Tactical Partnerships in an Awkward Dance to Commodify Identities within Haiti's Transnational Space

Abstract

This article analyzes the outcomes of a fortuitous gathering that brought together three groups of Haitians of different nationalities and of very distinctive financial circumstances at a festival to celebrate the patron saint of Ré, a small rural community located in Haiti's South Department. It shows the ways in which, Ré, although poor, neglected, and isolated, became, during that relatively brief period, the site of an encounter that transformed the hamlet into a microcosmic representation of Haiti's transnational space and a nodal point of transnational social relations where individuals who lived and evolved in unequal social environments, in Haiti and abroad, built upon their experiences, needs, and aspirations to benefit from that chance meeting in many different ways, but most especially, to express their different and contrastive assessments of their homeland's realities and their visions for its future.