Tag: Haiti

Anthro in the news 1/14/13

• The Paul Farmer effect in Haiti three years after the earthquake

Paul Farmer and Partners in Health are making a difference, according to an article in The Tampa Bay Times.

Paul Farmer in Haiti
Paul Farmer before the cornerstone ceremony in 2010 for the teaching hospital in Mirebalais, Haiti/Daniel Wallace, Tampa Bay Times, 2010
“Of the billions of dollars nations and aid agencies pledged for earthquake recovery, too much still sits in bank accounts or exists only as budgetary line items. Too many earthquake victims still live under tarps. Too few live in solid homes. Very little has been done to bring lasting benefit to the people of Haiti. It’s enough to make a travesty of former President Bill Clinton’s famous pledge to ‘build back better.’ It’s enough to make anyone cynical about the possibility that charity can help create a strong and independent country. That’s why you might want to click on pih.org, the website of Partners in Health, co-founded by Hernando High School grad — and 2008 Great Brooksvillian — Paul Farmer. Its main post-earthquake project, a new teaching hospital in Mirebalais, 38 miles northeast of Port-au-Prince, was completed in October.”

Farmer’s work in Haiti is also mentioned in GlobalPost and The Globe and Mail (Canada).

• Aid shortcomings to Haiti driven by national interests

An article in The Gazette (Montreal) offers a generally negative view of the effectiveness of aid to post-earthquake Haiti and points out that critics of aid to Haiti are quick to cite the apparent failures of aid as a rationale for curtailing further aid.

The article mentions the work of Mark Schuller, professor of anthropology at Northern Illinois University: “In his recently released book Killing with Kindness, author Mark Schuller … said Haiti’s earthquake highlights that there has to be a human rights-based approach to development, rather than one based on national interest.”

Schuller has written: “The earthquake is exposing the weaknesses in the system of international aid … Since the quake, the general public and the mainstream media are thinking and talking about NGOs in a more realistic, critical light.”

Continue reading “Anthro in the news 1/14/13” →

IGIS faculty affiliate Bob Maguire discusses Haiti on NPR

Bob Maguire, professor of the practice of international affairs and director of the Latin American and Hemispheric Studies Program at the Elliott School of International Affairs, discussed Haiti three years after the earthquake on WBEZ 91.5 Chicago’s Worldview.

Maguire is also a faculty affiliate in the Elliott School’s Institute of Global and International Studies and its newly forming Western Hemisphere Research and Policy Group.

 

Killing with kindness: readings in the NYC area

Mark Schuller, assistant professor of Anthropology and NGO Leadership Development at Northern Illinois University and affiliate at the Faculté d’Ethnologie, l’Université d’État d’Haïti, is the author, most recently, of Killing With Kindness: Haiti, International Aid, and NGOs (Rutgers, 2012). He will be doing readings from his book at the following locations in early November:

  • Sunday, November 4, 2012 – 5:00pm – Grenadier Books / Haïti Liberté, 1583 Albany Avenue, Brooklyn

Book signing with Paul Farmer

When: Monday, September 12, 9:00am – 11:00am
Where: Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade Center Amphitheater
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20004

Dr. Jonathan LaPook, medical correspondent for the CBS Evening News, will interview Dr. Paul Farmer at Hooks Book.

A portion of the event’s proceeds will be donated to Partners In Health, the non-profit organization that provides a preferential option for the poor in health care. Additional copies of Haiti After the Earthquake will be available for purchase. Dr. Farmer will be signing books at the event.

Tickets available now and at the door. Click here to purchase tickets. This event is open to the public. All ticket holders must present picture ID when they enter the building. For more information, click here.

Anthropology and Japan’s triple disaster

Aerial of damage to Wakuya, Japan. Flickr/U.S. Navy.
Aerial of damage to Wakuya, Japan. Flickr/U.S. Navy.

The three-way hit from the major earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown has created a situation beyond what even the most prepared country could manage. Entire villages were swept into the massive wave. Hundreds of bodies are now washing back to the shore. Nuclear plants are melting down. People are evacauting their home areas by the thousands to avoid radiation exposure.

Three questions for anthropologists:

  1. What do anthropologists have to say about the massive loss of lives from so-called natural disaster? The most obvious recent example is Haiti after the earthquake of January 2010. Readers, please share references and insights.
  2. What do anthropologists know about life in a nuclear melt-down zone? Read this: Adriana Petryna‘s amazing study, Life Exposed: Biological Citizens after Chernobyl. Her study of the making of “biological citizens” has much relevance to northern Japan. Can readers please offer other sources of knowledge?
  3. What do anthropologists know about people’s perceptions of risk and security around the world? Many anthropologists are addressing these important questions. The course syllabus for a graduate seminar I taught in spring 2009 on Culture, Risk and Security (embedded below) includes some ideas for reading and further thought.

This university-based blogger sends her heartfelt wishes to everyone in Japan and to those in any way related to people in the affected regions.

Anthropology 222 course syllabushttp://www.scribd.com/embeds/50953048/content?start_page=1&view_mode=list(function() { var scribd = document.createElement(“script”); scribd.type = “text/javascript”; scribd.async = true; scribd.src = “/javascripts/embed_code/inject.js?1300351301”; var s = document.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(scribd, s); })();

Rescheduled: two Haiti events at GW

NOTE: These two events have been cancelled.

