Abstract
In Haiti, as in many developing countries, the prospect of enhancing food sovereignty faces serious structural constraints. In particular, trade liberalization has deepened patterns of food import dependence and the export orientation of peasant farming. But there are also powerful cultural dimensions to food import dependence that further problematize the challenge of pro-poor agrarian change. Food cultures are sometimes underappreciated in the food sovereignty literature, which tends to assume that there will be a preference for local or ‘culturally appropriate’ foods. In Haiti, historically ingrained and persistent ideologies of racism magnify class hierarchies and the common perceptions of peasants at the bottom of the social order. This paper explores the intersection of socially constructed ideologies of racism with peasant aspirations for socio-cultural mobility, drawing from 30 qualitative interviews with key informants in government, non-governmental organizations, and social movements, and 108 qualitative interviews and 216 food preference surveys that were conducted in three sites in rural Haiti between November 2010 and July 2013. The core argument is that racially-coded class hierarchies exert a powerful influence on dietary aspirations, as ‘peasant’ foods like millet, root crops and molasses bread are commonly denigrated by Haiti’s poor, including peasants themselves, while ‘elite’ and ‘foreign’ foods like white flour bread, Corn Flakes, and spaghetti get held up as superior. This suggests a need to appreciate how the cultural geographies of food interact with—and can in fact exacerbate—political and economic inequalities, which raises challenging questions for peasant movements and advocates of food sovereignty.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Hereafter referred to as peasant movements.
It is important to appreciate that many Haitian peasants movements and civil society groups are calling for food sovereignty and this includes a push for more traditional agricultural practices and traditional diets. Some of the key groups advocating this include: Kore Pwodiksyon Lokal, Mouvman Peyizan Papaye, Tét Kole Ti Peyizan and PAPDA.
In Haitian Kreyòl, blan is used as both singular and plural (unlike French, les blancs). In English, some writers translate as ‘blan-s’ for plural, while others maintain the blan for both singular and plural, as I have chosen to do.
This is also short hand for Lòt bo dlo, meaning ‘the other side of the water’, and it usually means anywhere overseas but is also sometimes used to refer to the Dominican Republic, so is generally used to mean ‘in foreign lands’.
Based on research in rural Haiti, Schwartz (2008, p, 32) affirms that the “people of the Village consider themselves better than the peasants who live in the countryside”.
Scott (1976, p. 17) found a similar tendency in Malaysia, where despite the fact that cheaper and nutritionally superior diets could replace more expensive ones, only the desperately poor would accept this “cost in taste”.
The quality of food import-dependent diets has been a growing debate among the donor, NGO and civil society communities in Haiti, many of which claim that traditional diets are more nutritionally sounds than food imports (For an overview of these debates see The Economist 2013).
Abbreviations
- IMF:
-
International monetary fund
- KOPAV:
-
Kooperative Prodikte Agrikol Vigilan/The Cooperative of Vigilant Agricultural Producers
- KPL:
-
Kore Pwodiksyon Lokal/Support Local Production
- KSM:
-
Santral Komitè Menonit Dezam/Mennonite Central Committee Desarmes
- MARNDR:
-
Ministère de l’Agriculture des Ressources Naturelles et du Développement Rural/The Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development
- MITPA:
-
Mouvman Inite Ti Peyizan Latibonit/The United Movement of Small Peasants in the Artibonite
- MPP:
-
Mouvman Peyizan Papaye/The Peasant Movement of Papaye
- ODD:
-
Oganizasyon Devlopman Dezam/the Development Organization of Desarmes
- ODVA:
-
L’Organisation de Développement de l’Artibonite/The Organization for the Development of the Artibonite Valley
- PAPDA:
-
La Plateforme Haïtienne de plaidoyer pour un développement alternatif/The Haitian Platform to Advocate Alternative Development
- PIOD:
-
Platfom Inite Des Oganizasyon de Desarmes/The United Platform of Organizations in Desarmes
- Tét Kole:
-
Tét Kole Ti Peyizan/Heads Together Small Peasants
- TNC:
-
Transnational Corporation
- UN:
-
United Nations
- US:
-
United States
- WTO:
-
World Trade Organization
References
Abbott, E. 2011. Haiti: A shattered nation. New York: Overlook.
Akram-Lodhi, H. 2013. Hungry for change: Farmers, food justice and the agrarian question. Halifax: Fernwood.
Allahar, A. 2002. “Race” and class in the making of Caribbean political culture. Transforming Anthropology 10(2): 13–29.
Allahar, A. 2005. Class, “race”, and ethnic nationalism in Trinidad. In Ethnicity, class, and nationalism: Caribbean and extra-Caribbean dimensions, ed. A. Allahar, 227–257. New York: Lexington Books.
Altieri, M. 2009. Agroecology, small farms, and food sovereignty. Monthly Review 61(3): 102–113.
