Silver Medal Lecture
By most accounts, Haiti today is at a political impasse, with no elected government and large portions of the country—including 80% of the capital city—under the de facto control of armed gangs. But what do we mean by impasse and how did this situation come about?
Moving beyond simple explanations like ‘state failure’ or international calls for armed intervention, Beckett seeks to reframe the discussion around politics as it is lived in Port-au-Prince. How do residents of the city experience political crisis? What are the ordinary ways that the exceptional condition of political impasse takes? How do people navigate the cascading array of blockages they face on a daily basis, from roadblocks and blackouts to the prevailing sense of stuckness that arises from the seemingly endless political crisis? Drawing on insights from the anthropology of mobility, Beckett suggests we can understand the current situation in Port-au-Prince through the lens of what he calls political logistics.
Reception to follow in HH 373
About the Speaker
Greg Beckett is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Western University. He has written extensively on Haitian politics, society, and history, with a focus on the lived experience of crisis and disaster in Port-au-Prince. He is the author of There Is No More Haiti: Between Life and Death in Port-au-Prince (2019, University of California Press) and co-editor of Trouillot Remixed: The Michel-Rolph Trouillot Reader (2021, Duke University Press).
Registration
Location Information
200 University Avenue West
Room 1102
Waterloo, ON, CA N2L 3G1
