The Paved and the Unpaved: Toward a Political Economy of Infrastructure, Mobility, and Urbanization in Haiti

Landon Yarrington

Economic Anthropology, 2015, vol. 2, issue 1, 185-204

Abstract: type="main" xml:id="sea212024-abs-0001"> This article argues that an ideological struggle organized around competing Haitian cultural definitions of liberté conditioned the development of Haiti's transport infrastructure from independence in 1804 to the U.S. Occupation of 1915–1934. This definition of liberté was linked to the ideological reproduction of state power by maintaining cultural constructions of people as urban or rural. Using historical sources, an analysis of the institutions, policies, and practices of infrastructure use and development shows that movement itself serves as cultural symbol and site of ideological struggle, as differential access to freedom of movement influences the maintenance of urban and rural classifications. During the colonial period and immediately after independence, the plantation economy neglected transport infrastructure, which helped keep cities small and laborers on plantations. By the mid-19th century, the plantation economy collapsed, and landowners moved to port cities to enter commerce or politics. Smallholding peasantries emerged in rural areas, but continued lack of transport investment kept them there. Only in the late 19th century did Haitian elites invest in transport infrastructure; this was enhanced by the early-20th-century American occupation. Only then did cities begin to grow substantially.

Date: 2015
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