PEASANTS AND DEVELOPMENT POLITICS: A STUDY IN HAITIAN CLASS AND CULTURE

This work is a study of culture change in a mountain peasant community of northern Haiti. Ethnographic material is woven around the theme of a dialectic of class and culture which underlies Haitian social and political life. Recent literature includes good field research on specific issues, but holistic accounts of peasant life have been notably lacking for at least a generation. As a work of synthesis, the present study is a new ethnography of Haitian society and culture. Furthermore, despite a proliferation of writing on Haiti, there are significant gaps in the literature. In response, my research is oriented to clarifying a number of interrelated questions: What is the nature of culture in peasant Haiti? What is the social context of cultural matters such as religion? What are the characteristics of Haitian class? Is the peasantry a homogeneous class? How do peasant folk perceive the political process? What is the nature of peasant community? How does community development fit into the Haitian scheme of things? What is the present role of planned social change in the Haitian countryside?;What emerges from the study is acute awareness of an ethos of ambiguity in Haitian social life. Customary ties play a distinctly subversive role in relation to the law and the state. Peasant society is clearly not a homogeneous social entity. It is composed of factions, various types of peasant classes and concealed proletarians. As a result, the very notion of community becomes an ideological matter closely linked to the failure of community development efforts. Current development policies tend to buttress the authoritarian traditions of a predatory state and assure the continuation of profound contradictions in Haitian society and culture.;This ethnography focuses on the daily lives of peasant smallholders. It explores the production modes, social structure, expressive culture and ideological character of a peasant community. Critical attention is paid to the range and variation in peasant class, the character of political institutions and local ties to the broader social order. The inner workings of a peasant community council are examined as a case study reflecting general patterns of Haitian political culture.