Trust and Hometown Associations in Haitian Post‐Earthquake Reconstruction
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12353 |
| Date | 01 February 2018 |
| Author | Alison M. Désir,Sophonie Milande Joseph,Clara Irazábal |
| Published date | 01 February 2018 |
Trust and Hometown Associations in Haitian
Post-Earthquake Reconstruction
Sophonie Milande Joseph*, Clara Iraz
abal** and Alison M. D
esir***
ABSTRACT
The 7.0 magnitude earthquake on January 12, 2010 in Haiti reawakened in the diaspora a
strong sense of purpose to focus efforts beyond family remittances towards regional and
national development. Yet Haitian hometown associations (HHTAs) in the US struggled to
establish a strong, organizational structure to respond systematically and effectively to the
country’s increased post-earthquake needs. Based on historical analysis, participatory observa-
tions, interviews, and comparisons with other diaspora groups’models for homeland develop-
ment, we explore how trust within the transnational Haitian nation has been impacted in the
post-earthquake era by cultural conditionings of the past which constrain the scalability, dura-
bility, and viability of HHTAs’developmental potential to systematically intervene in a coordi-
nated manner regionally and nationally. We examine the ways in which trust –and resistances
to it –operates as a mediating lens remobilized by the earthquake for the interpretation of the
Haitian past, present, and future.
INTRODUCTION
Marcel Numa and Louis Drouin had made new lives for themselves, becoming productive young
immigrants in the United States. In addition to his army and finance experience, Louis Drouin
was said to have been a good writer and the communications director of Jeune Haiti.
1
In the
United States, he contributed to a Haitian political journal called Lambi. Marcel Numa was from
a family of writers...Many of the young men Numa and Drouin joined with to form Jeune Haiti
had had fathers killed by Papa Doc Duvalier, and had returned, Le Cid and Hamlet-like, to
revenge them.
Like most creation myths, this one too exists beyond the scope of my own life, yet it still feels pre-
sent, even urgent. Marcel Numa and Louis Drouin were patriots who died so that other Haitians
could live. They were also immigrants, like me. Yet they had abandoned comfortable lives in the
United States and sacrificed themselves for the homeland. One of the first things the despot Duva-
lier tried to take away from them was the mythic element of their stories. In the propaganda pre-
ceding their execution, he labelled them not Haitian, but foreign rebels, good-for-nothing blans.
2
(Danticat, 2010, pp.6-7)
* Urban Planning Program of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia Univer-
sity in the City of New York
** Department of Architecture, Urban Planning and Design at the University of Missouri, Kansas City
*** Teachers College of Columbia University in the City of New York
doi: 10.1111/imig.12353
©2017 The Authors
International Migration ©2017 IOM
International Migration Vol. 56 (1) 2018
ISSN 0020-7985Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Stories are at the heart of planning practice (Sandercock, 2003, p. 12). In telling stories of dyas-
pora
3
striving for an alter(ed)native
4
development strategy, we immigrant authors introduce a Lakou
T
et Anba conceptual model as a path to unity and strength within the Haitian diaspora. A lakou is
the central, courtyard area of an extended family’s residential compound (Figure 1). Charlene D
esir
(2011) extends it from the physical to a theoretical concept to describe the Haitian transnational
community. Lakou is used herein to conceptualize Haitians’development planning stories. These
stories are critical for exploring the micropolitics of transnational migration and development.
Development scholars and practitioners trying to leverage dyaspora’s efforts for development pur-
poses have much to learn from such planning stories. We present an analysis of dyaspora’s contri-
butions to self-help urbanism and use qualitative research methodologies historically linked to
anthropology to analyze the Haitian dyaspora’s ethnically-based trust networks-or cultural solidar-
ity-as building blocks of alter(ed)native development planning strategies.
BACKGROUND
A hometown association (HTA) “is an organization formed by migrants living in the same commu-
nity and sharing a common nationality”(Orozco & Zanello, 2009, p.1). Although “[t]he manifest
purpose of HTAs is community and institutional development ... a secondary objective is bringing
together hometown nationals through a variety of events”(Matthews, 2013, p.131). Through partic-
ipation and membership in an HTA, for instance, migrants collectively transfer money and
resources to their home countries that can then assist in the development of local community pro-
jects. HTAs’social and charitable events, for example an annual fundraising dinner, also serve as
an opportunity for migrants in a new land to reconnect with compatriots, family, and friends from
back home that consequently provide critical social support and services to migrants in their
adopted homeland (Pierre-Louis, 2006). Thus, hometown associations sustain local community
development in migrants’sending and receiving countries. Dyaspora engagement, especially the
use of collective remittances for homeland development, is increasingly researched as an alternative
or complementary development strategy to the status quo (Esnard & Sapat, 2016; Felix, 2010;
Lamba-Nieves, 2014; MacLaren, 2010; Mullings, 2011; Newland, 2010; Orozco, 2006a, 2006b,
2010; Wah, 2013; Wah, 2001; Z
ephirin, 2014).
There were an estimated 300 Haitian hometown associations (HHTAs) in Canada, the United States,
France, and the Dominican Republic just before the 7.0 Richter magnitude earthquake on January 12,
2010 (HHTARG, 2009). In Haiti, HTAs had played roles such as advocating and supporting develop-
ment projects, fostering community connections, and acting as a funnel for financial resources, espe-
cially in times of disaster and intense need. However, several factors have historically been obstacles
to HHTAs’effectiveness
5
as regional and national-level development agents. Difficulties collaborating
and coordinating across HHTAs, with NGOs, other development agencies, and the Haitian govern-
ment are chief among those obstacles. The 2010 earthquake further complicated development in Haiti,
and dyaspora groups, HHTAs among them, mobilized to aid in the reconstruction effort.
In this article, we focus on the role of trust, and in particular trust networks, in HTAs’viability
as agents of major development. Trust is conceptualized around how assurance works interperson-
ally within and across groups, rather than the intrapersonal explanations that are typical of psycho-
logical assessments (Lewis & Weigert, 1985). Trust is defined as the “expectation concerning the
behavior of others”(Lukas & Walgenbach, 2010, p.2). Trust facilitates the prediction of another
party’s behaviour and the reactions therein. Put simply, trust is calculated cooperation (Lukas &
Walgenbach, 2010). The lack of trust –distrust –dictates a course of action based on feelings of
suspicion. When encountered on a systemic level, such as between citizens and government, dys-
functional and uncooperative behaviour ensue (Lewis & Weigert, 1985). Competence, openness,
168 Joseph, Iraz
abal and D
esir
©2017 The Authors. International Migration ©2017 IOM
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