The violence of misery: 'Insecurity' in Haiti in the 'democratic' era

This dissertation analyzes how poor Haitians who were targeted by egregious acts of organized violence during the coup years of 1991–1994 in Haiti have been able to cope with ongoing ensekirite (insecurity) in the neo-modern era of “democracy.” Through twenty-six months of fieldwork in three different sites, I explore the international, national and community-level responses to the plight of “traumatized” Haitian victims of human rights violations, asking how those victims are configured as the objects of the bureaucratic discourses of feminism, bio-medicine, law/human rights, and democratic development in the so-called “postconflict” period. The assistance extended to “victims” (or viktim , as they call themselves) is explicitly bio-political, and I contextualize it within a history of multiple interventions by governmental and nongovernmental agencies that have attempted (and continue to attempt) to consolidate democracy and the rule of law in Haiti.; Haitians are not passive consumers of these institutional languages. The study also evaluates the tactics by which Haitian viktim adopt, reject or manipulate these discourses and bureaucratic practices—at times quite violently—in their efforts to gain political recognition and to rebuild their lives. A central focus of my research is on the strategies for individual and family care and survival that emerge in spite of the ontological insecurity that permeates day-to-day life in Haiti. The thesis argues that many of these strategies reproduce the historical “predatory” practices that pro-democracy activists have fought to eradicate in their quest for democracy.