Appadurai, A. 1988. The social life of things: Commodities in cultural perspective. Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology. UK: Cambridge University Press.
Beckford, G. 1972. Persistent poverty: Underdevelopment in plantation economies of the third world. New York: Oxford University Press.
Beckford, G. 1985. Caribbean peasantry in the confines of the plantation mode of production. International Social Science Journal 37(3): 401–414.
Bell, B. 2013. Fault lines: Views across Haiti’s divide. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Bernstein, H. 2010. Class dynamics of agrarian change. Halifax: Fernwood.
Borras, S.M., M. Edelman, and C. Kay (eds.). 2008. Transnational agrarian movements confronting globalization. Oxford: Wiley.
Bové, J., F. Dufour, G. Luneau, and Anna de Casparia. 2001. The world is not for sale: Farmers against junk food. London: Verso.
Bourdieu, P. 1990. In other words. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Bourdieu, P. 1984. Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bourdieu, P. 1980. The logic of practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Dash, M.J. 2001. Culture and customs of Haiti. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Desmarais, A. 2007. La vía campesina: Globalization and the power of peasants. Halifax: Fernwood.
Dupuy, A. 1989. Haiti in the world economy: Class, race, and underdevelopment since 1700. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Edelman, M., T. Weis, A. Baviskar, S.M. Borras Jr, E. Holt-Giménez, D. Kandiyoti, and W. Wolford. 2014. Introduction: Critical perspectives on food sovereignty. Journal of Peasant Studies 41(6): 911–931.
Edmonds, K. 2012. Beyond good intentions: The structural limitations of NGOs in Haiti. Critical Sociology 39(3): 439–452.
Fanon, F. 1963. The wretched of the earth. New York: Grove Press.
Farmer, P. 2005. The uses of Haiti, 3rd ed. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). 2013. The state of food insecurity in the world: The multiple dimensions of food security. Rome: FAO.
Gramsci, A. 1971. Selections from the prison notebooks. New York: International Publishers.
Hallward, P. 2007. Damming the flood: Haiti and the politics of containment. New York: Verso.
Horowitz, M.M. (ed.). 1971. Peoples and cultures of the Caribbean: An anthropological reader. New York: Natural History.
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). 2014. Rural poverty in Haiti. http://www.ruralpovertyportal.org/country/home/tags/haiti. Accessed 4 July 2014.
James, C.L.R. 1964. The black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo revolution. New York: Vintage Books.
Jordan, W.D. 1977. White over black: American attitudes toward the negro, 1550–1812. New York: Norton.
Katz, J. 2013. The big truck that went by: How the world came to save Haiti and left behind a disaster. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Leyburn, J. 1948. The Haitian people. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Lozada Jr, E.P. 2005. Globalized childhood? Kentucky fried chicken in Beijing. In The cultural politics of food and eating: A reader, ed. J.L. Watson, and M.L. Caldwell, 163–179. Oxford: Blackwell.
Marx, K., and F. Engels. 1965. The German ideology. London: Lawrence & Wishart.
McMichael, P. 2013a. Food regimes and agrarian questions. Halifax: Fernwood.
McMichael, P. 2013b. Historicizing food sovereignty: A food regime perspective. Agrarian justice. Food sovereignty: A critical dialogue. Conference Yale University, September 14–15 2013 Paper #13. New Haven, CT: Yale University. http://www.yale.edu/agrarianstudies/foodsovereignty/pprs/13_McMichael_2013.pdf. Accessed 14 July 2014.
Mehta, B. 2009. Notions of identity, diaspora, and gender in Caribbean women’s writing. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Memmi, A. 1965. The colonizer and the colonized. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Miller, D. 2005. Coca-Cola: A black sweet drink from Trinidad. In The cultural politics of food and eating: A reader, ed. J.L. Watson, and M.L. Caldwell, 54–69. Oxford: Blackwell.
Minkoff-Zern, L. 2013. The new American farmer: The agrarian question, food sovereignty and immigrant Mexican growers in the United States. Food sovereignty: A critical dialogue. Conference Yale University, September 14–15 2013 Paper #16. New Haven, CT: Yale University. http://www.yale.edu/agrarianstudies/foodsovereignty/pprs/16_MinkoffZern_2013.pdf. Accessed 14 July 2014.
Mintz, S. 1973. A note on the definition of peasantries. Journal of Peasant Studies 1(1): 91–106.
Mintz, S. 1985. From plantations for peasantries in the Caribbean. In Caribbean contours, ed. S. Mintz, and S. Price, 127–153. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins.
Mintz, S. 1989. Caribbean transformations. New York: Columbia University Press.
