Dr. Mimi Sheller
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:00:16]:
So welcome, doctor Mimi Scheller.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:00:19]:
Thank you. Nice to be with you.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:00:23]:
Your book is titled Island Futures, Caribbean Survival, And the anthropocene. Did I
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:00:31]:
Yes.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:00:31]:
Pronounce that correctly?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:00:33]:
Yes.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:00:33]:
Okay. Your mom, Stell Scheller, what a world class badass.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:00:39]:
Oh, yeah.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:00:40]:
Yeah. You wrote this, to her at some point in your life, quote, Our interests and beliefs have converged at so many points that even while we may be separated by space, We always walk together with me with with me and my heart. Your life will always be a guiding light For me, the finest example I can emulate is I make decisions in my own life. Tell us about who she was and a little bit more about what she meant to you.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:01:10]:
Sure. Yeah. So, you know, I I wrote that letter to her when I was it was on her 50th birthday, I think, and I was about 23 years old. And then I found it much later and reread it, and It just amazed me and made me, like, reflect on on her influence, which was so it’s, like, so inside me that Mhmm. I sometimes need to, like, remember and step back because, we’re we were so close in our in our interests. So Stel, my mom, was, you know, born into kind of, you would say, a a lower middle class Jewish family in Philadelphia, in a tight knit neighborhood. You know, they lived in row houses, and There, you know, either the parents or grandparents of my mom had, come from Eastern Europe Back in, you know, the 18 nineties, early 1900. So it’s the typical, you know, American immigrant story.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:02:15]:
And her family, they all you know, they they I guess they had the opportunity to get a public Haitian, and she went to through the public schools in Philadelphia
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:02:28]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:02:29]:
And then went to Temple University. And she, and and also her brother, you know, they committed themselves to what I would call, like, working serving others and working for others. Mhmm. And so her her her brother, my uncle, became a doctor, a pediatrician, working at children’s hospital in Philadelphia. Mhmm. And my mom, Stell, became, first, a a social worker and then Trained, later a little bit later in life, she went back to graduate school and got training in special education and became A special ed teacher in the Philadelphia public school system
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:03:10]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:03:11]:
Working with autistic children. But both of them, her and her brother, like, alongside their commitments to children and working with children, My mom had this incredible political commitment to trying to, like, make the world a better place. Mhmm. And she was a real, political activist and social, movement sort of, engager throughout her life. She She went to protests and marches. She worked with local neighborhood haitian, And she the issues she was involved in were both local and global. So it could be education in Philadelphia or labor rights Or anti gun violence was a a big issue, trying to get gun counter. And also then things like Central America and the Caribbean and criticizing the role of the US policies in the region and Kind of fighting for democracy and social justice and people’s movements locally and globally.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:04:14]:
So that’s what she did right right to the end of her life. You know, she was still out at the women’s march and, you know, right right until the end. I mean, she always wrote to her politicians, whether, you know, local city or the her senators. And, Haitian was one of the causes that she was supporting, you know, in the in the 19 nineties, in particular, after The first, coup against Aristide
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:04:43]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:04:43]:
There was a lot of local activists who had sort of come to, Her or to speak at, she was secretary for the Women’s International League For Peace and Freedom.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:04:53]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:04:53]:
And so those organizers from Haiti would share their stories, and then The role in a way of the movements here in the US was to amplify the voices of the Haitian movements
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:05:05]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:05:06]:
And To really give people a different perspective on things because we get such a, you know, a media American media lens on so much international news. And you have to kind of unless you’re in the diaspora and you know people, you have to kind of work hard to to get other Points of view. Mhmm. And so that was part of their kind of, people to people exchanges was to sort of learn from People there, what was happening, and Mhmm. What their demands were, and then try to amplify that voice. And I think we need to keep doing that today.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:05:40]:
Yes. Yes. How who’s your audience for this book?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:05:46]:
So it I have to admit it’s a quite academic book. Yes. You take the truth reading it. You know, I’m a I’m a academic. I write, you know, I write books for, partly for, you know, undergraduate and graduate students and fellow researchers and professors. Now some of it reaches further and, you know, it gets packaged in different forms, right, depending on the audience. So, like, I’ve presented the book, you know, at at bookshops and at different little talks and visiting colleges. And, You know, there there’s a lot of stories here, and often those stories connect to communities and and, you know, to people from from Haiti or from the Caribbean region.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:06:29]:
And and so I, you know, I hope it can it can go a little beyond the academic audience.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:06:34]:
Okay. Well, that’s what Make My Own Podcast is here for, to kinda break it all down. Right?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:06:38]:
Exactly. Right. And I am a huge fan, I have to say, of the podcast. Oh my gosh. I’ve been learning so much listening to the interviews with So many amazing thinkers, authors, writers. It’s great to hear people talk about their work.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:06:53]:
Yeah. And thank you for adding, your voice and your to to this haitian we’re all trying to have here too, so I appreciate that. So let’s get a few definitions out of the way for for the audience who are non Academics. Okay. What’s an anthropocene?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:07:11]:
Okay. So that big word, anthropocene, is used To talk about the era in which humans have had such an effect on the Earth’s systems that it’s left a geological mark. So we we were living in the Holocene. Right? You know, when you break up The the eras of of the planet, and there’s was this argument that came that humans have actually changed The the geological era in which we live because it’s so marked by human activity.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:07:46]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:07:46]:
Now there’s a debate in the literature about When did this begin, and how do we date it? And is it really, something that is caused by Anthros meaning, like, man, right, the human species, or is it actually more specific to some groups of of people. That is could we call it the, capitalocene because it’s caused by capitalists? Or Could we call it the Haitian scene? Because it actually is not just, era that began in the 20th century, but goes back to the Plantation economy, the slave trade, the huge movements of people and plants and animals and commodities that kind of Kicked off the era of modern industrial capitalism, which has left this geological mark as we know now Through, you know, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but also through mining, through, uranium radiation that’s been left around the world and, plastics. Some people call it the plasticine. So there there’s all these different, like, play on words and names that have been thrown around. I decided in the book not to go into, like, the debate on, well, what should we call it? I I I begin it with, you know, the Caribbean as the launching point of this kind of modern world that we live in And then we’re all trying to survive. And I just used the word anthropocene because it’s become the most well known of all the words. Yeah.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:09:21]:
Is it a cross disciplinary word, or is it you’re a sociologist by training. Right?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:09:27]:
Yeah. This word came from scientists. It came from, you know, the the, geological sort of
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:09:34]:
I gotcha.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:09:34]:
Understanding of the world, but it’s been adopted by Sociologists, which I am. Yes. And geographers and human humanists of of different stripes.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:09:44]:
Okay. Cool. That’s good. See, now it’s no longer, you know, an academic term. A few more. What are mobilities?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:09:55]:
Mobilities is a it’s a field that I actually helped create called the new mobility’s paradigm. And this was something that came out of, around the The turn of the millennium. Right? Say, like, the the early 2000, there was a lot of discussion of the idea of globalization and This idea that we’d live in a more global global world, and it’s a world of flows, and everything is moving. And I had been studying the Caribbean for a long time by that point, and I was like, well, it’s not that new. There The if we go back to the formation of the the Caribbean and and everything we find there, mobilities, that is movement of people and commodities And, ideas and cultures and languages, you can’t really say it’s new. And so, partly, it arose out of a Critique of this kind of conversation that we now live in a borderless world of mobilities to say it has these deep historical roots, And they’re rooted in a lot of inequality and power. And, you know, think of The slave trade, for example. When you think about mobilities, you have to think about, who is moving And who has self determination of their own movement, and also how are human movements entangled with other kinds of movements.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:11:25]:
So mobilities is a a way, a field that studies all of these different mobilities and immobilities and power relations of movement and how they’re entangled with each other.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:11:39]:
Yeah. And who the gatekeepers are and so on and so
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:11:42]:
forth. Yes.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:11:43]:
Yeah. That was quite an eye opener for me. I was like, wow. This makes a lot of sense. So I’m in tech. So is moving through cyberspace A form of mobility. We can talk later on about digital power and all the other powers down down
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:11:58]:
Yeah.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:11:59]:
Line. Because the reason I asked that is, I find it quite revealing during, you know, the pandemic, the early stage of the pandemic. And when a lot of schools around the counter, You know, switch to online, and then everybody suddenly realized, oh, shoot. You know, certain sections of the urban core don’t have access to the Internet and no rural communities. And then there was a scrambling To to try to get, you know, connectivity and access, for people in In these underserved communities. So is is cyberspace a form of of of you know, Also has sort of the power structure in there too? The
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:12:47]:
Yes. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And so I was initially describing these kinds of physical mobilities of of, you know, moving through space. But In the field of mobilities research, we also talk about virtual mobilities and communicative mobilities. And That’s exactly what you’re talking about is that we can sort of have virtual movement, partly through cyberspace, But we can also just have things like, you know, phone calls and remittances that people send via their phones. That that’s That’s another kind of mobility too.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:13:27]:
So it Mhmm. It doesn’t necessarily need an Internet connection. It it can be a mobile phone. And then the other really fascinating part is as as you’re describing, we switch between the physical and the virtual and the communicative mobilities. We mix them together in different ways, and so we talk about hybrid mobilities. And so when school goes online, you know, there’s still a lot of physical mobility that might be involved In in how does a family arrange, for example, its work schedule and its home space and who’s in which room and, how to who gets
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:14:07]:
to go on the computer and all that stuff.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:14:07]:
And then if you don’t have access to those digital communication tools, maybe you have to go to the library or, You know, you have to find some other way to to be included. And if you don’t have access, then, yeah, you’re excluded. And so there’s also Structural inequalities in who has access and who doesn’t.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:14:26]:
And even if the library resources are available, do you have the transportation to get there?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:14:30]:
Yeah.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:14:31]:
Yeah. Exactly. Yep. So, one last revolution before we move through. What’s the difference between islanding and offshoring.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:14:43]:
Oh, okay. This is a big one. Alright.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:14:47]:
Maybe you can start with the this definition of each 1st, and then you can tell the difference after. Okay.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:14:53]:
So islanding is a way to talk about islands without Assuming that it’s just, you know, a geographical piece of land surrounded by Haitian. Islanding is a way to think about the active process by which Some people or, I you know, cultures or places are islanded. And island I by adding the the The action to it, it reminds us that it’s a kind of, it’s a matter of thinking and relationships and movements. So for example to give an example of of islanding in action, when hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico. And there was a really weak response from the federal government. And president Trump at the time You know, you everyone remembers how he showed up one day finally and was, like, throwing paper towels at the crowd. But one of the things he said in that moment, He’s like, well, Puerto Rico’s an island, and it’s really hard to to get, you know, the response teams there. And, of course, Everyone knows that that’s kind of an absurd thing to say because there’s constant air traffic back and forth to Puerto Rico.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:16:18]:
And so by representing it as an island, he was islanding it. He was saying, oh, it’s so far away or it’s so hard to get to. So it’s that it’s that combination of, like, okay. Yeah. There’s the ocean around it, but it’s how do we think about that. Do we think of the ocean as a connection, as a A a bridge as a way to move back and forth. And do we think of airspace, which is our main way of, you know, honestly, of traveling these days? Do we think of who has access to that airspace and that kind of, mobility to to connect places? So reminding ourselves that islands are not just, self evident things, but they’re part of these processes.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:16:58]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:16:59]:
Offshoring is a really different concept, that relates to the economy And what we you know, everyone has knows about how, businesses kind of sometimes have moved to what we call offshore locations. And what we mean by that is, like, outside of the United States, they move to foreign locations, but also that there’s a way to create these, special economic zones or sort of tax havens. So for example, Delaware was became a famous kind of place for banking that was, in a sort of special economic area where it was untaxed in certain ways. And so offshoring is also an invention. It’s it it can be literally on an island, But it can also just be a place that’s sort of carved out from normal, regulations and laws and taxation policies. So but a lot of what people refer to offshoring is, for example, like, when the which used to be so strong in certain parts of the US, Moved overseas. Right? Mhmm. So New Jersey, for example, and New York used to be big textile producing regions with factories and, you know, people making clothes and sewing.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:18:20]:
In fact, my great grandmother, you know, when she immigrated here from, Russia, She worked in textile, you know, what you know, sweat sweatshops, right, in in New York City.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:18:33]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:18:33]:
And those, What we call sweatshops move to places like Haiti or to Mexico, to the Macquillodores, right, on the US Mexico border. That’s a kind of offshoring also.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:18:45]:
You’re right. How can we reach out to another culture or place, learn from it, and recognize our historical ties without consuming or appropriating it. And the and the very existence of this book, its production, Is its production an act of consuming or appropriating Caribbean or Haitian cultures? And if so, am I complicit by inviting you on the show?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:19:15]:
Yeah. Good question. So I I hope that we in in bringing this Question to our attention that we can engage in conversations where we are not complicit in consuming or appropriating. That is when I when I let let me let’s go to the beginning. When I started studying the Caribbean region, There’s that question. Well, you’re not from here. I was from Philadelphia. Right? I’m not and I and I was going to study initially, for my PhD research, I was Studying Jamaica and Haiti in the 19th century, I was inspired because, like some of your other, authors who you’ve interviewed had spoken about the Haitian revolution had been so silenced.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:20:07]:
And I was studying, you know, the American revolution and the French revolution, And I was growing up in in Philadelphia, which claimed itself as, you know, the the seat of the, you know, Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell and All of that, you know, create, you know, the rev American Revolution and the beginnings of democracy. And I was like, when I learned about the Haitian Revolution, which was not until, You know, really till college and sort of grad school reading more about it, I was like, why why didn’t we learn about this? So In that sense, I think it’s important for us to take a journey that leads us to read about and learn from and listen to the thinkers and authors and writers and artists from another place. Then to not appropriate them appropriate them or their work or their culture Means you learn from it, but you also continue to, like, uplift it, cite it, recognize The significance of the work that people have done there, for example, in Haiti or in Jamaica or in Caribbean studies more broadly. And so, you know, I’m thinking about that. At the same time, very conscious of The mechanisms of privilege and structured inequality that allow some people to get PhDs and do research and write books and get publicity and be on podcasts. You know?
