Transnational Lives and National Identities: The Identity Politics of Haitian Immigrants 1

Abstract

This chapter looks at the transnational processes that unite Haitians living within the territorial boundaries of Haiti with its "diaspora." It explores the ways in which different geographical and social locations of the actors are making more salient and are transforming the contradictions and contestation that divide the Haitian population. The constituents of the transnational nationstate may share social space but the terrain of this emerging political entity has many internal divides. The chapter deals with some reflections on the way in which the conceptualization and practices of the newly emerging transnational nation-state, as well as its internal contradictions, reflect Haiti's place in the contemporary global capitalist economy. Haiti is an important location in which to study deterritorialized nation-state building and to problematize the projection of national unity that lies within this form and every form of nation-state building. In New York, Haitian immigrants find themselves settling in a city that allocates to immigrants distinctive "ethnic identities."

Cite this

Nina Glick Schiller (2017). Transnational Lives and National Identities: The Identity Politics of Haitian Immigrants 1. Routledge eBooks. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351301244-5

@article{glick2017transnational,
  title  = {Transnational Lives and National Identities: The Identity Politics of Haitian Immigrants 1},
  author = {Schiller, Nina Glick},
  year   = {2017},
  journal = {Routledge eBooks},
  doi    = {10.4324/9781351301244-5}
}