Original Research: My original research project was to do a study of Haitian culture isolating the information that is pertinent to the

e topic and recording only that. For my research, I read Paul Farmers Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor, the Library of Congress - Country Study: Haiti, and a general study of the relation between Culture and Social Structures I found in an internet archive. I also read lots of articles for historical context and information. I isolated several key aspects of Haitian culture that seem to account for the structural violence. Katherine Boos book, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, explains the life of the poor in India. I used the information in this book to find similarities in the treatment of the poor in a stratified society, and to gain a vantage point into the horrors billions of people in the world live through daily. I considered this book in the formation of my overall opinion: Haitian cultural practices, and the abuse of them by the upper class, are the root cause of structural violence. An excerpt from my essay: Although the harness of French colonization was shaken off, and its oppression ended, it left its permanent mark on Haitian culture: social stratification. Because the entire indigenous population of Haiti was wiped out by the beginning of the seventeenth century, the population - and hence cultural development was entirely a product of French colonists slaveholding (Haiti). Deeply rooted in Haitian culture, and apparent to this day despite official laws, lies the social hierarchy. The upper class is characterized by knowledge of French, and light skin (Haiti). The class in which a Haitian is located determines his life path. The main way a lower class man might gain some affluence was to join the military, empower the corruption more. Otherwise, peasants were so poor that there existed strong competition amongst the lower class to get ahead. Jobs and opportunities were sought out at every chance, and everyone was competing for them. Instead of displaying class consciousness and working together to better their situation, they fought amongst themselves. There existed no unified resentment towards the upper class (A Country Study: Haiti). The higher peasants owned more land, and leased it out to lower ones, who had to grow cash crops. Since some of the peasants small amount of land had to be devoted to cash crops, they couldnt grow enough food to be self-sufficient (A Country Study: Haiti). Another place in Haitian culture where the social stratification shines through is in the languages spoken. Creole and French are the two main languages spoken in Haiti, and although they share similarities, they are not mutually comprehensible. This complicated the way the upper and lower class exchanged information. The Haitian government is based on Napoleonic Code, which sets everyone equal regardless of religion and status, the Creole-speaking lower class was indeed deemed irrelevant. Haitian activities in politics, government, and intellectual life were mainly in French (A Country Study: Haiti). The problem impeding progress for the lower class was two-fold: the people were too busy competing to stand together; and even if they could they would be excluded from public proceedings by the language barrier. Click Here for the entire body text of the essay. Click Here to return to the Facebook homepage for the essay.