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:21:34]:
Mhmm. So
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:21:35]:
But I hope that things like your podcast are actually kind of bringing us together in conversations, with the the places, the people, the audiences who inspired this work in the 1st place.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:21:51]:
You as you look across the Caribbean region, the all the issues facing all of these counter. You cite transnational problems related to things like governance, mobilities, and, quote, the constant throding of alternative visions of existence, unquote. In broad strokes, we can get into the details later. What’s the true lines keeping these countries in the regions you cover in the boot from developing on their own terms?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:22:21]:
What are
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:22:22]:
some of the things you you kinda notice they kept repeating themselves whether it’s, you know, it’s, Puerto Rico or Haiti or what what Yeah. What’s the guide to you?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:22:31]:
So, I mean, I guess, the big issue would be what we might call extractive Haitian capitalism. And from, you know, from the moment Christopher Columbus showed up, right, and Right through the the 18th century period of revolutions and the 19th century period of industrialization into, you know, 20th century and globalization, Each phase of the, the the so called development of the Caribbean has been a form of extraction and exploitation of labor, of racialized labor, whether it was the haitian, effort to enslave the indigenous people there, then this the African slave trade, Then the indentured labor kind of movements of people from India or from China, as well as some from Europe as well. And the then the more recent forms of, like, low wage export processing zones And also tourism, I have to say. Mhmm. That they’re each premised on this kind of exploitative and extractive system that takes the labor, that takes the natural environment, that takes the resources, mining, oil drilling, And and leaves basically a a negative deficit behind. Right? What which, You know, Walter Rodney theorized as, you know, underdevelopment. Right? Your how Europe underdeveloped Africa. And Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:24:10]:
The so that idea of underdevelopment, I think, as an active process, probably underlies my my initial sort of Understanding of the region. Mhmm.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:24:24]:
You’re right that you wanted to understand, quote, the ethics of relationality with other cultures into the ways in which we might potentially listen to one another. What what do you mean by by, ethics of of, rationality? Or is it relay
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:24:42]:
Relay revolution. Relationality.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:24:44]:
Yeah. Relation oh, yeah. Relationality. And what cultures were you referring to? The Caribbean and the West, or were it just the 2 main ones you had in mind?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:24:52]:
Yeah. No. And, well, anywhere, really, but including Europe, Africa, the Americas, broadly speaking. And that is to say That, you know, that there’s the the representation of Haiti that we often see in the in the American media is as if it were somewhere else. It’s somewhere not connected to us. And, oh, it has all these problems, and then, oh, why is it like that, you know, and what happened and what makes it like that. And I want our starting point to recognize that we are already deeply connected. We are in relation to what’s happening there.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:25:35]:
So, you know, the the recent somewhat Controversial, big, series of articles in the New York Times on the Haitian, debt or so called ransom kind of is what historians have been trying to bring to light for a long time and which I’ve been committed to writing about in my work for, you know, 20 years. I’ve in in 1999, I was writing about reparations and the debt that Haiti had paid and how we we owed it to to sort of pay that money back. So That’s been on the agenda for a long time, and it’s part of understanding our ethical relationship. So when we see Louverture. When we see somewhere that’s called the poorest country in the History Hemisphere Toussaint understand that our wealth, Our privilege, our, you know, success in development is connected to that. They’re part of the same process.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:26:31]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:26:31]:
And that applies across, you know, all all the counter, really. It’s not it’s not just the Caribbean. It’s everywhere.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:26:39]:
Can you tell us expand on the community based peasant democracy that you say offer a powerful set of alternative visions of what Self determination should be.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:26:50]:
Yeah. So this was so important to how I came into Toussaint of understanding work, on contemporary Haiti is that, as you know, I started out as a Historical sociologist. I started out doing archival work, and I was looking at The what were called peasant movements in the in the 19th century. And there had been so, You know, a lot of people focus on the Haitian revolution. Right? And and it’s really important to to unsilence that and to to recognize the world significance of the Haitian Revolution. But I became curious at the fact that About a generation or so after the revolution, there were political uprisings of People who’d who could be described using this word, peasant, peasants, meaning small farmers, small small landholders, and they were dissatisfied with the state of freedom or liberation or what they expected Did the revolution to deliver. And the same thing was happening in Jamaica after British Haitian. About a generation later, There was an uprising called the Morant Bay Revolution.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:28:12]:
In Haiti, there was what’s called the PK Revolution.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:28:16]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:28:16]:
And you could compare The United States, for example, after the period of reconstruction and then what was called southern redemption and the backlash against it, That those emancipations, whether they were revolutionary or British abolition or the US Civil War, They did not lead to the kind of freedom that people expected. And what amazed me in the archives When you start to read, what were those people saying who were involved in those uprisings, those peasant rebellions? They were they were calling for True democracy. They wanted real, political equality and participation and self Haitian, and, And it was a critique of the way in which certain kinds of elites had taken over the the state After the process of, you know, revolution or, in terms of the process of emancipation, they were never sort of fully included in the state. So when you look in those archives and you read what people are saying, I Argue that that is true democracy, that that is the impetus towards democracy. It’s not what’s coming from, You know, the elites in Washington DC or in Philadelphia or in British parliament, it’s what’s coming from below, from the peasants, from the people. And what they were doing was a kind of direct democracy. They were meeting in associations together. They were choosing their own leaders, And they were, sharing land.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:29:54]:
They were combining work. They were doing, like, many things that we can think of as the roots of of what I call a kind of public, sphere, a counterpublic. And I and, anyway, to Finish this story. When I went to Haiti for the first time in it was about 1997, I believe, I discovered that there were movements that called themselves. Right? There was There was movement, There was, you know, these political movements, and they were mobilizing the same discourses, the same arguments, the same call Rural development, for people’s inclusion, for real democratization. And so that kinda blew my mind that For, like, more than a 150 years, right, the the those groups were still the sort of, forefront of democratization movements. And that’s Probably true not just in Haiti, but elsewhere, like across Central America and other regions.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:30:58]:
Do do you think that kind of, local Haitian, if you will. You know, the LACU, can that scale in the 21st century, you know, space where you have to deal with climate change and pandemics. Or Yeah. Yeah. So can that Skill at the local level, I get it. And, you know but is there is there is there a need for centralized, Trusted, quote, unquote, government body to handle the, You know, the 21st century type of issues that we have
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:31:36]:
to deal with. Oh, that’s such a good question because, you know, it’s very easy to get Caught up in what could be seen as a a romanticization, right, of these grassroots movements.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:31:49]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:31:49]:
And and and I think that’s a A problem of social movements that engage in in forms of sort of local or direct democracy
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:31:57]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:31:57]:
As people say, well, that’s not realistic. And Can you scale that up? I think you can actually run a country that way. But on the other hand, I would argue that Those the visions that those movements have have been, as as you mentioned, actively thwarted. They’ve been Suppressed. They’ve been held back. So they haven’t had the opportunity to sort of flourish and and grow. Mhmm. And that, Especially in a world faced by climate change, when we talk about community resilience, when we talk about climate adaptation, More than ever, we need, like, locally based resilient communities that can kind of, help, govern themselves that can help make decisions, that can help understand how decisions will impact on them locally.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:32:50]:
And so, Yes. We might we we still need some centralized, you know, state structures of some kind to help organize our societies, But can we do that hand in hand with the the movements from below, the movements that are connected to People’s real lives and and needs and interests.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:33:10]:
Mhmm. You wrote, Haitian, quote, Haiti can also be understood as an offshoring of disaster, keeping it at arm’s length and safely enclosed. That’s just an example of islanding and offshoring that you defined earlier for us. Can you give us a bit specific examples of that as far as Haiti’s counter?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:33:32]:
Yeah. So this was crucial after so I was writing about the 2010 earthquake and the immediate reaction to it. And and, I mean, I think a lot of people were immediately moved by what had happened. They you know, it was very Traumatizing and, compelling. Like, what a horrible thing. There was a great wave of sympathy for for what happened there. And people wanted to help. And so they wanted to, like, give money, and there was all these campaigns to sort of give donations to to sort of respond to the earthquake and the hundreds of thousands of people that were killed and made homeless.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:34:14]:
And it’s such a, horrible and tragic event. But what we learned at at the very moment of that happening Was that the US military came in to, occupy, basically, the airport. They took over the airport in Port au Prince and put it under US military control, and they also sent boats, ships to surround Haitian. And the first thing they engaged in was not bringing help to people. The very first thing they did was to broadcast messages for people to stay where they were, to not try to leave the island. And they intercepted boats of people who actually did try to leave, and they sent them back. And when they had the airport under control, They also stopped humanitarian flights from landing initially. So there was criticism that came in from, you know, Medicines, and, you know, French and Brazilian and some other aid groups that they were unable to land their flights in the first 24, 48, you know, hours after the earthquake because of that US military control.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:35:28]:
And that Initial containment, then you could say, like, extended into that entire emergency response, months, which was that patients were unable to move freely and seek relatives and assistants, you know, people who had connections in the United States. The there were a few 100 people who were able to leave who were either already had US citizenship or had visas and passports already in hand and could travel to the US during this, like, traumatic moment when so many institutions had collapsed. But, otherwise, the disaster the the response was to contain it, to keep people there, and the people bringing aid were able to fly back and forth easily.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:36:21]:
I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Please follow us On Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at Negmawo podcast. That’s with a w not in r.
00:00 Recalling letter to influential mother from past.
05:46 Academic book reaching diverse audience with stories.
07:46 Debate over naming era caused by humans.
11:59 Internet access disparities exposed during pandemic.
16:59 Offshoring: Business moves to foreign, untaxed locations.
20:07 Studying revolutions, recognizing privilege, and cultural appropriation.
22:31 Haitian capitalism is exploitative, extraction-based development.
26:50 Research on peasant movements post-Haitian Revolution.
28:16 Emancipations didn’t lead to expected freedom. True democracy came from peasant rebellions.
34:14 US military takes control, hinders aid efforts.
35:28 Initial containment, extended into entire emergency response.
