Structural Violence In Haiti

“A disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury.”- Oxford Dictionary. That is what a disease is defined as, a definition that is widely accepted in society today. However, there is a level of complexity and intricacy related to disease, and health issues in general, that this Oxford Dictionary definition fails to recognize. Disease is far more than “a disorder” and there is more behind disease than “specific symptoms.” If one considers all the angles that can be looked at when considering disease, like physical, mental, and emotional, on both the ill and those in their life, that one sentence …show more content…
According to An Anthropology of Structural Violence, structural violence is defined as “violence exerted systematically—that is, indirectly—by everyone who belongs to a certain social order” (Farmer 2001, 307). To put in simpler terms, structural violence is synonymous with oppression. Structural violence is the oppression that a class of people receive. The author, Paul Farmer, summarizes and makes his claim about structural violence by putting it in the context of the struggles that Haiti faces. Farmer starts by introducing a Haitian female, Anite, who has a malignant cyst that has overtaken most of her breast. He then constructs his argument by discussing the poor medical advancements in Haiti, the tremendous number of Haitians with tuberculosis and HIV, and the failure to diagnosis Anite with metastatic breast cancer. All of which is connected to the bigger issue of structural violence of Haiti. Looking back at history, Haiti became the first free Caribbean nation, however along with that Haiti also became overwhelmed with an obscene amount of debt. Along with that debt, Haiti was suddenly in a position where they couldn’t receive any aid from the United States or any other nation so that they can try to industrialize and rebuild its economy. “Racism and related sentiments—disregard, even hatred, for the poor—underlie the current lack of resolve to address these and other problems squarely” (Farmer 2001, 317). This is the structural violence that Haiti is facing. They are victim to a history of war and debt which leads to a perpetual cycle where they are unable to receive aid from more advanced