(I)mmobility and the pandemic in Haitian landscapes

Abstract

The mobility is constitutive of the Haitian landscapes, in the national territory and in the diaspora. For decades, a large part of the population has been moving on local, national and transnational scales to seek a better life and to contribute to the economic and emotional care of the people who stay. This text offers an overview of the dramatic effects produced by the new coronavirus on the Haitian mobility. Voluntary and compulsory returns (as in the case of deportations from the United States), a significant decrease in the sending of cash remittances, restrictions on trade and on the back and forth between the countryside and the city, and between the Haitian capital and commercial centers outside the national territory (especially in the Dominican Republic and North America), are some of the most notable consequences of the restrictions on mobility caused by the pandemic. The article shows the economic and social implications, and the suffering imposed by immobility, despite the fact that the epidemiological effects of SARS-CoV-2 in Haiti have so far been far behind the dramatic predictions made at the beginning of the pandemic.

Keywords:
COVID-19; Haiti; mobility; immobility and life