Urban Dwellings, Haitian Citizenships explores the failed
international reconstruction of Port-au-Prince after the
devastating 2010 earthquake. It describes the failures of
international aid in Haiti ...while it analyzes examples of
Haitian-based reconstruction and economic practices. By
interrogating the relationship between indigenous uses of the
cityscape and the urbanization of the countryside within a
framework that centers on the violence of urban planning, the book
shows that the forms of economic development promoted by
international agencies institutionalize impermanence and
instability. Conversely, it shows how everyday Haitians use and
transform the city to create spaces of belonging and forms of
citizenship anchored in a long history of resistance to extractive
economies. Taking readers into the remnants of failed industrial
projects in Haitian provinces and into the streets, rubble, and
homes of Port-au-Prince, this book reflects on the possibilities
and meanings of dwelling in post-disaster urban landscapes.
In October 2010, nine months after the massive earthquake that devastated Haiti, a second disaster began to unfold-soon to become the world's largest cholera epidemic in modern times. In a country ...that had never before reported cholera, the epidemic mysteriously and simultaneously appeared in river communities of central Haiti, eventually triggering nearly 800,000 cases and 9,000 deaths. What had caused the first cases of cholera in Haiti in recorded history? Who or what was the deadly agent of origin? Why did it explode in the agricultural-rich delta of the Artibonite River? When answers were few, rumors spread, causing social and political consequences of their own. Wanting insight, the Haitian government and French embassy requested epidemiological assistance from France. A few weeks into the epidemic, physician and infectious disease specialist Renaud Piarroux arrived in Haiti.
InDeadly River, Ralph R. Frerichs tells the story of the epidemic, of a French disease detective determined to trace its origins so that he could help contain the spread and possibly eliminate the disease, and the political intrigue that has made that effort so difficult. The story involves political maneuvering by powerful organizations such as the United Nations and its peacekeeping troops in Haiti, as well as by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Frerichs explores a quest for scientific truth and dissects a scientific disagreement involving world-renowned cholera experts who find themselves embroiled in intellectual and political turmoil in a poverty-stricken country.
Frerichs's narrative highlights how the world's wealthy nations, nongovernmental agencies, and international institutions respond when their interests clash with the needs of the world's most vulnerable people. The story poses big social questions and offers insights not only on how to eliminate cholera in Haiti but also how nations, NGOs, and international organizations such as the UN and CDC deal with catastrophic infectious disease epidemics.
In October 2010, nine months after the massive earthquake that devastated Haiti, a second disaster began to unfold-soon to become the world's largest cholera epidemic in modern times. In a country that had never before reported cholera, the epidemic mysteriously and simultaneously appeared in river communities of central Haiti, eventually triggering nearly 800,000 cases and 9,000 deaths. What had caused the first cases of cholera in Haiti in recorded history? Who or what was the deadly agent of origin? Why did it explode in the agricultural-rich delta of the Artibonite River? When answers were few, rumors spread, causing social and political consequences of their own. Wanting insight, the Haitian government and French embassy requested epidemiological assistance from France. A few weeks into the epidemic, physician and infectious disease specialist Renaud Piarroux arrived in Haiti.InDeadly River, Ralph R. Frerichs tells the story of the epidemic-of a French disease detective determined to trace its origins so that he could help contain the spread and possibly eliminate the disease-and the political intrigue that has made that effort so difficult. The story involves political maneuvering by powerful organizations such as the United Nations and its peacekeeping troops in Haiti, as well as by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Frerichs explores a quest for scientific truth and dissects a scientific disagreement involving world-renowned cholera experts who find themselves embroiled in intellectual and political turmoil in a poverty-stricken country.Frerichs's narrative highlights how the world's wealthy nations, nongovernmental agencies, and international institutions respond when their interests clash with the needs of the world's most vulnerable people. The story poses big social questions and offers insights not only on how to eliminate cholera in Haiti but also how nations, NGOs, and international organizations such as the UN and CDC deal with catastrophic infectious disease epidemics.
After Haiti's 2010 earthquake, over half of U.S. households donated to thousands of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in that country. Yet we continue to hear stories of misery from Haiti. Why ...have NGOs failed at their mission?Set in Haiti during the 2004 coup and aftermath and enhanced by research conducted after the 2010 earthquake,Killing with Kindnessanalyzes the impact of official development aid on recipient NGOs and their relationships with local communities. Written like a detective story, the book offers rich enthnographic comparisons of two Haitian women's NGOs working in HIV/AIDS prevention, one with public funding (including USAID), the other with private European NGO partners. Mark Schuller looks at participation and autonomy, analyzing donor policies that inhibit these goals. He focuses on NGOs' roles as intermediaries in "gluing" the contemporary world system together and shows how power works within the aid system as these intermediaries impose interpretations of unclear mandates down the chain-a process Schuller calls "trickle-down imperialism."
Where They Need Me examines
the work of Haitian health professionals in humanitarian aid
encounters. Haiti is the target of an overwhelming number
of internationally funded health projects. While ...religious
institutions sponsor a number of these initiatives, many are
implemented within the secular framework of global health. Pierre
Minn illustrates the divergent criteria that actors involved in
global health use to evaluate interventions' efficacy.