Orlove, B. 1997. The allure of the foreign: Imported goods in postcolonial latin America. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Park, C., M. Young, and B. White. 2013. We are not all the same: taking gender seriously in food sovereignty discourse. Food sovereignty: A critical dialogue. Conference Yale University, September 14–15 2013 Paper #17. New Haven, CT: Yale University. http://www.yale.edu/agrarianstudies/foodsovereignty/pprs/17_Park_et_al_2013_APPROVEBIO-1.pdf. Accessed 14 July 2013.
Patel, R. 2010. Food sovereignty. Journal of Peasant Studies 36(3): 663–706.
Podur, J. 2012. Haiti’s new dictatorship: The coup, the earthquake and the UN occupation. London: Pluto Press.
Prou, M.E. 2005. Haiti’s condemnation: History and culture at the crossroads. Latin American Research Review 40(3): 191–201.
Rogozinski, J. 2000. A brief history of the Caribbean: From the Arawak and Carib to the present. New York: Penguin Group.
Schuller, M. 2012. Killing with kindness: Haiti, international aid, and NGOs. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Schuller, M., and P. Morales. 2012. Tectonic shifts: Haiti since the earthquake. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press.
Schwartz, T. 2008. Travesty in Haiti: A true account of christian missions, orphanages, fraud, food aid and drug trafficking. Charleston, SC: BookSurge Publishing.
Scott, J. 1976. The moral economy of the peasant: Rebellion and subsistence in Southeast Asia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Sebrell, W.H., S.C. Smith, E.L. Severinghaus, H. Delva, B.L. Reid, H.S. Olcott, J. Bernadotte, W. Fougere, G. Barron, G. Nicolas, K.W. King, G.L. Brinkman, and C.L. French. 1959. Appraisal of nutrition in Haiti. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 7(538): 584.
Smith, J. 1998. Answering the Lanbi: Socio-political discourses and collective initiatives of the Haitian peasantry. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology. Chapel Hill, NC. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Smucker, G. 1984. The social character of religion in rural Haiti. In Haiti-today and tomorrow: An interdisciplinary study, ed. C. Foster, and A. Valdman, 35–56. New York: University Press of America.
Sperling, L., et al. 2010. Seed system security assessment: Haiti. Washington, DC: USDAID. http://www.crsprogramquality.org/storage/pubs/agenv/Haiti_Seed_System_Security_Assessment.pdf. Accessed 15 July 2014.
Steckley, M., and Y. Shamsie. 2015. Manufacturing corporate landscapes: The case of agrarian displacement and food (in)security in Haiti. Third World Quarterly 36(1): 179–197.
Taft-Morales, M., and D. Drummer. 2007. Haiti’s development needs and a statistical overview of conditions of poverty. Congressional Research Service Report for Congress. Washington, DC: CRS. http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PCAAB593.pdf. Accessed 14 July 2014.
The Economist. 2013. Feeding Haiti a new menu: The government tries to load up the plates of the poorest people in the Americas. June 22. http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21579875-government-tries-load-up-plates-poorest-people-americas-new-menu. Accessed 24 Jan 2015.
Trouillot, M.R. 1994. Haiti’s nightmare and the lessons of history. NACLA Report on the Americas 27(4): 46–53.
Trouillot, M.R. 1990. State against nation: The origins and legacies of Duvalierism. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Valdman, A. 1984. The linguistic situation of Haiti. In Haiti-today and tomorrow: An interdisciplinary study, ed. C. Foster, and A. Valdman, 77–100. New York: University Press of America.
Van der Ploeg, J.D. 2009. The new peasantries: Struggles for autonomy and sustainability in an era of empire and globalization. London: Earthscan.
Vía Campesina. 2000. Declaration of the International Meeting of the Landless in San Pedro Sula. Honduras.
Weis, T. 2007. The global food economy: The battle for the future of farming. New York: Zed Books.
Weis, T. 2013. The ecological hoofprint: The global burden of industrial livestock. New York: Zed Books.
Wittman, H., A.A. Desmarais, and N. Wiebe. 2010. Food sovereignty: Reconnecting food, nature and community. Oakland, CA: Food First Books.
Wilentz, A. 2013. Farewell, fred voodoo: A letter from Haiti. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank Nixon Boumba and Joshua Steckley who highlighted some of the pitfalls of race research in Haiti early on, and whose critical perspectives and intellectual guidance during field research were immeasurably helpful. I also want to acknowledge my many intellectual debts to Tony Weis, whose editorial insights and astute revisions helped transform this into a significantly better article, but more importantly I am thankful for his mentorship and his persistent encouragement, without which I am certain this paper would never have come to fruition. I am also thankful to the two anonymous reviewers of this paper and to the editor, who provided critical and insightful comments and suggestions. The research that informed this paper was made possible through support from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Steckley, M. Eating up the social ladder: the problem of dietary aspirations for food sovereignty. Agric Hum Values 33, 549–562 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-015-9622-y
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-015-9622-y