Community after all? An inside perspective on encampment in Haiti

Abstract

This article demonstrates the limits of the camp as a place to live from the point of view of displaced people: what is a camp for those who live inside? Why not envisage the camps as central place, where life is going on with, or without, the humanitarian help? It studies the differences between two different settlements created after the 2010 earthquake. One has been formally set up by non-governmental organizations but has ended up being abandoned by the humanitarian organizations due to troubles with the inhabitants. The other is a spontaneous settlement that has absorbed populations from other camps, and is today in a working condition organized informally by inhabitants themselves. In the first case, experiences of community and belonging of the post-earthquake population seems have been frustrated; in the second case, these sentiments could be an explanation of the informal forward projection. Thus, they pass from a liminal statement to a central perception. The monographic approach permits understanding the dynamics and the identitarian background of the installation in the camps.