies and Afro-Caribbean poetry. She taught Latin American literature at the University of Geneva for several years, affiliated with the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures (Département de langues et littératures romanes).

In 2002, she completed the CREATE entrepreneurship programme at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), directed by Jane Royston.

She founded and managed ONE Coach Global for more than ten years. She is a certified professional coach, trained herbalist, and practitioner of integrative medicine, with experience in energetic healing, phytotherapy, holohomeopathy, Qi Gong, and meditation. She holds a practitioner certification from the Institute for Natural Energy Healing (INEH, UK).

Student and academic Associations

During her studies at the University of Geneva, she served as president of the Association des Étudiants Haïtiens de Suisse, as a committee member of AEPAL (Association des Étudiants pour l'Amérique Latine), and as a member of ASSAMA (Association des Assistants et Maîtres Assistants de l'Université de Genève).

Academic career

Tippenhauer taught at the University of Geneva (Faculté des Lettres) for many years, specialising in Latin American literature, postcolonial studies, and Afro-descendant cultural expression. She was affiliated with the Société Suisse des Américanistes (SSA), serving as coordinator of two SSA working groups: Indigenous Peoples (Peuples Autochtones) and Afro-descendants (Afrodescendants).

Academic colloquia co-organised

Yasmina Tippenhauer co-organised numerous international academic colloquia at the University of Geneva and beyond, in collaboration with the Société Suisse des Américanistes (SSA) and with the support of the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences (ASSH/SAGW). Selected colloquia include:

• 2001 — Culture et Société péruviennes, Institut Universitaire d'Études du Développement (IUED), Geneva.
• 2008 — Modératrice, conference-debate La haine de l'Occident with Jean Ziegler, Programme interdisciplinaire en action humanitaire (PIAH), University of Geneva, 4 December 2008.
• 2009 — Les Amériques latines: héritages et mirages des indépendances, 1810–2010, University of Geneva, co-organised with Professor Aline Helg and Tierra Incógnita, with the support of SSA.
• 2010 — La révolution cubaine et les indépendances africaines, 16 January 2010, co-directed with Professor Aline Helg, with the Société Suisse des Américanistes and the University of Geneva.
• 2011 — L'Amérique latine et la Genève internationale durant l'entre-deux-guerres, University of Geneva, co-organised with Professor Aline Helg, with support from ASSH, the Maison de l'Histoire, and the Faculty of Letters.
• 2011 — Committee member, Haïti, des lendemains qui tremblent, CERAH, University of Geneva, January 2011.
• 2012 — Afrodescendientes: autour du centenaire du massacre des Indépendants de couleur à Cuba, 1912, University of Geneva.
• 2012 — Peuples autochtones et résistance culturelle, Geneva, October 2012.
• 2012 — Symposium Historia y Cultura poscoloniales en América Latina: Los afroperuanos y la integración nacional, Instituto Raúl Porras Barrenechea, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (UNMSM), Lima.
• 2013 — Procesos de la memoria en la literatura, University of Geneva, 6 December 2013.
• 2017 — Résonnance d'Haïti: Histoire et Poésie, University of Geneva, co-organised with Professor Aline Helg, October 19, 2017, to mark the publication of Ayiti Cheri. H.E. Pierre André Dunbar, Ambassador of Haiti to the United Nations in Geneva, delivered opening remarks.

Other academic and public lectures

She delivered conferences in Switzerland, France, Haiti, Peru, Colombia, and the United States, including at Princeton University (1998), the Universidad de Cartagena de Indias (1996–2011), the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima (2011–2012), the École Normale Supérieure of Port-au-Prince (1995), the Université de Neuchâtel (1998, 2003), and various Geneva institutions.

• Poesía negra de las vanguardias. Instituto Raúl Porras Barrenechea, Lima, Peru, 4 March 2011.
• Literatura latinoamericana y cine — Cycle of encounters with Cuban filmmaker Alejandro Hernández, Département d'espagnol, University of Geneva.
• Participation, IV Encontro Internacional Poesia a Sul. Festival de poésie, Olhão, Portugal.
• Commémoration du 12 janvier 2010. Cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Genève, solidarity service for Haiti after the earthquake.

Selected academic publications

• "Prostitutas y Modernismo." International Colloquium Fous, Excentriques et Marginaux dans les Littératures Latino-Américaines, Poitiers, 1996.
• "Poesía negra del Caribe o el rescate de lo popular." Actas del Seminario Internacional de Estudios del Caribe, Universidad de Cartagena, 1998.
• "Presencia negra en la poesía vanguardista de Iberoamérica y las Antillas." Actas del Seminario Internacional de Estudios del Caribe, Universidad de Cartagena, 1999.
• "L'ethnologie contre une mémoire bafouée: l'étude des cultures noires au début du XXème siècle." Cahiers de la Faculté des Lettres, University of Geneva, 2000–2001.
• "La comparsa cubana del Día de Reyes: performance colectiva y recreación poética." In Ritualidades latinoamericanas. Un acercamiento interdisciplinario, ed. Martin Lienhard. Iberoamericana/Vervuert, Madrid/Frankfurt, 2003.
• "La réception de l'œuvre de Jacques Roumain par ses compatriotes." In Œuvres Complètes de Jacques Roumain, ed. Léon-François Hoffmann. Archivos/UNESCO, Paris, 2004.
• "Les intellectuels haïtiens et le vaudou; fascination et ambiguïté de l'indigénisme." In Vaudou, eds. Jacques Hainard and Philippe Mathez. Infolio/Musée d'Ethnographie de Genève, 2007.
• "Haïti, l'opportunité du changement." Bulletin de la Société Suisse des Américanistes, No. 71, 2009, pp. 57–63.
• Hors-série Amériques Noires: Image des populations dites minoritaires.
• "La Syrie, Carnet de voyage et réflexions." Jet d'encre, 2013.
• Article, ECOSUR e-magazine, edition 36.