Gina Athena Ulysse, Wesleyan University Associate Professor of Anthropology, African Studies, Environmental Studies, and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Inaugural Fellow in the College of the Environment will be holding two events at GW – a workshop at 3pm and a performance at 6:30pm. See below for details.

Photo courtesy of Gina Ulysse
Photo courtesy of Gina Ulysse

Alter(ed)natives

When: Friday, March 4, 3 pm – 4 pm
Where: 1957 E Street NW, 6th floor, Lindner Family Commons
The Elliott School of International Affairs
The George Washington University

Free and open to the public. Please RSVP here

Professor Ulysse explores the border zones between ethnography and performance, and discusses as she puts it, “why we need the visceral in the structural” to participate in the decolonizing project of accessing and reclaiming a full subject.

Because When God is Too Busy: Haiti, Me and THE WORLD

When: Friday, March 4, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Where: 1957 E Street NW, 6th floor, Lindner Family Commons
The Elliott School of International Affairs
The George Washington University

Free and open to the public. Please RSVP here

Professor Ulysse’s training as a cultural anthropologist informs this dramatic monologue about how Haiti’s past occupies its present. She weaves history, personal narrative, theory, and statistics in spoken-word with Vodou chants to reflect and deconstruct childhood memories, social (in)justice, spirituality, and the dehumanization of Haitians. Professor Ulysse is currently working on a montage ethnography, C’est Mon Devoir (It is My Duty): Stories of Civic Engagement, Urban Degradation and the Earthquake in Haiti.

These events are sponsored by the CIGA Seminar Series, the Global Gender Initiative, and the University Seminar in Performance

Two upcoming events of interest at GW

NOTE: These two events have been rescheduled for Friday, March 4. The workshop will be at 3pm and the performance will be at 6:30pm in the same location.

Gina Athena Ulysse, Wesleyan University Associate Professor of Anthropology, African Studies, Environmental Studies, and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Inaugural Fellow in the College of the Environment will be holding two events at GW – a workshop in the morning followed by a presentation in the evening. See below for details.

Because When God is Too Busy: Haiti, Me and THE WORLD

Photo courtesy of Gina Ulysse
Photo courtesy of Gina Ulysse

When: Friday, January 28, 5 – 6 pm
Where: 1957 E Street NW, 6th floor, Lindner Family Commons
The Elliott School of International Affairs
The George Washington University

Free and open to the public. Please RSVP here

Professor Ulysse’s training as a cultural anthropologist informs this dramatic monologue about how Haiti’s past occupies its present. She weaves history, personal narrative, theory, and statistics in spoken-word with Vodou chants to reflect and deconstruct childhood memories, social (in)justice, spirituality, and the dehumanization of Haitians. Professor Ulysse is currently working on a montage ethnography, C’est Mon Devoir (It is My Duty): Stories of Civic Engagement, Urban Degradation and the Earthquake in Haiti.

Alter(ed)natives

When: Friday, January 28, 11:00am – 12:30pm
Where: 1957 E Street NW, 6th floor, Lindner Family Commons
The Elliott School of International Affairs
The George Washington University

Free and open to the public. Please RSVP here

Professor Ulysse explores the border zones between ethnography and performance, and discusses as she puts it, “why we need the visceral in the structural” to participate in the decolonizing project of accessing and reclaiming a full subject.

Both of these events are sponsored by the CIGA Seminar Series, part of the Elliott School of International Affairs and its Institute of Global and International Studies

New book on Haiti by professor Erica James

Erica James, associate professor of anthropology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who spoke on a panel I moderated last January, has generously allowed AnthropologyWorks to post the preface to her important, new book, Democratic Insecurities: Violence, Trauma, and Intervention in Haiti (University of California Press).

Preface to “Democratic Insecurities: Violence, Trauma, and Intervention in Haiti” by Erica James (MIT): Cal… http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=46742018&access_key=key-1zluwxau9z7z3vmku311&page=1&viewMode=list

Upcoming panel to explore situation in Haiti one year after the quake

This event next week might be of interest to readers in DC:

Haiti, One Year On: Realizing Country Ownership in a Fragile State

Tuesday, January 11, 2011
3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
B-340 Rayburn House Office Building, 45 Independence Ave SW Washington, DC

Speakers will include:

  • Angela Bruce Raeburn, Senior Policy Advisor for Humanitarian Response, Oxfam America, Moderator
  • Robert Maguire, Chair, Haiti Working Group, U.S. Institute of Peace, Associate Professor of International Affairs, Trinity Washington University, Discussant
  • Thomas C. Adams, Special Coordinator to Haiti, U.S. State Department, Discussant
  • Russell Porter, Director, USAID Haiti Task Force, Discussant
  • Raymond C. Offenheiser, President, Oxfam America, Discussant

The distinguished panelists will discuss the reality of the situation in Haiti, examine lessons learned from the past year, and explore how to improve country ownership as we move forward towards a stable and productive Haiti.  The discussion will focus on how U.S. foreign aid to Haiti is being delivered while seeking ways of strengthening the efficacy of future U.S. assistance.

The roundtable will include ample time for questions from the audience and will be followed by a reception.

To RSVP for the briefing, or for more information, please contact Gilda Charles or Maria Mahler-Haug.