The (State) University of Haiti: Toward a Place‐Based Understanding of Kriz

Abstract

This article examines the historical, structural, and embodied aspects of the 2016–2018 crisis at the Université d’État d'Haïti (State University of Haiti, UEH) to contextualize and disrupt a conventional notion of “Haitian perpetual crisis.” The article first discusses various approaches to the ongoing crises in Haiti. It specifically highlights Beckett's conceptualization of kriz (embodied crisis) and uses articulation and embodied spaces to forward a place‐based understanding of kriz. It next examines transnational processes, which articulate UEH as a “crisis factory” by constituting it as a state‐nonstate entity located in a yellow zone (meaning, a site of insecurity). The embodied space thus creates affective uncertainty for individuals. In the final section, the article uses a composite narrative to retell the story of the UEH crisis from 2016 to 2018. It also draws on fieldwork at three UEH faculties (schools) to trace kriz through the affective experiences and embodied practices of UEH students, professors, and administrators. This article argues that the UEH crisis was a manifestation of the so‐called crisis factory articulation that geographically situated bodies incorporated and reified through a habitus of improvisation. It concludes that this improvisation may also provide a way out of future crises—to the extent that improvisers can coalesce around a shared vision of the future that can drive systemic change.

“There Is a Real Generational Problem in This Country”: Haitian Intellectual Exile and Academic Diaspora Returns

“…In response to their internal exile, various members of jenerasyon 86 developed UEH into their domain, even as the public university deteriorated under neoliberal logics of commercialization, marketization, and state deregulation (see also Dubuisson 2022). As these logics gained traction in Haiti in the late 1990s, investments in public higher education began dwindling, even as the demands for higher education increased among Haiti's popular classes (INURED 2010; Louis 2021).…”

“…The jenn dokt e, returning to assist the transformation of public higher education, found the top ranks of UEH still being occupied by members of jenerasyon 86. These younger returnees would consequently enter a power struggle with jenerasyon 86 for leadership of UEH, arguing that this older generation lacked credentials and impeded institutional change by holding on to the reins of power (Dubuisson 2022). But given a context where there was "no retirement culture," there could be no apparent continuum between jenerasyon 86 and jenn dokt e.…”