Disasters, Vulnerability, and Narratives: Writing Haiti’s Futures, by Kasia Mika

摘要

Published by the Routledge Studies in Hazards, Disaster Risk and Climate Change, Disasters, Vulnerability, and Narratives analyzes seven literary works, both fictional and biographical, that narrate, represent, and grapple with the 2010 earthquake and subsequent recovery in Haiti. It argues that “the January disaster might have flattened the city but it did not level social inequalities and compound vulnerabilities which directly contributed to the scale of this processual disaster and its unfolding aftermath” (p. 13). Kasia Mika’s literary analysis incorporates the voices of authors, a poet-writer,first-time writers, a political observer, a Christian evangelical charity organization worker, and young adult novelists. She proposes that unlike short-term, sensational media accounts, novels and other literary works give readers a more complex sense and taste of the world and disaster experiences. The book makes three central arguments that serve as a foundation for countering dominant, and oft-disempowering, discourses of Haiti and the 2010 earthquake. First, the disaster of 2010 was not a one-time, singular event but indeed a process, making it imperative to bring the colonial historic context and slow progression of risk and systemic vulnerability to the fore. Second, there is no one, homogeneous account and lived experience of the 2010 disaster (or any disaster). And third, new, empowering narratives of Haiti exist and are much needed.