ABSTRACT
The 2010 earthquake in Haiti was caused by a complex interplay of social, economic, cultural, political, global, historic, and physical-natural forces. Discursive framing of Haiti as a horrific, catastrophic, and disease-ridden setting reflect deeply held frames of the country dating back to colonial times. Such frames invalidate human agency and national sovereignty and unleash disaster interventions that privilege outsider expertise. Haiti’s risk and vulnerability has progressed through history, and the loss of memory about slavery, colonialism, as well as more recent neoliberal economic policies that have rendered the Haitian state vulnerable, serve to perpetuate the disaster industrial complex and its technical, contextually and culturally insensitive, ahistorical solutions, strengthening power of global elites. The practice of counter-memory can assist in the disruption of the hegemony of neoliberal disaster recovery, such as the discourse of the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus and other resistant discourse actors, which are ultimately vital to a people’s disaster prevention and recovery.
