Street Sovereigns , livre ebook

305

pages

English

Ebooks

2020

Écrit par
L. Kivland Chelsey

Publié par
Cornell University Press

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305

pages

English

Ebooks

2020

Lire un extrait

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus

Publié par

Cornell University Press

Date de parution

15 février 2020

Nombre de lectures

EAN13

9781501747007

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

3 Mo

How do people improvise political communities in the face of state collapse-and at what cost? Street Sovereigns explores the risks and rewards taken by young men on the margins of urban Haiti who broker relations with politicians, state agents, and NGO workers in order to secure representation, resources, and jobs for themselves and neighbors. Moving beyond mainstream analyses that understand these groups-known as baz (base)-as apolitical, criminal gangs, Chelsey Kivland argues that they more accurately express a novel mode of street politics that has resulted from the nexus of liberalizing orders of governance and development with longstanding practices of militant organizing in Haiti.Kivland demonstrates how the baz exemplifies an innovative and effective platform for intervening in the contemporary political order, while at the same time reproducing gendered and generational hierarchies and precipitating contests of leadership that exacerbate neighborhood insecurity. Still, through the continual effort to reconstitute a state that responds to the needs of the urban poor, this story offers a poignant lesson for political thought: one that counters prevailing conceptualizations of the state as that which should be flouted, escaped, or dismantled. The baz project reminds us that in the stead of a vitiated government and public sector the state resurfaces as the aspirational bedrock of the good society. "We make the state," as baz leaders say.

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Publié par

Cornell University Press

Date de parution

15 février 2020

EAN13

9781501747007

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

3 Mo

STREETSOVEREIGNS

STREETSOVEREIGNS YoungMenandtheMakeshiftState in Urban Haiti

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS

ChelseyL.Kivland

ITHACA AND LONDON

Allrightsreserved.Exceptforbriefquotationsinareview,thisbook,orpartsthereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu.

First published 2020 by Cornell University Press

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Names: Kivland, Chelsey L., 1979– author. Title:Streetsovereigns:youngmenandthemakeshiftstateinurbanHaiti/Chelsey L. Kivland. Description:Ithaca:CornellUniversityPress,2020.|Includesalraogicphbilbi references and index. Identifiers:LCCN2019011209(print)|LCCN2019012305(ebook)|ISBN)|(pdf007174747075110987SINB|i)ob/mubep(14790518ISBN 9781501746987| ISBN 9781501746987 (cloth) | ISBN 9781501746994 (pbk) Subjects: LCSH: Young men—Haiti—PortauPrince. | Streetlife—Haiti— PortauPrince. | PortauPrince (Haiti)—Politics andgovernment. | Ethnology—Haiti—PortauPrince. Classification:LCCHV1441.H2(ebook)|LCCHV1441.H2K582020(print)|DDC3305.227901/242cd—2549 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019011209

Cover photo courtesy of Paolo Woods/INSTITUTE

For my baz, near and far

TheSpiralThemorningafterDoutellsmethemeaningofhisnamePoisebeliesfuryWegotolookatthespiralsonthewallPaintedjusttheotherdaybythepoetTheonewholeftBelAirlongagoHisfacestoic,apartfromtheothersTheyarestuckinthewhirlwindofthegetoHeadsspinning,seeingred,yellow,andorangeTheangrydizzinessofhunger,chaos,andinsecurity,IthinkButofcourse,IgotitwrongFurybeliespoiseIt is the onlooker who is spooked PulledintotheundertowofthepeopleDoutellsme:Thisisazonethathasalotofproblemsbutatthesametimealotofforce“ViveHaïti,ViveLeBelAir!”

Contents

PrefaceAcknowledgmentsCastofCharactersAcronymsandOrganizationsNoteonOrthography

Introduction:TheBaz1. Defense2. History3. Respect4. Identity5. Development6. GenderConclusion:TheSpiral

NotesBibliographyIndex

ix xvii xxi xxv xxvii

116

147

180

211

221 249 269

Preface

ThisstorytakesplaceintheheartofPortauPrince,Haiti.Theneighborhoodiscalled Bel Air, named for the pleasant sea breeze that cascades over the hilltops from the Gulf of Gonâve. In many ways, Bel Air’s history traces the story of Haiti itself (Laguerre 1976a). In the early seventeenth century, Monsieur Randot, a wealthy French colonist, claimed it as Habitation Randot, a sprawling sugar plan tation on which, at any given time, over one hundred Africans toiled as slaves. In 1749, the colonial government purchased the land for the soontobe capital PortauPrince. The district then split along a social divide that would come to define colonial Saint Domingue. White colonists lived in thebawol(ioner)sect near the city market and port, and a population of free and enslaved blacks set tledanwoihhgu(pong)alhillthecsdnalyehT.epaBerppuanriaielsublitamek shift shacks that overlooked the paved streets and privileged households below. Thoseanbaeircpeesohtdevanworeattoasathinlaodrhteocolginemth,erstcasaviolent criminals. Upper Belairians both embraced and subverted this projection by cultivating a reputation asmilitanriehtforsdeenefduseohtlitants),asrig(im territory and community.When the colonists erected checkpoints and curfews to police what was perceived as a criminal district, upper Belairians rebelled by providing a haven formawonsevalsdepacseyattreschordan,ingraidsofnewlor, colonists’ homes and marketplaces. In November 1791, just months after Dutty Boukman launched the revolution in the northern region, Belairians attacked colonial administrators downtown, cementing theanwoisdyakeasorel’tsrtci front of the military that would declare Haiti independent in 1804. Despitethepromisesofthenewrepublic,thegeographicdivideofraceandclass—and the tensions it produced—persisted. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, lower Bel Air became populated by store owners, civil servants, and professionals who were classified asmilat(eppoelwtihfAcariannEudperona ancestry) and had typically been free prior to independence. In contrast to the privileged below, upper Bel Air continued to be home to the impoverished and downtrodden and a fount of protests and rebellions. Recently, Bel Air’s demographics have become more uniform. As the series of neoliberal “structural adjustments” took hold in the 1980s, rural peasants flooded the city and settled in thekatye popilè(popular quarters) like Bel Air. As the district became crowded, the wealthier and lighterskinned urbanites fled for the suburbs, turning all of Bel Air over to the impoverished—though destitution

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