Description
Book SynopsisHow do people improvise political communities in the face of state collapseand at what cost? Street Sovereigns explores the risks and rewards taken by young men on the margins of urban Haiti who broker relations with politicians, state agents, and NGO workers in order to secure representation, resources, and jobs for themselves and neighbors. Moving beyond mainstream analyses that understand these groupsknown as baz (base)as apolitical, criminal gangs, Chelsey Kivland argues that they more accurately express a novel mode of street politics that has resulted from the nexus of liberalizing orders of governance and development with longstanding practices of militant organizing in Haiti.
Kivland demonstrates how the baz exemplifies an innovative and effective platform for intervening in the contemporary political order, while at the same time reproducing gendered and generational hierarchies and precipitating contests of leadership that exacerbate neighborhood insecu
Trade Review
Kivland's fine-grained portraits of her interlocutors are poignant and compelling.
* American Anthropologist *
In Street Sovereigns, Chelsey Kivland draws on years of ethnographic research to reframe the way we think about political agency, sovereignty, and statemaking in Haiti. Kivland masterfully weaves an analysis that is rich in ethnographic detail and sophisticated in theoretical insight. There is a remarkable humility to her analysis; the result is a work of deep and profound respect.
* New West Indian Guide *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Baz
1. Defense
2. History
3. Respect
4. Identity
5. Development
6. Gender
Conclusion: The Spiral