Topics Covered in Ep-29 of Nèg Mawon Podcast:
- US Military Intervention in Haiti
- Control of the airport in Port au Prince and surrounding of Haiti
- Intercepting boats of people trying to leave
- Humanitarian flights initially stopped from landing
- Restrictions on movement for non-US citizens
- Criticism from aid groups
- Interview with Dr. Mimi Sheller
- Influence of Sheller’s mother, Stell Scheller
- Target audience for Sheller’s book “Island Futures, Caribbean Survival, and the Anthropocene”
- Definition and debate surrounding the “anthropocene”
- The interdisciplinary use of the term “anthropocene”
- Discussion of mobilities and power dynamics
- Concept of “islanding” and its implications
- Historical debt and call for reparations owed to Haiti
- Importance of local grassroots movements
- Challenges faced by movements from below
- Offshoring of disaster and islanding of Haiti
- Impact of offshoring on countries like Haiti and Mexico
- Ethics of relationality and our connection to places like Haiti
- History of exploitation in the Caribbean
- The Impact of Offshoring and Islanding
- Offshoring in the economy and special economic zones
- Consumption and appropriation of cultures
- Uplifting the work and culture of the Caribbean without appropriation
- Ongoing issues facing Caribbean countries
- Governance, mobilities, and exploitation of labor and resources
Raising Awareness and Social Activism: “And she was a real, political activist and social, movement sort of, engager throughout her life.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:03:28 → 00:03:37]
The Anthropocene Debate: “I decided in the book not to go into, like, the debate on, well, what should we call it? I I I begin it with, you know, the Caribbean as the launching point of this kind of modern world that we live in And then we’re all trying to survive. And I just used the word anthropocene because it’s become the most well known of all the words.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:08:57 → 00:09:20]
The Historical Roots of Mobilities: “And, you know, think of The slave trade, for example. When you think about mobilities, you have to think about, who is moving And who has self determination of their own movement, and also how are human movements entangled with other kinds of movements.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:11:06 → 00:11:25]
Islanding and the Impact of Hurricane Maria: “Well, Puerto Rico’s an island, and it’s really hard to get the response teams there.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:16:01 → 00:16:05]
Offshoring: “Offshoring is a really different concept, that relates to the economy And what we you know, everyone has knows about how, businesses kind of sometimes have moved to what we call offshore locations.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:16:59 → 00:17:15]
The Importance of Cultural Learning: “So In that sense, I think it’s important for us to take a journey that leads us to read about and learn from and listen to the thinkers and authors and writers and artists from another place. Then to not appropriate them appropriate them or their work or their culture Means you learn from it, but you also continue to, like, uplift it, cite it, recognize The significance of the work that people have done there, for example, in Haiti or in Jamaica or in Caribbean studies more broadly.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:20:37 → 00:21:13]
Extractive Haitian Capitalism: “Each phase of the development of the Caribbean has been a form of extraction and exploitation of labor, of racialized labor, whether it was the Haitian effort to enslave the indigenous people there, then the African slave trade, then the indentured labor kind of movements of people from India or from China, as well as some from Europe as well.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:23:19 → 00:23:30]
The Significance of Peasant Movements Post-Haitian Revolution: “There were political uprisings of people who could be described using this word, peasant, peasants, meaning small farmers, small landholders, and they were dissatisfied with the state of freedom or liberation or what they expected Did the revolution to deliver.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:27:52 → 00:28:01]
Viral Topic: True Democracy and the Impetus Towards Democracy: “I Argue that that is true democracy, that that is the impetus towards democracy. It’s not what’s coming from, You know, the elites in Washington DC or in Philadelphia or in British parliament, it’s what’s coming from below, from the peasants, from the people.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:28:16 → 00:29:54]
US Military Control in Haiti: “The very first thing they did was to broadcast messages for people to stay where they were, to not try to leave the island.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:34:47 → 00:34:56]
- Dr. Sheller mentioned the offshoring of disaster and islanding of Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. How do you think the international community’s response to disasters in the Caribbean has evolved since then, and what improvements are still needed?
- In the context of mobilities and power dynamics, how have the movements from below, such as peasant movements in Haiti and Jamaica, impacted the region’s pursuit of true democracy and self-determination?
- Dr. Sheller discusses the concept of “islanding” and its impact on connecting with other places. How can societies prioritize genuine connection and understanding of other cultures without appropriating them?
- How do you see the intertwining of wealth, privilege, and ethical responsibility in relation to historical debts and calls for reparations owed to Haiti, and how does this interconnectedness play out on a global scale?
- In what ways can the unique resilience and agency of local grassroots movements be effectively balanced with centralized structures in addressing 21st-century issues like climate change and pandemics?
- When considering the concept of “anthropocene” and its various proposed start points and causes, how do you think these debates shape the shared understanding of the impacts of human activity on Earth’s systems?
- Dr. Sheller emphasizes the importance of learning from and uplifting the work and culture of places like the Caribbean without appropriating them. How can individuals and societies ethically engage with and support cultures different from their own?
- Reflecting on the history of exploitation in the Caribbean, from Columbus to the present day, how can we grapple with these historical injustices in the context of present-day global relations and responsibilities?
- Dr. Sheller discusses the challenges faced by movements from below, including active thwarting and suppression. How can these movements overcome such challenges and gain traction in effecting meaningful change?
- Considering the impact of offshoring on places like Haiti and Mexico, as well as the potential for consuming or appropriating other cultures, what ethical considerations should guide international businesses and entities operating in these regions?
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:00:17]:
What this is a there’s a lot of interesting, lines in your book. I learned so much from it. What did you mean by Haiti is a talisman For Caribbean thought and criticism.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:00:29]:
Oh, you know, so so many Caribbean writers And, thinkers, philosophers have turned to Haiti, to to begin to think through the The, you know, the state the state of existence, in the Caribbean. Haiti, many will say, like, was the first, was the sort of, you know, the canary in the coal mine, right, to face, isolation to to face embargoes, to face indebtedness, to to face, foreign, you know, interference in their in their, attempt at a sovereign state, you know, because the Haitian revolution brought them to that cusp 1st, they they’re the sort of, the ones out there in front, and other Caribbean states, other Caribbean, colonies, And territories look towards Haiti in that regard and sort of compare themselves and think about what what Haiti has gone through. So in that sense, it’s an important talisman for thought. Secondly, though, is just the also the cultural, resonance and influence of Haitian, The the degree to which Haiti was able to, create a culture that is grounded in, voodoo and in, like you said, and in, you know, family and land and spirituality, and collective kind of consciousness, and that all then was expressed in, Haitian culture and music and art and writing, That makes it a sort of talisman also.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:02:13]:
These are cartographies of power. I love that that term, phrase. How do we how do we challenge or escape these, I guess, mobility regimes, if you will? You talk about things like decolonial reconstruction, And historical restitution, regional cooperation. Can you flesh those out for us, please?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:02:35]:
Yeah. So the the term cartographies of power actually, is not my own. I have to say it. It, it comes from Work, in, British geographers, Doreen Massey as as well as, Other sort of post colonial geographers. But the, you know, the notion is is that we We’re all sort of, related in a spatial sense, but also in a social sense, in an ecological sense That there are these, power relations that have constructed the worlds that we live in. Mhmm. And so cartographies of Power is a way to sort of recognize, that kind of relationality. And and I’m sorry.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:03:24]:
I I missed the I forgot the latter the some of the Phrases you said in the latter part of your question.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:03:29]:
So so so the mobility so would mobility regimes be, like, a a subset of the Cartographies of power. Would you Yeah. Right? And then you you mentioned this sort of solutions to To to how to respond or to counter, these, you know, these mobility regimes. And you mentioned things like, decolonial Construction and and, you know, like, once disasters happen, like, instead of Right.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:03:58]:
You know,
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:03:59]:
these these these mobility regimes Coming in and taking over everything and then sort of set up these demarcation lines between the people they’re supposed to be helping, and they create this their own Bubble. Right?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:04:12]:
Exactly. Yeah.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:04:14]:
Yeah.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:04:14]:
So the right. So the mobility regimes are, the way to talk about how People who have more, sort of social power, political power, cultural, influence, let’s say, are able to, determine how they move. They have, like, a self determination, a sort of, mobility sovereignty, you could Call it and I also call it mobility capital. Yes. So someone, like, who who is able to have access to a Car, and they can go on airplanes, and they can rent a car, and they have a a smartphone, and they have, you know, mobile, international, Wi Fi service or, you know, mobile phone service. And those are all forms of mobility capital as our like, So having, like, broad social networks and having time
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:05:10]:
to to
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:05:10]:
to manage all those things. What we call the mobility poor are People who are not necessarily lacking in mobility, but they lack self determination of their own mobility. So they might face coerced mobility, forced mobility, un dangerous and high risk Mobility. Right? So they have to travel by means that are more dangerous, less comfortable, possibly illegal. You know, think of people trying who who don’t have access to airspace and air travel across borders, and they have to get in a dangerous boat, right, and and head out into the to try to to move. So it’s not that they’re immobile, but they don’t have that mobility capital to spend. And so in the process of reconstruction after a disaster like the earthquake or like many of the hurricanes, There are some people with that high mobility capital who are able to sort of navigate the broken, you know, situation. They’re able to get around and to figure out how to put things back together.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:06:20]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:06:20]:
And the other people who don’t have that privilege or that that capital, They’re in a much worse situation. So even though you’ve both been hit by the earthquake or both experienced the hurricane, There are groups of people who are much more badly impacted by it, and that’s because of those unequal mobility regimes, partly the ones that That we as I said, contain those people. For example, in internally displaced people’s camps, IDP camps become this marker of the people without mobility, the people who have to kind of wait for help
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:06:56]:
to come Yeah.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:06:57]:
As the victims, It’s because they weren’t allowed to help themselves. And when all that, mobile money, for example, was sent by people who wanted to donate to Haiti, why wasn’t it then released to the the the victims of the earthquake? Right? The people who needed the money, They could have received mobile remittances, but instead, it went to these aid haitian, and the aid organizations kind of controlled how those donations got spent.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:07:26]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:07:26]:
So when I talk about sort of alternative forms of Reconstruction, I draw on the notion from, W. E. B. Du Bois who wrote Black Reconstruction in America, which was about the post civil war period. There’s, like, this vision of reconstructing the economic racism of society and how democracy itself works, which we could think of in post disaster reconstruction. Why why do we just think it’s like building, you know, Paving roads or moving rubble or making temporary shelters, we could be using Reconstruction to actually rebuild Social justice and equality.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:08:11]:
Mhmm. What is quenopolitical power?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:08:15]:
So the word quino political, you know, combines the the root word quino, which means, you know, movement, And the word politics or political. And it’s a way to make us think about how Politics is about mobility and how mobilities are politically informed by what we call those mobility regimes. So, like, when you talk about mobility in the in a spatial sense, like, okay. Let’s move from point a to point b. That’s not all it is because how we move, the means of movement, who can move, and who who Built that infrastructure, who decided where it would go, those are all political questions. And so any kind of Movement or mobility is politically informed. At a more basic level, you can think about gender and Racialization of people’s bodies and sexualities, and that as we move through the world, that is politically informed by the power relations around gender and sex and race and ethnicity. And not everybody has the same freedom of movement or the same experience of movement even if they’re in the same space.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:09:33]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:09:33]:
So any kind of Mobility is political. It’s governed by these power relations, and that’s what the kinopolitical is about. That political mobilization and social movements require us to be able to assemble, To be able to gather together, to be able to protest or march or things like that. So politics itself is is mobile.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:09:59]:
Mhmm. There’s this a striking scene, you described in your book about, during the, the the 2010 earthquake recovery in Haitian, where you and others are driving around in, I guess, air conditioned SUVs or vehicles and other Haitians are in the back of these, trucks exposed to the elements. It’s hot outside. They’re breathing in these diesel, you know, exhaust from from from from these, pickup trucks, I guess. You said it was Full of contradictions and hypocrisy. Can you just kinda flesh that out for us? I
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:10:38]:
So the I mean, a lot of the book Island Futures was, not so much about Haitians and experiences from within, a Haitian interpretation of their own experience, But it was about critically looking at the experience of those who arrived whether as Humanitarians, engineers, or researchers. Like, I was there. I was part of this NSF National Science Foundation research team. And This question, you know, that comes to mind it should come to mind in any research, but it’s particularly acute Given the post earthquake haitian, to ask yourself, you know, what am I doing here, and, how am I Benefiting from this, how am I helping people? Like, what why why are we even here? And it it became so obvious At that moment that moment where you’re in that air conditioned, tinted window, you know, big vehicle, And you’re going down the the, you know, the roadway, say, it was, where there was this long, median in the road where people displaced by the earthquake had built these little shelters.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:11:57]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:11:57]:
And All the traffic is, like, coming by these little shelters. I mean, there’s children there. There’s people trying to to live, and we’re supposedly there to help, But we’re just, like, driving by with nothing to offer, and that was when I was so aware of, like, myself myself, like, Let this, you know, person from afar looking out a window at the disaster. And that’s what, Jonathan Katz Get titled his book, you know, the, what was it called? Sorry. The truck that the truck that the big truck that went by. Mhmm. And that it’s that realization of that moment of that experience when you’re you’re in the truck that went by.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:12:38]:
Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. You are you you compared you said it’s it’s you read that it’s worth looking at, comparing the disaster in Haiti, I’m assuming you met the 2/27 earthquake or in general and the impact of hurricane Katrina On on New Orleans. How so?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:12:58]:
Yeah. So hurricane Katrina was, I think, a moment where, Americans US Americans became really aware of the first of all, the failure of our government To respond appropriately to an emergency and also aware of the racialization of The unequal impact of that disaster, and those those images of, you know, New Orleans when it was flooded and people on their roofs unable to get help, and then all the people in the Superdome, and just, like, the whole way that that unfolded, I think taught us in in the US about the inequalities of disaster, of of like, a natural disaster is not the same for everybody and and also how unprepared our country was to respond to that Disaster. The earthquake in Haiti also carried, like, similar lessons about The failure of the humanitarian response, of the international response despite all the attention and all the, Like, fundraising that was supposed to be happening and all the NGOs and all the, you know, people who came to there to aid Haiti In this moment of sort of tragic, circumstances, it didn’t reach the people who needed it the most. And it was so unequal, and it was so dysfunctional in many ways that it was a real lesson, I think, for, the the so called humanitarian and international community. Mhmm.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:14:39]:
Yeah. One of these the the the way when I read that, I I, like, I’m thinking later on, I have to post that on social media, find some kind of really some pictures of of, you know, People from, you know, who survived Katrina and the Haitians, you know, and they’re disasters. Yeah. I bet we probably can’t tell the difference, you know, which country it’s from. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:15:01]:
But, you know, what happened, though, also was that the victims of Katrina who were forced To leave New Orleans, they got upset when they were called refugees. And they Said, we’re not refugees. We are American citizens. Right?
