Who Owns Haiti? People, Power, and Sovereignty.

• Author: Ukelina, Bekeh Utietiang
• Position: LATIN AMERICA - Book review

Maguire, Robert, and Scott Freeman, eds. Who Owns Haiti?: People, Power, and Sovereignty. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2017.

How did a state that in 1791 embodied the dreams and hopes of many enslaved Africans in the New World become a charity case synonymous with social pathologies such as poverty, violence, corruption, disease, and hunger? Most of the conventional narratives blame Haitians and their leaders for these predicaments. In Who Owns Haiti?: People, Power, and Sovereignty, the authors featured in this volume challenge these narratives and place the blame on the external actors who have persistently interfered in Haitian affairs. The book argues that since the Haitian revolution, Haiti has been a contested space and Haiti's ownership "has continually been a matter of struggle and flux" (3).

The ten essays in the book, which cover the period from 2004 to 2014, emerged from a symposium held at George Washington University to answer the question posed in the book's title. This decade is significant because in addition to the...