Haiti

Citation:

Gorman-Murray, Andrew, Scott McKinnon, and Dale Dominey-Howes. 2014. “Queer Domicide: LGBT Displacement and Home Loss in Natural Disaster Impact, Response, and Recovery.” Home Cultures 11 (2): 237–61. doi:10.2752/175174214X13891916944751.

Authors: Andrew Gorman-Murray, Scott McKinnon, Dale Dominey-Howes

Abstract:

This article examines lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans (LGBT) experiences of displacement, home loss, and rebuilding in the face of natural disasters. LGBT vulnerability and resilience are little studied in disaster research; this article begins to fill this gap, focusing on LGBT domicide—how LGBT homes are “unmade” in disasters. To do this, we critically read a range of non-government, scholarly, and media commentaries on LGBT experiences of natural disasters in various settings over 2004–12, including South Asia, the USA, Haiti, and Japan. Additionally, we utilize preliminary data from pilot work on LGBT experiences of 2011 disasters in Brisbane, Australia, and Christchurch, New Zealand. we find that disaster impacts are the first stage of ongoing problems for sexual and gender minorities. Disaster impacts destroy LGBT residences and neighborhoods, but response and recovery strategies favor assistance for heterosexual nuclear families and elide the concerns and needs of LGBT survivors. Disaster impact, response, and recovery “unmakes” LGBT home and belonging, or inhibits homemaking, at multiple scales, from the residence to the neighborhood. we focus on three scales or sites: first, destruction of individual residences, and problems with displacement and rebuilding; second, concerns about privacy and discrimination for individuals and families in temporary shelters; and third, loss and rebuilding of LGBT neighborhoods and community infrastructure (e.g. leisure venues and organizational facilities).

Keywords: LGBT, disasters, domicide, home, 'courtroom justice', home loss, shelter, rebuilding

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Environment, Environmental Disasters, LGBTQ Regions: Americas, Caribbean countries, North America, Asia, East Asia, South Asia, Oceania Countries: Haiti, Japan, New Zealand, United States of America

Year: 2014

Citation:

Schuller, Mark, trans. 2011. “‘They Forgot about Us!’ Gender and Haiti’s IDP Camps, Interview and Translation.” Meridians 11 (1): 149–57. doi:10.2979/meridians.11.1.149.

Author: Mark Schuller

Abstract:

The article presents personal reactions of women to the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The article discusses the psychic trauma of living in the Haiti's displacement camps after the earthquake. Topics include the camps' poor access to water, statistics relating to violence against women in the camps, and instances of forced eviction.

Topics: Displacement & Migration, IDPs, Environment, Environmental Disasters, Gender Regions: Americas, Caribbean countries Countries: Haiti

Year: 2011

Citation:

Ulysse, Gina Athena, ed. 2011. “Section Editor Introduction:” Meridians 11 (1): 91–97. doi:10.2979/meridians.11.1.91.

Author: Gina Athena Ulysse

Abstract:

This small collection of Haitian women’s reflections on the earthquake offers readers a kaleidoscopic view of how several women at home and in the diaspora lived through this moment, their responses and the continuous impact on our lives. The works are composed in various genres that they thought best captured their voices, their feelings. Thus, the words recounted here are in the form of personal essays, poems, photographs, and even a piece of fiction. Given Haiti’s place in the global racial imaginary, and since we are all only too aware of its historical condition, even in prose and poetry, our words from January 12th are laced with strands of critical observation. This collection seeks both to honor the feminist tradition of using different genres to tell stories and also to assure that the blurring of these genres does, in fact, offer a more nuanced landscape, a textured representation of this catastrophic moment. While the collection is by no means representative of the population, nor does it seek to be, it does demonstrate that, indeed, those left behind clearly have stories to tell that must not only be gathered and archived, as they are now part of another chapter of Haiti’s history, but also shared, especially as they are also evidence of how Haitians came to each other’s aid. Such stories were not the focus of popular media coverage. Within this collection there are stories of courage, stories of solidarity, stories of trauma, stories of hope, stories of despair, stories of contempt, and perhaps most important, stories of will. These are stories to pass on.

Topics: Environment, Environmental Disasters, Gender, Women Regions: Americas, Caribbean countries Countries: Haiti

Year: 2011

Citation:

Duramy, B.F. 2012. “Gender-Based Violence, Help-Seeking, and Criminal Justice Recourse in Haiti.” In Conflict-Related Sexual Violence: International Law, Local Response. Sterling: Kumarian Press. https://www.rienner.com/title/Conflict_Related_Sexual_Violence_International_Law_Local_Responses.

Author: B.F. Duramy

Topics: Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Justice, Sexual Violence, SV against Women Regions: Americas, Caribbean countries Countries: Haiti

Year: 2012

Citation:

Duramy, Benedetta Faedi. “Women in the Aftermath of the Earthquake.” In Gender and Violence in Haiti: Women’s Path from Victims to Agents, 137–52. New Brunswick, NJ; London: Rutgers University Press, 2014. 

Author: Benedetta Faedi Duramy

Annotation:

On January 12 , 2010 , a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, devastating the capital of the country, Port-au Prince, and several other cities. Hundreds of thousands of Haitians died, approximately the same number were injured, and more than a million lost their homes and have been living in the 1,300 displacement camps around the country ever since. Extreme poverty and desperation were coupled with sexual violence affecting the women and girls who survived the natural disaster. The earthquake and its dramatic consequences exacerbated the already arduous conditions for Haitian women and girls as well as violently undermining the precarious capacity...

Topics: Environment, Environmental Disasters, Gender, Women, Girls, Sexual Violence Regions: Americas, Caribbean countries Countries: Haiti

Year: 2014

Citation:

St. Germain, Tonia, and Susan Dewey, eds. 2012. Conflict-Related Sexual Violence: International Law, Local Responses. Sterling, Va: Kumarian Press.

