Understanding Race and Nation in Post-Dictatorial Haiti

De Micheli, David A.

Understanding Race and Nation in Post-Dictatorial Haiti

Persistent URL

http://hdl.handle.net/10456/15688

Author(s)

De Micheli, David A.

Date Issued

May 10, 2011

Abstract

The goal of this study is to explore what has become of “the color question” in Haiti’s contemporary period. Haiti’s long history of color-based social stratification served as the basis for political instability and chaos for centuries, and color difference was the basis of François Duvalier’s election to power in 1957. The fall of dictatorship in 1986, however, marked the country’s transition to a period focused on economic development and progress, which politi-cized class instead of color difference. In this study, I therefore ask: how does the color question influence politics in Haiti’s post-dictatorial period? I answer this question by exploring the histo-ry of Haiti through the prism of race and color and identifying the ways in which color has been politicized. I focus on Haiti’s colonial and revolutionary periods, as well as its twentieth century politics and the rise of the Duvalier Dictatorship. I then consider the decline of color and the rise of class in political discourse since dictatorship. I argue that the (de)politicizations of class and color in Haiti depend on political elites’ strategic use of those divisions as a means of gaining political power, and that politicization does not accurately reflect social divisions. I then argue that the influence of the color question on politics can best be seen in questions of nationalism. The disconnect between ethnic and civic nationalism in Haiti demonstrates the divisiveness of Haitian politics and the fundamental nature of the color question as an obstacle to unity and progress in the country.

Honors

International Studies, 2011

French, 2011

First Reader(s)

Mattiace, Shannan