Ayiti Cheri — Anthology of Haitian Poetry

In 2017, Yasmina Tippenhauer published Ayiti Cheri: Poésie haïtienne (1800–2015) / Poesía haitiana (1800–2015) (Casa de las Américas / Legs Éditions, ISBN 978-99970-86-29-7 Search this book on .), the first trilingual anthology of Haitian poetry in French, Haitian Creole, and Spanish. The volume exceeds 700 pages and brings together 70 poets and 170 poems spanning three centuries of Haitian literary history, from 1800 to 2015. Tippenhauer invited poet James Noël, literary critic Yves Chemla, and Cuban editor Roberto Zurbano to contribute introductory articles. The anthology is recognised in Haitian literary scholarship as one of the most ambitious anthological projects ever dedicated to Haitian poetry. It draws in part on the family library of Harry and Hervé Tippenhauer in Port-au-Prince. Tippenhauer served as editor, author of the introduction, co-author of the historical survey of Haitian poetry, and translator of a significant portion of the poems from French and Creole into Spanish. A symposium, Résonnance d'Haïti: Histoire et Poésie, was held at the University of Geneva on October 19, 2017, co-organised with Professor Aline Helg, and an official presentation took place at Casa de las Américas, Havana, in December 2018. The anthology was presented on RTS (Radio Télévision Suisse) in 2017.

Cultural and Civic Engagement in Geneva (1991–2016)

Yasmina Tippenhauer arrived in Geneva in 1991 and developed an extensive institutional and cultural presence over twenty-five years.

She founded and presided for ten years over the Centro Cultural Latinoamericano Tierra Incógnita (2002–2012), a cultural centre dedicated to dialogue between Switzerland and Latin America through exhibitions, film screenings, book launches, concerts, literary encounters, and partnerships with institutions across both regions. The centre collaborated with the Société Suisse des Américanistes, the City and Canton of Geneva, the Swiss Lottery (Loterie Romande), and Agenda 21.

She served as General Secretary of the Société Suisse des Américanistes (SSA) — founded in 1949, member of ASSH/SAGW and of CEISAL (European Council for Social Research on Latin America) — coordinating its newsletter, publications, and public activities.

She coordinated Filmar en América Latina, Geneva's international Latin American film festival, hosted by the Institut Universitaire des Études du Développement (IUED), from 2003 to 2006.

She is a member of the board of the Fondation Lobsiger, Geneva.

Following the earthquake of January 12, 2010, she founded and coordinated Pou Ayiti, a solidarity initiative active from 2010 to 2013, mobilising Geneva's cultural and institutional networks in humanitarian and cultural response.

She also worked as a cultural activities intern at the Centre Culturel Français de Damas, Syria (1989–1990), hosted a weekly radio programme on Latin American literature and current affairs (América Latina, Radio Zone, 2002–2004), and produced a podcast on Lima for the RSI Radio programme Le città invisibili.

As a literary translator, she worked on poetry collections, film subtitles, and book-length translations for Swiss publishers including Feuxcroisés and Hétérographe, and subtitled films by Haitian filmmaker Arnold Antonin, among others.

In 2023, she created the Healing Poetry Festival in Geneva, an interdisciplinary event gathering poets and artists across generations around the healing power of language and poetry.

AWO Holocultura and the Holoculture Framework

In 2025, Yasmina Tippenhauer founded AWO Holocultura, an academy in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, offering programmes to train entrepreneurs, communities, and project leaders in integral ecology — a transdisciplinary approach connecting environment, society, economy, spirituality, and social justice. The curriculum integrates sociocracy, holistic management, permaculture, holohomeopathy, and ancestral knowledge systems under the framework she developed, Holoculture. The academy collaborates with the University of Cartagena and with Dr. Radko Tichavsky, a Czech-Mexican scientist and international authority in agricultural holohomeopathy, whose methods have been applied in more than fifteen countries.

Pachamama

Since 2017, Yasmina Tippenhauer and her partner Daniel have cultivated Pachamama, a 5,000 m² regenerative farm in Tavira, Algarve, Portugal. The farm serves as a living prototype for regenerative land management and the HoloCondominium model — a replicable framework for regenerative collective living. It hosts retreats, artistic residencies, and workshops in plant medicine and holistic permaculture.

Holistic Counsel

Yasmina Tippenhauer offers advisory services to decision-makers and next-generation leaders at the intersection of regenerative leadership, integrative health, and ecological intelligence, including curated retreats in Portugal, Switzerland, Kerala (India), and Latin America.

External links

• Official website
• Ayiti Cheri — Legs Éditions
• Healing Poetry Festival
• Filmar en América Latina
• Société Suisse des Américanistes
• Die Insel Haiti (1893) — Open Library
• Vodou — Musée d'Ethnographie de Genève
• RTS — Interview 2017
• Poesía negra de las vanguardias — Lima 2011 (video)
• Lima podcast — RSI Radio

Category:1971 births Category:Living people Category:Swiss scholars Category:Haitian scholars Category:People from Bogotá Category:University of Geneva alumni Category:Princeton University alumni Category:Literary translators Category:Swiss philanthropists Category:Swiss women Category:Latin American studies scholars Category:Regenerative agriculture

References

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