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:15:17]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:15:18]:
And that came out of a longer history of discrimination against Haitian as refugees and Yeah. As so called boat people. And so there’s a whole political dynamic there of, You know, what does the refugee mean in the United States?
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:15:34]:
That’s right. That’s right. In your own country. Yeah. Let’s talk about water And power or water power. What’s the water situation, the dynamics there in Haiti? I guess we can focus on, you know, post 20 10 earthquake or if you wanna bring it up to the president, you can as well too. Who controls it? Who has access to it? And how is it distributed or not?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:16:00]:
Yeah. So the reason my sort of research group were there in the 1st place was, I was with a group of engineers from Drexel University who were studying water and sanitation systems and how they could be, rebuilt after the earthquake. And the approach they wanted to take was we we went to, Leogane, and The idea was to find out from people there what they needed and what they wanted. Right? So it was a participatory engineering, project. So we weren’t there to build anything or do anything. We were trying to, like, interview people and do surveys and Talk to them about what they envisioned they needed. And what the first thing we found out was that The piped water system that used to run into the city had been broken back in, like, I think it was 2008 by a hurricane a few years earlier that had disrupted the the input from the Momonce River into the piped water system. And so people were actually depending on purchasing water or digging their own wells or drilling their own wells.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:17:13]:
And so first of all, we were trying to get a sense of this landscape of water access. And what you had was wealthier people could afford to drill a deep well down to, an aquifer, deep underground that had clean water. And Haiti is actually very well watered. It’s per it has lots of underground springs and aquifers. Because of all those mountains, the water kind of percolates down. Other poorer people had to get water more from this From the sort of surface level, from rivers or, what are called unconfined aquifers up near the surface, and, that is, a sort of standpipe you might see, and people, like, would gather around and get water there.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:17:58]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:17:59]:
And then other people Had to purchase water because a lot of those stand pipes, the water was polluted. The water that is coming from near the surface was polluted with bacteria, And so it all needs to be treated
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:18:12]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:18:13]:
To make it drinkable potable, what we say. And so you could either treat it yourself at home, which a lot of people did using, Clorox tabs, they’re called, that you drop into the water to to kill any impurities in it, Or there was a little, like, a factory that, makes clean water in little plastic sachets, and you could buy the sachets. And that was, like, a common way of getting water. So that’s so different, you know, for people in the United States who, at least back in 2010 before the, you know, the Flint, Michigan water crisis, etcetera, we’re not used to the idea that you have to buy all your water in, you know, Bottled form. People were used to public water systems.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:18:58]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:18:59]:
So Haiti did not have a a widely spread functioning public water system. And same goes with sewage. And so a lot of sewage was just it runs into, you know, these, like ditches and and, channels and and runs out basically to the sea. It’s not there’s not sewage treatment plants.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:19:19]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:19:19]:
And a lot of people didn’t have access To toilets either. So what we learned in, you know, the surrounding areas of Leogane that most People outside of the, you know, the the city practice what’s called open defecation, which is, you know, outdoors, Now like it sounds. And so there was a lot of, things that had nothing to do with the the earthquake. And so when when groups came in to sort of respond to the earthquake, they had they needed to recognize that there was this was this the the world in which They were functioning in terms of water and sanitation and that there were many, many complex needs that were not just about, rebuilding some water pipes.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:20:21]:
So so the Post the earthquake sort of just exacerbated these uneven resource access issues Even more made it even more extreme. Right? And is that a counter for why I mean, there are a lot of reasons for why it you know, they just Didn’t you just let me ask you this. From your point of view, do you think the the the response to the earthquake I’ve heard some other scholars on this space say It was very important immediately to take care of the immediate needs such as water, food, and shelter. Right?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:20:55]:
Mhmm.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:20:55]:
But overall, looking back, did the world’s response this transnational response to the 2010 earthquake, did it do more harm than good, Or did it leave things sort of in a neutral way?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:21:11]:
Yeah. That I I mean, in many ways, It did do harm, and I’ll and let me explain why. Because even even then you know, I was there in March of 20 ten. Right? The the earthquake was in January. Even as early as March, some of the Haitian people that we interviewed said to us, All the should go home. Right? We we don’t want you here because it was already, at like, 2 months later, it was clear That what happens when you bring in all of these blanc, these foreigners, it distorts What haitian? It it first of all, it changes the economy because if you’re, you know, Coming in and and using, like I said, SUV rentals, and you need a place to stay, and you have to get food, and, You know, you need your little setup, and you need electricity and power. Already, that’s feeding into a certain sector of the economy. And it’s not getting the aid necessarily to the people who need it the most.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:22:17]:
It’s kind of enriching people who already have resources and power.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:22:22]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:22:23]:
And secondly, if you’re, for example, trucking in free water. Right? And water was needed. And so big water distribution sites were set up, and the water was free. Well, first of all, you’ve disrupted the little water businesses That there like, as I just described, water was being purchased before, and so the whole economy of water, You know, cleaning and water filtration and and water packaging and water sale and water delivery, well, you’ve completely thrown that out the window because Now the water’s free. Of course, people are gonna take the free water, and then you create a situation where you also need to, what they called exit from the water trucking strategy. So they found themselves all these people were now reliant on that Free water, and they had no way to stop giving it out. Because if you stop, suddenly, everybody’s gonna have no water. So in in a way, it it sets up thing issues like that.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:23:23]:
And the other big problem was you had so many different, aid organizations, and they each have their own project, like, framework and their own project timeline and their own initiatives. So, you know, there’s 1 group that, wants to, like, help rebuild Your your, roads. And so they come in and pave your roads. And then there’s another group that wants to help build your, sewage channels Months later, and they dig up the roads in Leogane so that they can put in the sewage channels. And you’re like, nobody coordinated this. Why did this happen backwards? Why would you pave the roads and then unpave the roads? It was like Wow. Absurdities like that were happening.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:24:06]:
So so the response was was kinda set up For the wedding, but not the marriage.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:24:13]:
Yeah. They
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:24:14]:
can show we everybody shows up, and then yeah.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:24:18]:
And and, yeah, and and what happened there too is everybody shows up, and they’re speaking French or English, Maybe, you know, German. They’re not speaking Creole. And so they’re excluding right from the get go, they’re excluding all the people who are not, you know, included in those those languages. And especially if if they’re working in English and they don’t they don’t even have French, but, you know, that there’s a there’s a deep sense of, exclusion of Haitians from decision making about what was happening.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:24:56]:
So do you think the, the disaster capitalist have they learned their lessons From the 22nd earthquake of how to do this, right, or all subsequent disasters that, you know, I know you’ve been keeping your eyes on these things. So are you were you are you hopeful that, they learned their lessons, or are is this just kind of a what do they call that? Ground hard day Kinda thing. You just keep repeating
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:25:24]:
Oh. Yeah.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:25:25]:
Response the same response. Have you seen some awareness at least from the regime from the, Disaster response regime?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:25:33]:
I I mean, you do see there’s some awareness in a sense, but The need for constant, I think, constant learning is still there because one of the the things that that came out of, The earthquake in Haiti was, for example, the use of, open street maps and trying to, like, create open data systems and And share information and also ideas around, like, participation and stakeholder involvement and things like that sort of Mhmm. Those are all Buzzwords you could say in the disaster management, industry. So There’s things that that they’ve tried to sort of learn from.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:26:16]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:26:17]:
They’ll have they can still have negative, repercussions sometimes.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:26:21]:
I know that you probably didn’t look into this, but I’m just wondering, like, people who go into these type of industries, What are the universities teaching them? Are they teaching them your book? What they can counter from you? I mean, I mean, is Is it required reading? I mean, seriously, like, like, you know, for the next generation coming up, so they don’t they don’t keep repeating. Kinda like, you know, in Wall Street, like, every new generation of MBAs out of Harvard. Right? They sort of do the same extracted things again. And the next thing you know, the whole market Crashes. You know? Yeah. There’s no institutional memory. There’s no generational memory to pass on. You know?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:26:59]:
So I mean, I think that is the point of writing books like this is that it It you know, as I said, it’s an academic book, but it means it’s to be used in in university courses and hopefully Taught to students who who think they wanna, you know, become involved in in disaster response and humanitarian aid. I mean, well, you know, when I was a kid, as a teenager, I wanted to work I thought I wanted to work for the United Haitian, and, you know, I I thought International development or women in development were were things I was interested in. Gradually, I read Critical work on those some of those, you know, areas and kind of incorporated that into my thinking too. So, hopefully, I think The next generation of students might might learn from this. And for for me, the really important thing to learn, like, the alright. The big lesson is that There were organized groups and associations organizations all across Haiti. Haiti was rich in a plethora of local locally organized people, and the outside world simply did not See that. They were not aware of that.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:28:12]:
The you even had people like, David Brooks wrote a piece in the New York Times about how Haiti had no Civil society and and, like, they they weren’t organized, and that’s why, you know, we needed to come to their rescue. And that’s such a Lie. I mean, that’s just so wrong and false because one of the things our research group did is we, we held a a workshop for community organizations to get together and deliberate about what they wanted. And, you know, 76 people showed up Representing 40 and more different organizations. And there was women’s organizations, you know, organization of young people, there was pet peasant organizations, many of those. They’re you know, organization of UNGAN. I mean, there was, like, so many organizations. You couldn’t walk 2 feet without, like, tripping over an organization.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:29:10]:
So why were those organizations not mobilized in the earthquake response and given funding and resources to help themselves. That’s what was needed. Not all of these Outside responders and, you know, Sean Penn showing up and doing things.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:29:26]:
Yeah. Is there a database of all these organizations? I mean, with all this Tech that we have in this counter. You know? Like, another disaster shows that who’s who’s do who’s been doing what for the last, you know, for generations, In Haiti, like, what organizations have been doing x, y, and z? Let’s put research. Is there a database of that? Or Yeah.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:29:48]:
Yeah. Not, you know, not I not that I know of, which is not to say that there is not one. I mean, I think what happens is there’s a lot of locality to locality haitian. So people, especially in the diaspora who, you know, are connected to a certain Locality. They’ll know the Haitian there. And so what we you know, we always say go go to the people who know. Go to the people who are working with specific communities and give, give low you know, give to small organizations, locally funded places, not not to these big you know? Don’t just Toussaint your money to some big international organization.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:30:26]:
Can you talk about, The Samaritan’s Purse water filtration system, yeah, issue or incident.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:30:37]:
Yeah. So this was, a place, where we were we were staying because there was housing available for our research team, on the outskirts of Laogonde, and there was a a a property there where internally displaced people, so called IDPs, had, counter set up. And this organization called Samaritan’s Purse was one of the, You know, international humanitarian responders, and they wanted to bring water to these IDP camps. And so they had brought this Pretty high-tech water filtration system, and set it up at this location so that those people living in tents, You know, on a field, could have access to clean water. And it’s you know, it uses reverse osmosis, and it requires power. And so there’s also There’s a diesel generator, right, that’s running every time you’re trying to purify this water. And so there we are staying at this place. We’re drinking that water, first of all, and we’re charging our laptops and our cell phones using power that’s also from the diesel generator.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:31:49]:
And and so already, there’s, like, a weird power imbalance happening. But the place where we were staying was Run by someone who had moved back to Haiti from Brooklyn, a Haitian, you know, diaspora, woman. And, You know, with very, very good intentions in some ways, she had plans for that place in that location. She was getting, you know, money from us, these international, you know, researchers and responders who were staying there. There was also an opportunity to create a women’s health clinic, which had been planned for, you know, probably even before the earthquake, but even now more so, there was a chance to Sort of mobilize, resources to create this health clinic. And to do that, she needed the the Camp of people to move off of the land because they were in the way of where the health clinic was supposed to go. And they were also, like, cutting trees down and stuff and using it for charcoal. And so she basically evicted the people from the camp.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:32:55]:
And and in fact, this happened all over Haiti. Like, many, many IDP camps were temporarily allowed to certain places to So tense, and then they were evicted. And what happened is the people were mad, of course, and They also wanted their water filtration system that Samaritan’s Purse had put there. They decided the water was for them, not for her and not for visiting researchers like us. And so they kinda came back in a in a sort of mob type, situation somewhat, You know, threateningly. And they dismounted the Samaritan’s Purse water filtration system, and they carted it down the road to, like, the new place where they We’re temporarily gonna be. And, wow, that opened my eyes, first of all, to the power relations between Haitian in Haiti and Haitians from the diaspora, which is to say, while I’m I was critical of the blanc, of the foreigners, of the people like my team who were there, I also realized that, you know, in the Haitian diaspora, there’s also power haitian, and we need to be a little bit critical of those and think about whose Whose interests are being served, and how are people, benefiting in a way, advantaging themselves through these post disaster situations. Mhmm.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:34:14]:
Yeah. This this is a small small point. I don’t know why it’s stuck in my head, but, what happened to those Plastic sachets of drinking water. There must have been, like, 1,000 and thousands of those. How they disposed of when they’re no longer usable? Was there a process in place to recycle them, or were did they offer, like, incentives?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:34:35]:
No. No. No. They’re they’re not recycled. They end up, you know, either in landfill or in the in the sort of ditches and gullies that run out into the ocean, basically.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:34:46]:
Wow. Okay. The, digital power. So what how many marine did I’d I’d looked, I think, probably about a month or A couple of months ago, I think I saw maybe 2 or 3 marine cables, 1 2 primaries after the earthquake. Did they put Can you talk about that? Did you look into that about, what what marine cables, you know, came into Haiti? I think 1 went 1 one solid one’s in in Port au Prince somewhere. Right? And are there 2 more or after the earthquake as we Can you tell a little bit about that?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:35:25]:
Yeah. I I don’t have the full, info right in front of me, but there there was Important, developments happening around communications infrastructure. And you had a number of things going on, which includes The the submarine cables that, telecoms companies were investing in, also, of course, like, Digicel was a huge Presence at at that time in 2010, in kind of not just in Haiti, but in other Caribbean countries. And there were these so there were these policies also that were being, driven in a way by the World Bank and the IMF that when they gave Loans to many Caribbean countries, they required them to privatize their telecom companies, which had, you know, in many cases, had been public. And so You had these situations where, you know, company I believe it was Viettel from Vietnam, like, purchased, like, the public, telecom system. And and then you have companies like Digicell arising, and then you have investments in these undersea cables. But so there was a lot of transformations happening over this last decade in the telecommunications infrastructure across the region. Some of that investment is to serve, companies.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:36:48]:
Right? And like what we talked about off the offshore. So it serves the offshore companies. But, of course, it also, you know, to some extent, serves The public and the sort of takeoff of mobile phone technology and particularly of phones as a way to transfer money has been really important in sort of keeping, Haitians afloat during that that period after the earthquake and and and during other Natural disasters is like the remittances that flow in are very significant.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:37:20]:
Mhmm. I I found, the inclusion of of of, These voodoo passages at the end of each counter, fascinating. Why did you choose? I guess this is the geek side of me. Why did you choose Dom Balawedu For the digital power. Oh. As the guiding lower.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:37:40]:
That that is yeah. So each chapter, You know, I have these different forms of power. And initially, as a sociologist power in a very, you know, like, structural, political, social sense. And so I talked about, as you said, geopolitical power, water power, aerial power, of who who had access to airspace and air visualization technologies and satellites, digital power about the sort of communication infrastructure, Bordering power and sexual power are, like, the names of all the chapters. And each one, I realized and it was through this, this Process of, like, recognizing this connection to the that I realized each of those powers is associated with the. And digital power for me reminded me, of there’s a lot of social research that’s going on now in in in cultural geography that’s about the material infrastructures of media and communication.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:38:45]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:38:45]:
And so Media and communication are both, how we connect, between the material and the spiritual world and to each other, and they’re about these physical infrastructures of, undersea cables and satellites. So, You know, that that particular counter, that, because Dambala, is like this, kind of Dual symbol of the serpent and the rainbow. Right? Mhmm. That it reminded me of The the sort of those cables as these, like, serpents under the water Mhmm. And then the satellite communications are like the rainbows in the sky. Mhmm. And then these ways that we sort of connect through communication.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:39:38]:
Last 2, sexual power. The ad spam
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:39:41]:
Yeah.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:39:41]:
Scandal. What did that reveal to you about unequal sexual economies?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:39:47]:
Yeah. So, you know, I’m sure a lot of your audience may maybe had heard about this, About how this, head of Oxfam UK was, punished, got in trouble because He and some of his colleagues, when they came to Haiti, you know, on an Oxfam, you know, mission or whatever, they stayed in a hotel, And they hired sex workers, and they had what was described in the press as an orgy that is, like, multiple people together. And Haitians were, like, just disgusted by this, that the the so called humanitarians are coming here on, you know, like, some kind of sex tour, And they they were kicked out of the country. Oxfam UK was kicked out of the country. And the thing is, They weren’t the only ones. And so there’s that story. And then, of course, there was the horrific stories of the Sri Lankan peacekeeping, force Attached with, MINUSTAH, for the UN who had what was described as a child sex ring. There there was, like, hundreds of children were being abused and passed around by these soldiers, for sexual purposes.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:41:02]:
And that Was even while it was being reported, the UN was never, like, investigating it or admitting to it. It took it took a really long time. And then more generally, people know that there are these, relationships that took place between this peacekeeping soldiers and Haitian women, and that they’re the Children, who who are called, like, the minusta babies or something like that. And, you know, just there was a lot going on, that was really, I don’t know, unpleasant, unfair, unequal, Sorted, and it arises out of the, you know, the desperate need of of people for for monetary support for For food. They said children were exchanging sex for for food and meals. And it seems so abusive to me that the people who were tasked with Disaster response and help were the very ones who were engaging in that and and somehow thought that was okay. And, of course, that links to the whole critique of, sex tourism in the Caribbean generally and the way in which Haitian Women, and children are, you know, trafficked into, Sosua in the Dominican Republic and Other, you know, well known sex tourism resorts. And so that whole economy of sexual exploitation does not go away after a disaster.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:42:33]:
It actually gets reinforced. And to see that Haitian was really kind of grotesque. And and so Haitian women’s organizations have been, you know, mobilizing against this, calling attention to this, highlighting the needs of, women and children, And yet they were not it was not a focus of the the disaster recovery response.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:42:58]:
So doctor Scheller, any final thoughts?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:43:01]:
No. Just there there’s, like, So much to talk about. It’s been great talking to you. I love your questions. We could talk for another, you know, couple of hours, I’m sure, but I really appreciate it.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:43:13]:
Thank you. What’s next for you? Do you have anything else, you you you you riding on?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:43:19]:
Yeah. I’m working on various things, but in particular, actually, later today, I’m gonna be presenting the very beginnings of a A piece I’m trying to write about the Caracol, you know, industrial park. And, woah, what a story behind that and, and what’s happened there. So that’s what I’ll be working on next.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:43:44]:
Maybe I’ll have you on next for that. So Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully, you know, you can indulge me again, and we can That’d be great. I would love to. Alright. Thank you.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:43:53]:
Okay. Thanks. Okay. Yeah. Away.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:43:56]:
I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Please follow us On Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at Negmawo podcast. That’s with a w not in r.
00:00 Many Caribbean writers turn to Haiti for inspiration.
05:10 People lacking self-determination face coerced, risky mobility.
08:15 Politics and mobility are interconnected and political.
12:58 Hurricanes revealed government failure and racial disparities.
16:00 Drexel engineers study water system post-earthquake.
21:11 Introduction to impact of foreign aid in Haiti.
22:23 Free water distribution disrupts local water economy.
26:59 Encouraging book for future disaster response students.
31:49 Power imbalance led to unjust eviction.
32:55 Haitian power dynamics in post-disaster situation.
39:47 Oxfam scandal and UN peacekeeping sex abuse.
41:02 UN failed to investigate, Haiti sexual exploitation.
Primary Topic: Telecommunications Infrastructure in the Caribbean
- Importance of submarine cables for telecommunications infrastructure
- Investment by telecom companies like Digicel in the Caribbean
- Policies driven by the World Bank and the IMF requiring privatization of telecom companies in the region
- Impact of mobile phone technology on sustaining Haitians after natural disasters through remittances
Primary Topic: “Dom Balawedu” for Digital Power - Association with material infrastructures of media and communication
- Connection between material and spiritual world
Primary Topic: Sexual Power and Unequal Sexual Economies - Exploitation of Haitian women and children post-disaster
- Impact of sex tourism in the region
- Lack of focus on addressing sexual power inequalities in disaster recovery response
Primary Topic: Use of Dr. Sheller’s Book in University Courses - Hope for the book to be used in disaster response and humanitarian aid courses
- Emphasis on the importance of local organizations in disaster response in Haiti
- Advocacy for supporting small, locally funded organizations over big international ones
- Example of Samaritan’s Purse water filtration system usage and eviction by a diaspora woman in Haiti
- Disposal of plastic sachets of drinking water
- Significance of Haiti as a talisman for Caribbean thought and criticism
- Introduction of the concept of cartographies of power
- Discussion of mobility regimes and mobility capital
- Emphasis on the need for alternative forms of reconstruction to rebuild social justice and equality
- Definition of “quenopolitical power” as the combination of movement and politics
- Absence of public water system and sewage treatment in Haiti
- Consequences of lack of public water system, including reliance on buying clean water in sachets and open defecation
- Distortions in the economy and disruptions in local water businesses post-2010 earthquake
- Coordination issues and absurdities in project implementation by multiple aid organizations
- Exclusion of Haitians from decision-making in disaster response efforts
- Questioning if disaster capitalists have learned from past disasters and shown awareness of the need for constant learning and improvement in disaster management
- Emphasis on the political nature of mobility and its governance by power relations
- Similar challenges in disaster response faced by victims in Haiti and New Orleans
- Water and power dynamics in Haiti post-earthquake, including broken piped water system, varied access based on wealth, and polluted water sources
The Importance of Haiti in Caribbean Culture: “Haiti, many will say, like, was the first, was the sort of, you know, the canary in the coal mine, right, to face, isolation to to face embargoes, to face indebtedness, to to face, foreign, you know, interference in their in their, attempt at a sovereign state, you know, because the Haitian revolution brought them to that cusp 1st, they they’re the sort of, the ones out there in front, and other Caribbean states, other Caribbean, colonies, And territories look towards Haiti in that regard and sort of compare themselves and think about what what Haiti has gone through. So in that sense, it’s an important talisman for thought.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:00:48 → 00:01:37]
The Politicization of Mobility: “Politics is about mobility and how mobilities are politically informed by what we call those mobility regimes.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:08:31 → 00:08:40]
The Ethical Dilemma of Humanitarian Work: “What am I doing here, and, how am I Benefiting from this, how am I helping people? Like, what why why are we even here?”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:11:20 → 00:11:30]
Viral Topic: Inequality in Disaster Response
Quote: “Americans became really aware of the failure of our government to respond appropriately to an emergency and also aware of the racialization of the unequal impact of that disaster… I think taught us in the US about the inequalities of disaster, of a natural disaster is not the same for everybody and also how unprepared our country was to respond to that disaster.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:13:10 → 00:13:23]
Participatory Engineering: “The piped water system that used to run into the city had been broken back in, like, I think it was 2008 by a hurricane a few years earlier that had disrupted the input from the Momonce River into the piped water system.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:16:47 → 00:17:00]
Disaster Response and Humanitarian Aid: “The big lesson is that There were organized groups and associations organizations all across Haiti. Haiti was rich in a plethora of local locally organized people, and the outside world simply did not See that. They were not aware of that.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:27:50 → 00:28:12]
Viral Topic: Power Dynamics in Humanitarian Aid
Quote: “And so they kinda came back in a in a sort of mob type, situation somewhat, You know, threateningly. And they dismounted the Samaritan’s Purse water filtration system, and they carted it down the road to, like, the new place where they We’re temporarily gonna be.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:33:21 → 00:33:37]
The Impact of Telecoms Transformation in the Caribbean: “There were a lot of transformations happening over this last decade in the telecommunications infrastructure across the region.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:36:47 → 00:36:48]
OxfamUK Controversy: “And Haitians were, like, just disgusted by this, that the the so called humanitarians are coming here on, you know, like, some kind of sex tour.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:40:17 → 00:40:27]
Haitian Sexual Exploitation by Peacekeeping Soldiers: “And it seems so abusive to me that the people who were tasked with Disaster response and help were the very ones who were engaging in that and somehow thought that was okay.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:41:54 → 00:42:04]
- How did the telecommunications infrastructure in the Caribbean, including submarine cables, impact disaster response and recovery efforts, as discussed by Dr. Mimi Sheller?
