Midterm Essay
Structural violence occurs when social forces harm or create a disadvantage for people. Neoliberalism is a key part of causing structural violence. In Haiti, this concept causes the impoverished communities to lack in agency, resort to risky behaviours, and endure the tyranny of the powerful military men. The result of structural violence is an increase in health disparities and untimely deaths among Haitians. In Paul Farmer’s Pathologies of Power, Acephie Joseph and Chouchou Louis are victims of structural violence in Haiti caused by poverty, political oppression, and exoticization of suffering. Acephie died an untimely death due to her contraction of AIDS. A flood that happened in Haiti caused her family to lose their crops …show more content…
After the fall of the Duvaliers, neoliberal policies endowed the military power and money to rule over the people. This began the persecution of many rural Haitians. During Chouchou’s first encounter with the military soldiers, he was brutally beaten under the pretense of offending the president of Haiti because of a comment he made about the conditions of the road. His second arrest, which led to his death, proved that the military men only arrested him because they had the power to do so. In the film End of Poverty Philippe Diaz explains the history of colonialism and how colonizers create their own system of authority and laws to benefit themselves. The same concept can apply to the military in Haiti who created their own laws of what was right or wrong in order to sustain their power over the poor. This political oppression caused Chouchou and those living in similar conditions to oblige to the military brutality, which is certainly a form of structural …show more content…
Farmer notes this concept as “exocitization” of suffering. Because both individuals lived in the rural parts of Haiti, their suffering classifies as “remote” and less affecting. The political oppression through beatings and inferiority among women are left unaware because the gap between the rich and poor is so vast. A similar exocitization of suffering is found in the film Bad Sugar where the Pima and Tohono O’odham Indians in Southern Arizona became victims of structural violence caused by neoliberal policies that privatized the river water for usage among the wealthier communities. These are the simple factors that make the suffering of the poor unnoticed by society because of their
Structural violence occurs when social forces harm or create a disadvantage for people. Neoliberalism is a key part of causing structural violence. In Haiti, this concept causes the impoverished communities to lack in agency, resort to risky behaviours, and endure the tyranny of the powerful military men. The result of structural violence is an increase in health disparities and untimely deaths among Haitians. In Paul Farmer’s Pathologies of Power, Acephie Joseph and Chouchou Louis are victims of structural violence in Haiti caused by poverty, political oppression, and exoticization of suffering. Acephie died an untimely death due to her contraction of AIDS. A flood that happened in Haiti caused her family to lose their crops …show more content…
After the fall of the Duvaliers, neoliberal policies endowed the military power and money to rule over the people. This began the persecution of many rural Haitians. During Chouchou’s first encounter with the military soldiers, he was brutally beaten under the pretense of offending the president of Haiti because of a comment he made about the conditions of the road. His second arrest, which led to his death, proved that the military men only arrested him because they had the power to do so. In the film End of Poverty Philippe Diaz explains the history of colonialism and how colonizers create their own system of authority and laws to benefit themselves. The same concept can apply to the military in Haiti who created their own laws of what was right or wrong in order to sustain their power over the poor. This political oppression caused Chouchou and those living in similar conditions to oblige to the military brutality, which is certainly a form of structural …show more content…
Farmer notes this concept as “exocitization” of suffering. Because both individuals lived in the rural parts of Haiti, their suffering classifies as “remote” and less affecting. The political oppression through beatings and inferiority among women are left unaware because the gap between the rich and poor is so vast. A similar exocitization of suffering is found in the film Bad Sugar where the Pima and Tohono O’odham Indians in Southern Arizona became victims of structural violence caused by neoliberal policies that privatized the river water for usage among the wealthier communities. These are the simple factors that make the suffering of the poor unnoticed by society because of their