Dry land drowning or rip current survival? Haitians without status in the Bahamas

Abstract

Recent scholarship contends that collective action emerges when human rights are violated. This article investigates why Haitians without status in the Bahamas have yet to mobilize collectively for basic rights and protections, despite discrimination and exploitation. The article examines two analogies to explain their immobilization. The analogy of dry land drowning utilizes Goffman's Stigma (1963) framework to describe how social prejudice hinders the ability of Haitians without status to act, while the analogy of rip current survival explains how institutional drawbacks pull Haitians without status away from movement activity through a political process analysis. The article contends that both interpretations are inadequate when taken alone and provides suggestions for future research into Bahamian-Haitian relations.

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