Authors: Tonia St. Germain, Susan Dewey

Abstract:

The result of a collaboration between a feminist legal scholar and an anthropologist, Conflict-Related Sexual Violence presents completely original work by anthropologists, international human rights lawyers, legal theorists, political scientists, mental health professionals, and activists who report upon their respective research regarding responses to conflict-related sexual violence in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia, Haiti, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and South Africa. Much more than a series of case studies, though, the bulk of the book addresses the implications of international responses to conflict-related sexual violence through analyses of the gaps between policy and practice with respect to efforts made by international organizations, criminal courts and tribunals to reduce or respond to conflict-related sexual violence. Scholarly, reflective, provocative yet practical and action-oriented, this book exemplifies a visionary blending of analysis, evidence, concepts and programs for ameliorating the lot of those whose lives are framed by war and conflict and the striving to find healing and justice.

(Kumarian Press)

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Women, International Law, Justice, NGOs, Sexual Violence, SV against Women Regions: Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, West Africa, Americas, Caribbean countries, South America, Asia, South Asia, Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Afghanistan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Colombia, Haiti, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa

Year: 2012

Citation:

Martin, Sarah. 2005. Must Boys Be Boys? Ending Sexual Exploitation & Abuse in UN Peacekeeping Missions. Washington DC: Refugees International.

Author: Sarah Martin

Topics: Gender, Men, Boys, Masculinity/ies, Peacekeeping, Sexual Violence, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Regions: Africa, West Africa, Americas, Caribbean countries Countries: Haiti, Liberia

Year: 2005

Citation:

Jennings, Kathleen M., and Vesna Nikolić-Ristanović. 2009. “UN Peacekeeping Economies and Local Sex Industries: Connections and Implications.” MICROCON Working Paper 17, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton.

Authors: Kathleen M. Jennings, Vesna Nikolić-Ristanović

Abstract:

“Peacekeeping economies” have not been subject to much analysis of either their economic or socio-cultural and political impacts. This paper uses a gendered lens to explore some ramifications and lasting implications of peacekeeping economies, drawing on examples from four post-conflict countries with past or ongoing United Nations peacekeeping missions: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Liberia, and Haiti. The paper is particularly concerned with the interplay between the peacekeeping economy and the sex industry. It examines some of the characteristics and impacts of peacekeeping economies, arguing that these are highly gendered – but that the “normalization” of peacekeeping economies allows these effects to be overlooked or obscured. It also contends that these gendered characteristics and impacts have (or are likely have) broad and lasting consequences. Finally, the paper considers the initial impacts of UN efforts to tackle negative impacts of peacekeeping economies, particularly the zero-tolerance policy against sexual exploitation and the effort to “mainstream” gender and promote gender equality in and through peacekeeping. The paper suggests that the existence and potential long- term perpetuation of a highly gendered peacekeeping economy threatens to undermine the gender goals and objectives that are a component of most peace operations. 

Topics: Economies, Gender, Gender Mainstreaming, International Organizations, Peacekeeping, Post-Conflict, Sexual Violence, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, Trafficking, Sex Trafficking Regions: Africa, West Africa, Americas, Caribbean countries, Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Haiti, Kosovo, Liberia

Year: 2009

Citation:

Horton, L. 2012. “After the Earthquake: Gender Inequality and Transformation in Post-Disaster Haiti.” Gender and Development 20 (2), 295-308.

Author: L. Horton

Abstract:

This paper explores gender inequalities and transformations following Haiti's devastating 2010 earthquake. Post-disaster experiences of women are located in a wider context of a longer term gender crisis. The paper argues that patterns of gender exclusion occur on multiple levels from the transnational to the local, and identifies gender-specific obstacles in the recovery and reconstruction period. In Haiti, these include meeting family survival needs, violence and exploitation, and class and racially based stigmatisation. The paper concludes with an exploration of the post-disaster organisational and caretaking work of Haitian women. It contends that recognition and support of women's capacities is critical in shifting from short-term relief to longer-term gender transformation.

Keywords: Haiti, reconstruction

Topics: Class, Environment, Environmental Disasters, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Violence Regions: Americas, Caribbean countries Countries: Haiti

Year: 2012

Citation:

Gammage, Sarah. 2004. “Exercising Exit, Voice and Loyalty: A Gender Perspective on Transnationalism in Haiti.” Development and Change 35 (4): 743–71.

Author: Sarah Gammage

Abstract:

This article explores gendered patterns of migration and transnationalism in Haiti. A combination of factors has prompted extensive rural-urban migration and emigration over the last three decades: violence, repression, economic collapse and the implementation of neoliberal reforms have left many Haitians with few options other than to seek a new life elsewhere. Although many Haitians abroad naturalize and take citizenship in host countries, emigration does not mean that ties to their homeland are severed. Indeed, a substantial number of Haitians remain intimately connected to Haiti, visiting, sending remittances and gifts, investing in land and exercising political voice in Haiti and in their country of residence. This article focuses on the gender dimension of Haitian migration and transnationalism drawing on Hirschman's typology of exit, voice and loyalty. These options are uniquely gendered. Although most analyses of transnational citizenship focus on men, women and women's movements in Haiti have also benefited from transnational organizing and the transnational links forged over the past three decades. Through migration, women have participated in changing the financial architecture and political landscape of Haiti. Expressions of voice and loyalty by women are challenging traditional gender roles in Haiti and contributing to an emerging transnationalism that has profound effects on Haitians and their communities at home and abroad.

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Economies, Gender, Gender Roles, Violence Regions: Americas, Caribbean countries Countries: Haiti

Year: 2004