Livelihoods in the Balance: Haitians, Haitian-Dominicans and Precarious Work in the Dominican Republic
Open Access
- Author:
- Smith, Effie
- Graduate Program:
- Rural Sociology
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- June 04, 2020
- Committee Members:
- Kathleen J D Sexsmith, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Leif Jensen, Committee Member
Rebecca Tarlau, Committee Member
Kathryn Jo Brasier, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- Dominican Republic
Haiti
Migrant Workers
Precarious Work
Precarious Livelihoods
Batey - Abstract:
- Haitian immigrants and their Dominican-born descendants (Haitian-Dominicans) occupy some of the lowest-paying, most precarious rungs of work in the Dominican Republic. Coupled with severe ethno-racial and social discrimination and political barriers to attaining regularized legal status and legal rights, Haitians and Haitian-Dominicans experience an overarching sense of precarity which keeps them in these insecure working situations. Using an intersectional analysis of precarious work, this thesis examines how gender, ethnicity and race, and legal status and precarious employment interact with and cocreate one another creating a general sense of precarity for Haitians and Haitian-Dominicans in the Dominican Republic. It shows how Haitians and Haitian-Dominicans living in rural communities called bateyes adapt to precarious circumstances and patch together sources of employment and income to create a livelihood. Haitian migrant workers historically arrived in the Dominican Republic as guest workers on Dominican sugarcane plantations and became the principal agricultural labor force in the country over the course of the 20th century. A growth of income opportunities for Haitians and Haitian-Dominicans in urban areas in the Dominican Republic since the privatization of the sugar industry in 1998 has led to a shift in migration patterns from rural areas to urban centers (Silié et al, 2002; Landry, 2013). However, despite the lack of high-paying, secure jobs in rural bateyes, many residents remain. Much of the literature on Haitian and Haitian-Dominican populations since this time has focused on the livelihoods of urban-dwelling residents. This thesis helps to fill this gap in research by identifying the livelihood opportunities still available for rural batey residents and further examines how livelihood opportunities for Haitians and Haitian-Dominicans in rural areas are shaped by the intersection of gender, ethnicity and race, and legal status. This thesis finds that there is a high level of informality in the kinds of income-earning activities in which batey residents engage and that even seemingly stable jobs are often fraught with insecurity. It further shows how the effects of precarious work have emotional implications that impact not just workers, but also their family members, creating a kind of second-hand precarity. Within these livelihood trends, Haitian migrants and women are often relegated to low-waged, irregular and informal forms of work within the batey due to ethnic discrimination, fears of deportation, and traditional conceptions of men’s and women’s labor roles. Ultimately, this thesis demonstrates how aspects of individual identity interact and complicate experiences of precarity, by influencing not only the kind of work one attains, but also if and how they attain it, and, furthermore, how they adapt to insecure circumstances. It proposes a new framework of precarious livelihoods to examine how workers peddle together multiple sources of income in order to make ends meet while navigating precarious living situations.