Haitian physicians, nurses, and administrative staff are hired
to carry out these global health programs, distribute or withhold
resources, and produce accounts of interventions' outcomes. In
their roles as intermediaries, Haitian clinicians are expected not
only to embody the humanitarian projects of foreign funders and
care for their impoverished patients but also to act as sources of
support for their own kin networks, while negotiating their future
prospects in a climate of pronounced scarcity and insecurity. In
Where They Need Me , Minn argues that a serious
consideration of these local health care providers in the context
of global health is essential to counter simplistic depictions of
clinicians and patients as heroes, villains, or victims as well as
to move beyond the donor-recipient dyad that has dominated
theoretical work on humanitarianism and the gift.
Democratic Insecurities focuses on the ethics of military and humanitarian intervention in Haiti during and after Haiti's 1991 coup. In this remarkable ethnography of violence, Erica Caple James ...explores the traumas of Haitian victims whose experiences were denied by U.S. officials and recognized only selectively by other humanitarian providers. Using vivid first-person accounts from women survivors, James raises important new questions about humanitarian aid, structural violence, and political insecurity. She discusses the politics of postconflict assistance to Haiti and the challenges of promoting democracy, human rights, and justice in societies that experience chronic insecurity. Similarly, she finds that efforts to promote political development and psychosocial rehabilitation may fail because of competition, strife, and corruption among the individuals and institutions that implement such initiatives.
In 1934 the republic of Haiti celebrated its 130th anniversary as an independent nation. In that year, too, another sort of Haitian independence occurred, as the United States ended nearly two ...decades of occupation. In the first comprehensive political history of postoccupation Haiti, Matthew Smith argues that the period from 1934 until the rise of dictator Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier to the presidency in 1957 constituted modern Haiti's greatest moment of political promise.Smith emphasizes the key role that radical groups, particularly Marxists and black nationalists, played in shaping contemporary Haitian history. These movements transformed Haiti's political culture, widened political discourse, and presented several ideological alternatives for the nation's future. They were doomed, however, by a combination of intense internal rivalries, pressures from both state authorities and the traditional elite class, and the harsh climate of U.S. anticommunism. Ultimately, the political activism of the era failed to set Haiti firmly on the path to a strong independent future.
To a contemporary audience, Haiti brings to mind Voodoo spells, Tontons Macoutes, and boat people--nothing worth fighting over. Two centuries ago, however, Haiti, then known as Saint-Domingue, was ...the “Pearl of the Antilles,” France's most valuable overseas colony, the largest exporter of tropical products in the world, and the United States' second most important trading partner after England.   Haiti was also the place where in 1801-1802 Napoléon Bonaparte sent the largest colonial venture of his reign: the Leclerc expedition. His goal was to remove the famous revolutionary Toussaint Louverture from office and, possibly, restore slavery. But within two years, the remnants of Bonaparte’s once-proud army were evacuated in defeated, and Haiti declared its independence. This forgotten yet momentous conflict, in which lives were consumed by the thousands, is this book’s main focus. In this ambitious monograph, Philippe Girard employs the latest tools of the historian’s craft, multi-archival research in particular, and applies them to the climactic yet poorly understood last years of the Haitian Revolution. Haiti lost most of its archives to neglect and theft, but a substantial number of documents survive in French, U.S., British, and Spanish collections, both public and private. In all, The Slaves Who Defeated Napoleon relies on contemporary military, commercial, and administrative sources drawn from nineteen archives and research libraries on both sides of the Atlantic.   Due to its extensive archival basis, the book corrects the many factual inaccuracies that have plagued previous accounts. It also offers a more rounded view of the Haitian Revolution, going beyond mere military minutia to include the activities of U.S. merchants; the in-fighting within the French government; the diplomacy between both the French and revolutionaries with the United States, England, and Spain; and the lives of the maroons, women, and children caught up in the revolutionary struggle. This multidimensional work tells not only of barefoot black soldiers ambushing Bonaparte’s columns, but also of Rochambeau’s mixed-race mistresses, French child drummers, Jewish bankers in Kingston, weapon smugglers from Quaker Philadelphia, Polish artillerists, and African-born maroons struggling to preserve their freedom against both white and black opponents.   Equally groundbreaking is the book’s willingness to move beyond tidy ideological and racial categories to depict an Atlantic society at the crossroads of African and European influences, where Haitian rebels fought France while embracing its ideals. In the process, the reader is introduced to the extraordinary lives of multifaceted characters such as Wladyslaw Jablonowski, the son of a Polish woman and a black father who died fighting for France and white supremacy.
Haiti, one of the least developed and most vulnerable nations in the Western Hemisphere, made the international headlines in January 2010 when an earthquake destroyed the capital, Port-au-Prince. ...More than a year later, little reconstruction has taken place, in spite of a strong international funding commitment.
Mats Lundahl has written several seminal works on Haiti, and this volume brings together the best of his past work on Haiti's economic and political history, along with a comprehensive introduction and two new chapters which bring the story right up to the present day. Together, the volume provides both historical background and explanation as to why Haiti was so badly affected by the earthquake, and to why reconstruction efforts have been ineffective this far. Lundahl argues that the two main causes can found in the interaction between the growth of the population and the destruction of the arable soil on the one hand, and in the creation of a predatory state during the nineteenth century, which still exists to this day. This book provides a comprehensive analysis, which charts these themes from the time of the arrival of Columbus in the island in 1492, to the present day. The book also deals with contemporary market and policy failures, as well as the crucial recent elections, and considers the path ahead for this impoverished nation.
This book will be of huge relevance and interest not only to students and researchers in economic history, but also for all those working on development economics, development studies and American and Caribbean Studies more generally.
