Women, Sabotaj, and Underground Food Economies in Haiti
Fieldwork in Jacmel with three women who cook and sell meals on the street anchors this account of how many Haitians actually eat. Beasley began visiting in 2005 and returned more than fifteen times, walking to market at five in the morning, cooking, and selling alongside T-Maude, Mayrose and Nancy. Their stands are unlicensed and untaxed, and they feed more people more reliably than government agencies or international relief. The argument links that dependence to decades of policy: cheap imported American rice, the killing off of the Creole pig, and structural adjustment, which together hollowed out Haitian farming and set the stage for the 2008 price riots. The women's answer is sabotaj, a web of rotating credit collectives and barter arrangements held together by a person's word and kept deliberately quiet, since visible success draws official attention and neighbourly envy. Beasley reads that secrecy as a source of standing for women within a patriarchal order.
beasley, M. M. (2012). Women, Sabotaj, and Underground Food Economies in Haiti. Gastronomica, 12(2), 33-44.