- What role did mobile phone technology play in sustaining Haitians after the earthquake and other natural disasters, particularly in relation to transferring money and remittances?
- In what ways did the choice of “Dom Balawedu” for digital power relate to the material infrastructures of media and communication, as explained by Dr. Sheller, and how does it connect the material and spiritual world?
- How has unequal sexual economies, including the exploitation of Haitian women and children post-disaster, impacted the region, and what was highlighted about sex tourism and the lack of focus on addressing these issues in disaster recovery response?
- What is the significance of local organizations in Haiti, as emphasized by Dr. Sheller, and why does she advocate for supporting small, locally funded organizations rather than big international ones?
- What were the challenges faced in the post-earthquake response in Haiti due to distortions in the economy and disruptions in local water businesses, and how did multiple aid organizations and their different projects contribute to coordination issues and absurdities in project implementation?
- How did the lack of coordination and inclusion of local decision-making in disaster response efforts in Haiti impact the overall reconstruction and relief efforts?
- In what ways were the experiences in Haiti post-earthquake and New Orleans similar in highlighting inequalities and failures in humanitarian response, as discussed by Dr. Sheller?
- How have disasters in Haiti, New Orleans, and other regions brought attention to the inequalities in water and power dynamics, and what are the ongoing challenges with the broken piped water system and varied access based on wealth?
- Considering the concept of “mobility as political” and its governance by power relations, what are the implications for social movements, protest, and humanitarian efforts in post-disaster contexts?
Today we’re diving deep into a topic that is fundamental to understanding Haiti’s present by exploring its past.
In the cacophony of hardship that reverberates through Haiti’s chronicles, we find the silent echoes of resistance—the army of sufferers who shaped the nation in anonymity and struggle. In this episode, titled “The Struggle for Soil: Haitian Peasantry and the Seeds of Rebellion” we are immensely privileged to welcome Dr. Mimi Sheller, a beacon of scholarship and the inaugural dean of the Global School at WPI. We’re here to unravel the threads of Haitian resilience and democratization processes that are seldom reflected in mainstream historical narratives.
Our conversation traverses the deep economic desperation that has led to waves of outmigration, the assertion of gangs in response to the absence of the state, and the disruptions in the rural economy that have torn the fabric of traditional living. Haiti’s story, it seems, is likened to a war, not of arms, but of power and provision and the endless fight for positive developmental opportunities in the shadow of military might and foreign interests.
Dr. Sheller takes us through time with her research on the 19th-century everyday lives of Haitians, derived from historical archives, giving a voice to the peasantry that often slipped through the annals of written history. We reflect on the phrase, “Toussaint my name, but not my feet,” as Dr. Sheller dissects the layers of democratization and the struggles inherent in Haiti’s fight against slavery and external powers.
Stay with us as we revisit the Piquet Rebellion, spearheaded by the enigmatic, barefoot Jean Jacques Acau, carrying the mantle of the common people against the forces of the ruling class. We explore the deep roots of resistance, the African-derived collective ownership traditions, and the intricate bureaucracy entwined with land distribution, all within the context of Haiti’s revolutionary legacy—a legacy that redefined democracy and stirred the Atlantic world yet remains on the periphery of historiographical recognition.
So, sit back, tune in, and journey through time as we delve into “The Army of Sufferers-enhanced” with the inimitable Dr. Mimi Sheller on the Nèg Mawon Podcast.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:00:00]:
Well, hello. Hi, Patrick. Oh, what’s going on, Mimi?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:00:05]:
I’m good. Thanks. How about you?
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:00:08]:
It’s been ages.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:00:10]:
Yeah.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:00:11]:
Because on your election page, it says you’re an inaugural dean. Are you, like, new dean now of the Global Schools?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:00:18]:
I am. The dean is of the Global the Global School is one of the newer schools at WPI, and so I just got here about two and a half years ago. Started this new position. Yeah.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:00:31]:
Congratulations.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:00:32]:
Thanks.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:00:33]:
You indulged me. We could do the, the the, mobility justice book then, but I’ve always wanted to do the two articles on the, the early formation of the republic. The Yes. This democracy. And I I I see here as I’m reading it. I’m like, I wonder if Jean Casimir, you know, took inspiration from what you wrote back then to write his book, The Haitians. You know? Because,
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:00:59]:
I mean, we were in conversation over the years. And so, I mean, I think he influenced me as much as the other way around, but we we’ve loved talking to each other when we have met.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:01:10]:
I guess I’ll start with, where did the title come from? The Army of Sufferers, Peasant Democracy, and the Early Republic of Haitian.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:01:20]:
Yeah. So but so the art I mean, so there’s 2 articles I think you’re referring Toussaint And
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:01:28]:
the other one I’m sorry. The other one is Toussaint my name, but not my feet, which is which is one of my favorite new Haitian proverbs, by the way.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:01:37]:
Yes. So all of the terms that I refer to here came from the archives. And so I was doing first of all, let me say, this was, like, more than 25 years ago.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:01:50]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:01:50]:
So it’s been a long time since I was a PhD researcher, and I was working with 19th century historical archives. And I was had, you know, all that time to really do a deep dive and really read a lot of material. And I would be on the lookout for anything that gave me little, like, clues of the life of everyday people in Haitian. Because so much of the archives, it’s like government officials or, you know, missionaries, stuff like that, consul generals, and occasionally newspapers. And and I was looking at missionary archives and government letters, consular letters, and I would just sometimes find these little phrases, these little glimpses that someone would quote or mention. And one of them was this phrase. Right? So I was like, first of all, it was was quoted, like, in Creole the way it was written, and you could tell it was like an authentic statement coming from what were what they call called the pays on, the peasantry. So I loved when I would find stuff like that.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:03:08]:
And the same goes for the name, the army of sufferers. That was what the PK rebellion, the PK rebels called themselves. They called themselves L’Armes sur Front. And I was like, wow. That’s interesting name that they call themselves, and especially when you think of how that word carries forward. And I associated it with Rastafarianism in Jamaica, where they talk about themselves as the sufferers. Mhmm. But and you hear that in, like, reggae songs.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:03:43]:
So this kind of language, in Creole is what would really jump out from the archives.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:03:50]:
I’m gonna start at the back of your revolution, at the back of the article, the army of sufferers, as sort of a way to to, you know, to sort of frame the discussion we’re gonna have today. This is this is what you wrote. You you broke down, basically, three definitions of democratization. We’ll go through each of them 1 by 1. So the first one is you said, democratization is not simply an internal counter in which multiple causal mechanisms interact. So that’s the first one. Can you shed some light on that one for us?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:04:31]:
Yeah. So democracy I was I was studying at The New School For Social Research, and there was a big cohort of faculty and students there who were studying processes of democratization, of social mobilization, of social movements, and of revolution. And so I was, you know, trying to work on theorizing about how does democracy come about. And what what in the United States, we’re usually taught about it from the, you know, the colonial perspective of Mhmm. The American Revolution and the French Revolution and kind of the overthrow of kings and this, you know, progressive story of a kind of enlightenment and then democracy coming. And I I was really interested in a in a more complex understanding of how there are these, like, in struggles from below for democratization. By from below, I mean, from by, like, workers and by enslaved people, actually. And how did they insert themselves into this process that it’s is not just about overthrowing a king and starting a republic, but is actually about how do you implement a kind of freedom, kind of liberation that was associated with some of the the ideals of republicanism and democracy in the late 18th early 19th century.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:06:04]:
And so they were always in a battle with the external powers that were trying to maintain the system of slavery. So every movement for democratization was battling not just the sort of state locally, but also, you know, the United States and Britain and France and Spain, all of whom were fighting over the Caribbean.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:06:29]:
How did the the peasantry escape the archives?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:06:34]:
That’s a
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:06:35]:
great question. To see them.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:06:36]:
I I love that question because, like I was saying, it’s these little moments where they appear. And I actually use that phrase about, you know, you signed my name, but not my feet as a metaphor for archival discovery in a way Mhmm. Which is that we can find some words or some traces in the archives of, like I said, some of the the things that people said or the actions they took. But so much of what went on in everyday life kind of is is material. It’s it’s in material actions and practices and patterns of life that don’t leave a written trace in the archives, but it does leave other kinds of traces. And and so that’s why I got really interested in learning about contemporary Haitian culture, about different kinds of memory and cultural practices, which you might find in voodoo, in land holding, and and different kinds of agricultural practices, in belief systems and phrases and language. Those are all different ways that people preserve the the kind of oral history and the everyday material culture, which are things that are harder to find in, like, the written historical archives. There is a kind of and I and I relate that to the idea of, like, the silencing of the past that Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:08:09]:
Wrote about, but also the whole tradition of of historians kind of studying some what they call subaltering groups.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:08:18]:
Here’s what you wrote. Although metaphorically located on the periphery of the 19th century world system, the Republic of Haiti was very much at the center of the processes of democratization haitian de democratization that shaped the Atlantic world. What is what do you mean by the demarketization?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:08:40]:
Right. That was I mean, one of the most amazing things for me about studying Haitian history was how central it was. Right? How important it was to everything going on in what we call, like, the Atlantic world. So because of this this break, this, you know, huge event of the Haitian Revolution, there was a way in which it created I I mean, it was called the Black Republic. You might almost think of it as as like a black hole at the center of the Atlantic world that that the rest of the the white slave owning plantation, you know, slave trading economy of the world, which is what all the other countries were engaged in, they were terrified of this, and they didn’t wanna be sucked in to this black hole, this powerful vision of this alternative of a liberated republic and where slavery had ended and where all people who are would be equal. Right? All people would be called, as it said in Dessalines’ first constitution, all Haitians will be noir, and noir would be, like, the identity of every citizen of Haiti and to the exclusion of foreigners and and others and invite invited all people of African descent to come to Haiti, to become a citizen of Haitian. That was terrifying to the slaveholders all around Haiti. And and and yet at the same time, despite that incredible, like, gravitational pull it has, nobody talks about it as the origin of democracy.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:10:23]:
Nobody talks about it as the origin of freedom in the in the mainstream historiographies that that were written by the white plantation owner owning world and the republics that came out of that. And so the that’s the democratization part and why Haiti is so important to understanding that. And most people don’t realize that Haiti had a democratic republic and and a constitution. I mean, there was a chamber of deputies. There were elections. It was a democracy. That’s that most people don’t think of it that way. And then the dedemocratization part is that there was always a struggle and a pushback to hope by some groups to hold on to power.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:11:08]:
And throughout 19th century, you see even when slavery ends, even when republics are founded, when people gain citizenship, there’s a pushback against them. There’s a reaction. And just like in the United States, slavery ended. We had the Reconstruction era, and then there was the pushback, which we call southern redemption and the be and the Jim Crow period. That happens everywhere in different ways, but it happens everywhere where there’s a backlash against democratization.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:11:44]:
Can you tell me and the time period you covered in this article, what’s the time period you cover here? You remember? That’s okay.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:11:53]:
I mean, roughly from the 1843. Yeah. And so I I I mean, I’ve I’ve sometimes, I I dip back a little bit to the period right after the Haitian revolution, and then I’m I focus a lot on the 1843 3. Where there’s this what’s called the liberal revolution against Jean Pierre Boyer, president, and then it’s followed by the Picay Revolution in 1844. That’s Mhmm. That’s the real focus.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:12:23]:
And then you touched on you went you went ahead a little bit to to the 18 sixties too for a little bit just to show that it it popped up a little bit.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:12:30]:
I didn’t do that. Comparing Jamaica and what was called the Underhill Revolution, which happened in Jamaica in 18/65. And so the these moments of the 8 18 mid 18 forties and the mid 18 sixties were really important political moments.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:12:48]:
Mhmm. Boire is always portrayed, based on the louverture that I’ve read so far, as just sort of this steady thing. And I think he ruled over 20 years or something like that, if I remember Mhmm. Correctly. Right? Yeah. And and that’s pretty much but that that might be the limit of what I read, but it wasn’t until I read this article, and you got a little bit deeper into his administration, that I’m I’m beginning to see different layers of it. Can you sort of give us a a summary of what the liberal revolution was all about in 18 43 versus the Piquette revolution in 1844. What was going on? What was Boire doing that he wasn’t supposed to be doing in terms of serving the needs of the peasantry? Talk to us about that.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:13:32]:
Yeah. The world revolution and then the pique Right. Rebellion.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:13:35]:
And so first, it’s important to remember that it was Boulier who signed the indemnification deal with France. And, I mean, and France forced it on him, really. And it was first agreed in 18/25, and then there was an adjustment made to the payments in, I think, it was 18/38. And so it was after 18/38 that a lot of tensions arose because so much money was being pulled. Revenue through taxation was being pulled out of the economy and then just paid to France being, you know, sent out of the counter. And people were upset about that. And there were also issues going on in terms of the the unification with the Dominican side of of Hispaniola. And so there was basically 2 camps.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:14:29]:
And 1, you can see it as there’s a sort of a landowning class who arose after the revolution through these land distributions that were made to the military, basically, to every different level of military rank. They were given land, and so the there’s, like, a sort of power base of those people. And then there’s the people who are, like, the farmers, the small farmers, the pays on, the peasants, the the kind of workers on the land who don’t didn’t ever got that land distribution. So about 1 fifth of the population of men are in the military and so probably benefited from the land distributions that were made by by Petion and by Christophe. And then the other, like, 4 fifths of the of the men and women of the country don’t own land. They don’t have land. And so there’s kind of a struggle going on between those who are still in kind of benefiting from the power of being a military leader and having land holding and the people who are trying to fight that. And there’s a color and class division that happens in across that.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:15:46]:
Not not entirely because there’s another saying which says that the, you know, the the person who’s black but wealthy and educated and can read and write, it still can be in the elite and count as what they call a mulat. And a mulata can be poor and have not be educated, and they would count in the black population. So it’s not a firm color line exactly, but it’s like a class and educational line. And so those two groups are fighting against each other. So you have the kind of the the ones who represent the state, this kind of militarized state power, and then you have, first, a liberal revolution, which wants to sort of bring a different element of of the population to power. But beneath that, you then have the PK rebellion, which is the the working class, the farmer the peasants and farmers.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:16:40]:
Who’s leading the PK?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:16:43]:
This wonderful figure, right, in the in the history who’s called Jean Jacques Aqau. And I’m not sure of the pronunciation.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:16:53]:
Yeah. I was gonna ask you about that. Like, I’ve asked many people. They can’t
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:16:57]:
Right. I’ve never heard it how it’s supposed to be pronounced, so I always say it kind of like acau or something like
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:17:04]:
that. It’s got
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:17:04]:
that double
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:17:06]:
a c a
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:17:08]:
a 2 like, a c a a u.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:17:10]:
U. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:17:12]:
Akau. Akau.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:17:14]:
Yeah. Akau. Okay.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:17:16]:
He is this amazing character because he is described in various, you know, like, a reportage from different people who who were saw him on the scene. And they say he appeared barefoot at the crossroads wearing these kind of rough white clothing that peasants wore, a straw hat, and he proclaimed himself as a, like, leader of the people and of these people who armed themselves with these 8 to 10 foot sticks that were sharpened and had a poison gum on the tip of them so they would cause you harm even if you weren’t, like, fatally wounded initially. And the and he called together all of these people to defend, basically, the rights of the poorest people, the working people, the and the formerly enslaved people, basically, who had been like the field workers, the ones who never rose up in the ranks of the army maybe and who never got the land distributions. These were the people who are being affected by the code rural. So the the rural code first created by Toussaint Louverture, but then in Boyer’s time, a rural code that was very controlling and tried to force these people to work on other people’s land. Right? They were trying to sell these export crops, especially coffee, but sugar as well, and they needed workers. And so they were trying to make all the working people stay where they were, not allowed to move around, had to do work, had to sign that a contract to to do work, and they and they resisted it, and they didn’t wanna do it. And they tried different methods to but, basically, what you would call, like, discipline labor, and the laborers didn’t want it.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:19:16]:
The laborers wanted their own way of living on the land, farming for themselves, holding their own family landholdings, and benefiting from that. And that’s what the PK rebellion was fighting against. So they were fighting kind of the bourgeoisie and the and the wealthier landholders.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:19:35]:
How did the Petit Mawhinage figure into all of this? Who has been fascinated by by that? Like, how how the downtrodden some you know, sometimes exploit the system even though they’re a part of it. Can you talk a little about that? Like, they serve the system that’s oppressing them, but at the time, they manipulate it for their own ends.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:19:56]:
Yeah. And and that comes back to that idea that you you signed my name, but not my feet because if you if you sign a work contract, you can earn some wages. And and the and the people who own land were in a position where they they tried sharecropping. It didn’t really work. So then they they tried different methods. And so that but they ended up trying to pay wages. And, yeah, people want wages sometimes. They want some money because money is useful for buying certain kinds of things, but they don’t wanna be stuck there working really long hours all the time and not being able to go somewhere else and, for example, take care of their own small crops and and, you know, hillside growing that they might have.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:20:41]:
And so there’s always a struggle between the effort to make the workforce stay and work for the big export crop versus people trying to grow things for their own food, for their own living, and maybe for small marketing internally of the sort of small edible crops. The Haitian people actually were very, very successful at resisting wage labor on plantations. They did not do it. They did not stay in place and work for others. They always got back to their own land holding and their own family land, the laku, and their own internal trade, which was done by women carrying all that food to the markets, and this huge thriving economy grew in that way. And the thing is that built on the tradition that you referred to, under slavery of petit marronage because enslaved people also did this and also resisted and did you know, lived their own lives in that way, and that’s what the Haitian people carried forward and still do.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:21:54]:
I love this, you wrote this, and I’m probably gonna use it as my signature in my email. You said resistance is precisely being able to work both with and against the system at the same time, to defy power even while appearing to serve it.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:22:11]:
Mhmm. Yep. And that, you know, is the definition in a way of a kind of resistance because resistance doesn’t always mean you’re gonna, like, win and overthrow the entire system. And Mhmm. And, you know, for those of us who’ve gotten older over time and, you know, you go through wave after wave of hope and optimism and mobilizations and social movements, and then things don’t really change. They change a little, but then there’s still another fight to be fought. Well, Haitians have known that for a long, long time that there’s always gonna be another fight. And that’s why they don’t give up because they pass down the tradition that you don’t give up.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:22:56]:
You you keep finding a way to resist, and you keep moving forward.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:22:59]:
So can you talk about I mean, this was like a first to me that Haitian came you found in the records the idea of communism predating Marx and Engels.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:23:14]:
Yes.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:23:15]:
Can you tell I don’t wanna call it, you know, Haitian. I’m not I don’t wanna say Haitians, you know, were the first. So maybe I don’t know. What do you say about that? That’s that’s that was pretty, that kinda that was shocking. Yeah. Talk about that.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:23:29]:
No. It’s incredible because, you know, they’re the what we think of as these, like, History political traditions coming out of Europe, they have deeper roots in the Caribbean. And the the whole idea of communal forms of landholding and collectives and a kind of, a critique of property comes out of Caribbean traditions and it and particularly in Haiti. But more broadly, I I believe that, like, people who’ve experienced enslavement were the ones who understood that you should not have property in people. It is wrong to have property in human beings. And they also understood land in the same way that it might be wrong to have property in land because land and people are 1, and people live and and and thrive and and, you know, have families and continuity of generations when they have land. And so they developed a very sophisticated critique of what we call capitalist, you know, commodification of human beings and of land, and and that’s what we forget so much when we talk about the struggle against slavery. Part of the struggle against slavery is also about people’s connection to land, food, water, to, like, living ecologies, and that these are also spiritual.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:25:10]:
They’re material and spiritual, and that it’s all one. And those are some of the kinds of fights that are still going on now. And so in in, you know, in the middle of 19th century, European commentators understood this, and they and they were horrified by this. And they called them communists, and they they said we you know, this this, you know, communist kind of thinking is gonna destroy their system, which was was a capitalist system.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:25:42]:
I wanna talk to you about the signs of control because I still see this plaguing the the the what Robert Fathon calls La Machine E Fanal in Haiti, which is this sort of entrenched bureaucracy, which is basically the largest employer, in the country. And unless you’re in that cohort, if you’re outside of it, you’re you’re not gonna receive any of the benefits from the plundering that’s going on internally inside the La Machine Infernal. Mhmm. So can you talk about the land distribution, the government land distribution, because they all did it. Right? Christophe did it. Mhmm. Poirier, Petion. Like if you you mentioned the size of the military at this time was I forgot which pair was like, about 40,000?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:26:33]:
Mhmm.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:26:33]:
And then most of the land distribution, you know, The colonels get 25 carol, you know. 15 carol for a battalion chief. Can you talk a little bit about the sort of profit motive within the military Yeah. Infrastructure in Haiti
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:26:52]:
Right.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:26:52]:
At the time.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:26:53]:
And and so that, you know, that, like you say, it goes right back to the beginning. And what it represents in in some ways, you could say, okay. It’s a distribution of the spoils of the revolution. Right? Like, like, that that they won. They captured all the plantations, and they’re then distributing it. But what’s also clear is that the government has no way to pay salaries. They are unable they don’t have the money to pay their their soldiers. And so once the revolution kind of ends and the states forming and they want to protect the country from outside invasion and and and just to, like, run things, The way they pay off people is with land, basically.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:27:42]:
And so they have that hierarchical sort of distribution, and it it happens in 1809. And then again in 18/14, Petion makes an even larger distribution. Interestingly, he also distributed smaller land grants to government employees, hospital employees, and members of the judiciary. So those were all the ways to sort of pay them. And, you know, it it’s buying people off, but it’s buying their loyalty, but it’s also them buying into the system because they’re now gonna be the ones who benefit from the system. So it’s it’s interesting. And it was only men who were given land. Like, women were not given land distributions.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:28:25]:
But yet the taxes were collected from the women.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:28:29]:
Yes. Yes. Because what the women kept hold of was the the internal trade, and all the markets were run by women. And it’s it’s just a fascinating story of how certain what we call the the big the marchons, who are, like, the larger market women or merchant women, they some in some cases, built up a lot of profit and a lot of capital and invested it. And they they owned buildings. They owned land property in in the city, and then they also ran the networks of the other women who would then carry the goods. So the big marshals, these women, would buy on credit from foreign suppliers who were bringing in, you know, goods from Europe or any any or from other parts of the Caribbean that people wanted to purchase, and then they would distribute it out through the network of the madamsara, the
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:29:27]:
Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:29:27]:
Sort of ambulance market women who would walk from the city out to the countryside and sell things. And so this was all done on debt. And there was a very complicated system where the the debt would be taken out against the coffee crop. The coffee crop would be, like, consigned to the foreign merchants who would advance the money to the, who would buy the goods, who would distribute the goods, and then all these smaller women would have to be on credit. You know, as they took the goods out, they had just make sure they kept track and brought back the profits. All of this got taxed, and so the state lives off the tax revenue that they collect from this whole marketing system.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:30:04]:
You said Petion had, quote, republicanize the soil. Mhmm. I love that. According with me on that one.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:30:11]:
Yes. The
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:30:12]:
it must have as someone who’s sort of one of the founders of the, mobility, movement, would that be fair?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:30:19]:
Or The mobility’s paradigm. Yep. Mhmm.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:30:21]:
Yeah. The mobility paradigm. It must have been fascinating watching the women because that’s one of the things I get a lot questions I get a lot. Like, why don’t you cover more about, you know, Haitian women during that imperialism, hopefully, you wrote something in in that that that reader that, Alyssa Seppenwal Mhmm.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:30:50]:
Citizens Yes. Militarism and manhood in 19th century Haiti, that was a fascinating article to write and to research because it was how do we understand women the history of women in Haiti when there are not that many direct sources from women themselves. Most women were not educated. They were illiterate. We see flashes of them, like, in these archival documents. But what I realized as I was looking as I was studying gender history, I realized that there was tons of expression of gender identities through manhood and masculinity and virility and men and brothers and fathers and soldiers, and they were describing themselves as, like, coming to the rescue of their mothers and daughters and sisters and to the republic itself as the mother of African liberty. And so there was all this gendered language, which gave a lot of insights into this sort of intersection between this political economy and the functioning of gender within families because the family was held up as, like, a model of the sort of national family and then how that influenced national politics and the state itself.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:32:11]:
You wrote this. Can we think beyond resistance and begin to grasp some more positive forces of peasant agency. How did formerly enslaved, reconstituted peasants try to rebuild their lives and freedom? How did they work around the military state and its effort, to control them? I, I read that to you because I saw a recent study that says that in the 19 nineties, the moon on the Earth constituted about 60 something, 65 percent of the population of Haitian. And now it’s flipped. Haitian is more urbanized now Mhmm. Than it is rural. What do you what do you think? What does that say about it was easier to define that, you know, in the nineties and provide solutions perhaps if the majority of population lived a certain way and had done so for generations. Right? Yeah.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:33:08]:
To use that as a model to to move forward, when now, because of external decisions, now Haitian is more urban than it is well.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:33:19]:
Yeah. Absolutely. You know, when I when I started the kind of research I was doing in the 19 nineties, there were still there was a bigger rural population, although it was starting to change already, obviously, but it was still enough basis of it there that you could see origins and the history of the that rural population going, you know, way, way back to the 18th century and the early 19th century. You could see the continuity of life, you know, ways and culture and so on. And the structural kind of adjustment programs, the kind of World Bank and IMF programs, the eradication of the Creole pigs, the the centralization of population in Port au Prince, the urban the huge urbanization, all happened kind of from the 19 nineties till now, really has changed, you would say, the structure of the country. And and in a lot of ways, you know, it’s tragic, and it’s sad because that was the basis for a more positive social and economic and cultural system to still emerge. Like, it we could have come into the 21st century with a much more positive outcome than we are seeing right now. And right now, we are seeing, like, the worst collapse of the democratic republic tradition of Haiti just into, like, this abyss of violence, and it didn’t have to end that way.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:34:59]:
I’ll put it that way.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:35:00]:
How does that affect mobility when a large swath of a population had more freedom being out in the row, and now they’re confined. Like, let’s say Port au Prince, for example. Right? From what I understand, it was it was it’s infrastructure wise, it’s built for about half a 1000000 people. Now that’s close to 3,000,000. Right? Right. So, yeah, what does that do for this whole mobility when you know? Yes. You may not have had a a mansion out in the in in the rural areas, but you could feed yourself. You could feed your family.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:35:33]:
Right. You
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:35:34]:
could exchange with the local. You can have a confederation. Right? Like, where you have more mobility, and now you’re in an urban setting, and there aren’t resources to meet the basic needs.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:35:44]:
Right. And and so the you know, a couple a few different things happen. First of all, you have a push of out migration. Right? And we see people leaving Haiti when when they have been able to in in these moments of kind of economic desperation. And then you see the influx of gangs, and the gang control of neighborhoods is to kind of provide for what the state is not providing in a way for people who have no resource base of their own. Right? No. No. They can’t grow their own food.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:36:24]:
I mean, some people do a little bit. And the disruption of the of that rural economy that supported so many people and also of the remittance economy, it has to be said, of, like, the diaspora who also supports people, left these gang power holders able to be, like, the to claim the role of provisioning and infrastructure and and kinda meeting the needs of of different neighborhoods and communities on a very localized basis. And and it so it’s become like a a war all against each other, you know, rather than a positive, more regionalized development of, like, forms of what might be called food sovereignty or, you know, people being able to provision themselves and their own families and save enough for education and all of the things that used to be the sort of wish and aim and, like, the dream, the the Haitian dream.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:37:24]:
You’re prescient in that sense because you you quoted this constitution c’est papier, bionet ce fait. Mhmm. Institutions are paper, bayonets are iron. So I guess we’re in the bayonet phase now today in Haiti.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:37:39]:
Yes. Absolutely. And and when I when I quote that, you know, it’s a it’s a comment on the internal politics, Haiti, that, you know, the the the state was controlled by military power holders and by force in so many cases despite what the constitution said. But I also use it to refer to the larger situation of Haiti in the world, which is that they are also at the mercy of the bayonets, of the gunboats, of the military power, of the surrounding great the great powers who, you know, from France and Spain and England and then up to the United States today, ultimately counter the the sort of destiny and fate of the whole region.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:38:29]:
That’s all I’ve got. Okay. Professor, anything did I miss out out on anything here you wanna cover?
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:38:35]:
No. That was great. I mean, I we can pick up on further conversations in the future, I think.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:38:40]:
Yeah. I love it. Thank you.
Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:38:42]:
Thank you, Patrick.
Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:38:43]:
For your time.
00:00 Researcher delves into 19th-century Haitian archives.
04:31 Studying democracy, revolution, and social movements’ processes.
08:40 Haitian history’s impact on Atlantic world.
12:48 Deeper examination reveals layers of Boire’s rule.
14:29 Post-revolution class struggle in Haiti, land distribution.
17:16 Peasant leader fights against oppressive rural code.
20:41 Haitians resist wage labor, thrive on own land.
23:29 Caribbean roots challenge European political traditions deeply.
28:29 Women controlled markets, trading, profit, and capital.
30:50 Gender, politics, and family dynamics in Haiti.
33:19 Rural population decline and urbanization impacts Haiti.
36:24 Rural economy disrupted, gang power controls provisioning.
Primary Topic: Economic Despair and Migration
- The consequences of economic desperation in Haiti
- Migration trends due to lack of state support
- The rise of gang involvements as a means of provision
- Disruption of the rural economy and its effects on self-provision and remittances
Primary Topic: Historical Context and Struggles for Power - Haiti’s resemblance to a war zone with internal power struggles
- External influences of military power holders affecting Haiti’s destiny
- Exploration of historical archives and relevance to Haitian history
- Dr. Mimi Sheller’s research on the everyday life in 19th-century Haiti
Primary Topic: Democratization Efforts and Historical Resistance - Different definitions of democratization with a focus on grassroots movements
- The challenge against external and internal powers maintaining oppressive systems
- The uncovering of peasant life from archives and material culture
- The PK rebellion and its defiance against the wealthier class and fight for self-farming
Primary Topic: Cultural and Economic Traditions - Pre-European communal landholding traditions and collectives in Haiti
- Critique of commodification of humans and land in capitalism
- The concept of Resistance: ways of defying power while operating within the system
- La Machine E Fanal’s role in bureaucracy and land distribution for profit
Primary Topic: Women’s Roles and Land Distribution - Gendered land distribution post-Haitian Revolution and its implications
- Taxation on women controlling the internal trade and market economy
- Dr. Sheller’s perspective on Petion “republicanizing the soil” and gendered economic roles
- Shift from rural to urban demographics impacting economy and mobility
Primary Topic: The Haitian Revolution and its Global Significance - The Haitian Revolution’s challenge to the white slave-owning plantation system
- Establishment of a Black Republic with visions of liberty and equal rights
- The lack of recognition in mainstream historiography for Haiti’s role in democracy
- The extent of Haiti’s impact on democratization in the Atlantic world
Primary Topic: The Piquet Rebellion and Sociopolitical Tensions - The liberal revolution against President Jean Pierre Boyer
- The Piquet Rebellion of 1844, led by Jean Jacques Acau
- Issues relating to monetary strain and unification with the Dominican Republic
- Disparities in land distribution, class tensions, color lines, and educational differences
Exploring the Voices of the Past: “And I would be on the lookout for anything that gave me little, like, clues of the life of everyday people in Haitian.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:02:07 → 00:02:17]
The Roots of Democracy: “And I was really interested in a more complex understanding of how there are these, like, struggles from below for democratization. By from below, I mean, from by, like, workers and by enslaved people, actually. And how did they insert themselves into this process that it’s is not just about overthrowing a king and starting a republic, but is actually about how do you implement a kind of freedom, kind of liberation that was associated with some of the ideals of republicanism and democracy in the late 18th early 19th century.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:05:31 → 00:05:58]
Archival Discovery in Historical Research: “you signed my name, but not my feet as a metaphor for archival discovery in a way. Which is that we can find some words or some traces in the archives of, like I said, some of the things that people said or the actions they took. But so much of what went on in everyday life kind of is is material. It’s it’s in material actions and practices and patterns of life that don’t leave a written trace in the archives, but it does leave other kinds of traces.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:07:03 → 00:07:26]
The Importance of the Haitian Revolution: “Right? How important it was to everything going on in what we call, like, the Atlantic world. So because of this this break, this, you know, huge event of the Haitian Revolution, there was a way in which it created I I mean, it was called the Black Republic.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:08:50 → 00:09:11]
Post-Revolution Land Distribution Dynamics: “And 1, you can see it as there’s a sort of a landowning class who arose after the revolution through these land distributions that were made to the military, basically, to every different level of military rank. They were given land, and so there’s, like, a sort of power base of those people. And then there’s the people who are, like, the farmers, the small farmers, the pays on, the peasants, the the kind of workers on the land who don’t didn’t ever got that land distribution.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:14:29 → 00:14:47]
The Emergence of a People’s Hero: “He appeared barefoot at the crossroads wearing these kind of rough white clothing that peasants wore, a straw hat, and he proclaimed himself as a, like, leader of the people and of these people who armed themselves with these 8 to 10 foot sticks that were sharpened and had a poison gum on the tip of them so they would cause you harm even if you weren’t, like, fatally wounded initially.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:17:28 → 00:18:02]
Agriculture and Resistance in Haiti: “The Haitian people actually were very, very successful at resisting wage labor on plantations. They did not do it. They did not stay in place and work for others. They always got back to their own land holding and their own family land, the laku, and their own internal trade, which was done by women carrying all that food to the markets, and this huge thriving economy grew in that way.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:21:02 → 00:21:34]
Caribbean Roots of Socio-Political Critique: “And the the whole idea of communal forms of landholding and collectives and a kind of, a critique of property comes out of Caribbean traditions and it and particularly in Haiti.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:23:41 → 00:24:01]
Gendered Narratives in 19th Century Haiti: “I realized that there was tons of expression of gender identities through manhood and masculinity and virility and men and brothers and fathers and soldiers, and they were describing themselves as, like, coming to the rescue of their mothers and daughters and sisters and to the republic itself as the mother of African liberty.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:32:10 → 00:32:10]
Changes in Haitian Society Through Time: “You could see the continuity of life, you know, ways and culture and so on. And the structural kind of adjustment programs, the kind of World Bank and IMF programs, the eradication of the Creole pigs, the the centralization of population in Port au Prince, the urban the huge urbanization, all happened kind of from the 19 nineties till now, really has changed, you would say, the structure of the country.”
— Dr. Mimi Sheller [00:33:49 → 00:34:20]
- How has the economic desperation in Haiti influenced the rise of gang presence and the disruption of rural economies, and what are the implications for the remittance economy?
- In what ways does the power struggle in Haiti resemble a war, and how do external military powers and foreign interests continue to shape the country’s destiny?
- Can you explain how historical archives have shaped our understanding of peasant democracy and the early Haitian republic, as discussed in Dr. Sheller’s article “The Army of Sufferers”?
- Dr. Sheller mentioned the phrase “You signed my name, but not my feet” during the discussion. What does this phrase signify in the context of Haitian resistance and identity?
- According to Dr. Sheller, what are the three definitions of democratization, and how did the struggle for democratization from below challenge the system of slavery?
- How did the everyday lives and resistances of the Haitian peasantry manage to leave traces outside formal written archives, and what examples of this alternative record does Dr. Sheller provide?
- The PK rebellion represented a significant resistance against the control of wealthier landowners. How did this rebellion reflect the broader socio-economic tensions in Haiti, and why does it remain a poignant symbol of Haitian defiance?
- How do Caribbean traditions of communal landholding and collectives, particularly in Haiti, present an alternative to European political traditions and the commodification inherent in capitalism?
- In what ways has the entrenched bureaucracy of “La Machine E Fanal” impacted land distribution post-Haitian revolution, and how is this system reflected in gender dynamics and taxation in Haiti?
- Why does mainstream historiography often overlook Haiti’s crucial role in shaping concepts of democracy and freedom, and how can narratives like those presented in this episode shape our broader understanding of the Atlantic world’s history?
