Full Description
2024 Isis Duarte Book Prize, Haiti/ Dominican Republic Section, Latin American Studies Association
2024 Longlist, OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, Bocas Lit Fest
This collection ponders the personal and political implications for Haitians at home and abroad resulting from the devastating 2010 earthquake.
The 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti in January 2010 was a debilitating event that followed decades of political, social, and financial issues. Leaving over 250,000 people dead, 300,000 injured, and 1.5 million people homeless, the earthquake has had lasting repercussions on a struggling nation. As the post-earthquake political situation unfolded, Myriam Chancy worked to illuminate on-the-ground concerns, from the vulnerable position of Haitian women to the failures of international aid. Originally presented at invited campus talks, published as columns for a newspaper in Trinidad and Tobago, and circulated in other ways, her essays and creative responses preserve the reactions and urgencies of the years following the disaster.
In Harvesting Haiti, Chancy examines the structures that have resulted in Haiti's post-earthquake conditions and reflects at key points after the earthquake on its effects on vulnerable communities. Her essays make clear the importance of sustaining and supporting the dignity of Haitian lives and of creating a better, contextualized understanding of the issues that mark Haitians' historical and present realities, from gender parity to the vexed relationship between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Contents
Introduction
Part I: Sovereignty and Survival
The Aftermath: Responding to the Crisis (2011-2022)
A Marshall Plan for a Haiti at Peace: To Continue or End the Legacy of the Revolution (October 2010)
Submission or Omission: Haiti's Challenge in Latin America (April 2011)
A Haiti for Haitians: Ending the Legacy of (Band) Aid (November 2010-January 2011)
Haiti: Five Years After (January 2, 2015)
Part II: Gender and Equity
Hearing Our Mothers: Safeguarding Haitian Women's Representation and Practices of Survival (March 2010)
Cultural Impasse and Structural Change: How to Address Questions of Gender Equity for Haitian Women across Societal Strata (2013)
Love, Debt, and Forgiveness: Women Speaking from the Rubble in Post-earthquake Haiti (2011-2019)
Women in Haiti: Strength in Spirit and Culture (February 19, 2010)
Part III: Under/Water
Under/Water (Poem)-May 31, 2010
Ayiti Alive! Photo-Essay (2011-2014)
Part IV: Understanding Haiti, in Context-Trinidad & Tobago Review columns (June-December 2012)
Nou BoukÉ!!! (June 2012)
Independence Notes or, "What's So Great about Being Haitian, Anyway?" (July 2012)
What Dreams Are Made Of: Haiti KanpÉ (September 2012)
The Horrors of Slavery: Haiti, Vodou, and the Myth of the Cursed Nation (October 2012)
Walking Sadness: Haitian Returns-Nomad (November 2012)
Tout Moun Se Moun: Haitian Women's Feminism, Then and Now (December 2012)
Part V: Frenemies: The Dominican Relationship
Are You Haitian? (October 2013)
LavÉ TÈt: Striving for (Black) Wellness in Academe and Beyond (Travels in the DR, October 2013)
New Year's Resolution 2014: "Love Thy Neighbor"
Conclusion: Living with Ruins
Acknowledgments
Appendix: Recommended Charitable Organizations Working in Haiti
Notes
Index
