Description
Book SynopsisThis is not just another book about crisis in Haiti. This book is about what it feels like to live and die with a crisis that never seems to end. It is about the experience of living amid the ruins of ecological devastation, economic collapse, political upheaval, violence, and humanitarian disaster. It is about how catastrophic events and political and economic forces shape the most intimate aspects of everyday life. In this gripping account, anthropologist Greg Beckett offers a stunning ethnographic portrait of ordinary people struggling to survive in Port-au-Prince in the twenty-first century. Drawing on over a decade of research, There Is No More Haiti builds on stories of death and rebirth to powerfully reframe the narrative of a country in crisis. It is essential reading for anyone interested in Haiti today.
Trade Review“Beckett’s deep and thoughtful ethnography effectively demonstrates that disorder is not the absence of order, but is a structured confluence of scripts and externalities that are profoundly felt by people in Haiti.” * LSE Review of Books *
“While the author seeds his book with historical context, his strong narrative style emphasizes individual people... who work in the informal economy and with whom he becomes fast friends while meticulously studying their lives.” * Diplomat & International Canada *
"In
There is No More Haiti:
Life and Death in Port-au-Prince, Greg Beckett combines a decade of ethnographic research with a novelist’s sensitivity to style to create a deeply empathetic and theoretically expansive portrait of urban life in Haiti between 2002 and 2006. . . . Overall, the book is a remarkable contribution to Haitian studies, presented with such accessible and beautiful prose that it is suitable both for experts and undergraduates." * H-Net *
"At once poignant and urgent,
There is No More Haiti develops a slow and intensively empathic ethnography that unfolds . . . through, and despite, a furiously rapid, chaotic historical moment marked by multiple crises." * New West Indian Guide *
"There Is No More Haiti is an essential book for thinking about Haiti today."
* Religious Studies Review *
Table of ContentsList of Photographs
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Forest and the City
2. Looking for Life
3. Making Disorder
4. Between Life and Death
5. Aftermath
Postscript
Notes
References
Index
