The Danger of the Extended Hand: A Critique of Humanitarian Aid in Makenzy Orcel’s 'L’Ombre Animale'
Since the 2010 earthquake that destroyed Port-au-Prince, there have been a number of inquiries detailing the material failures of the multi-national humanitarian aid response. Studies have focused on the misuse of funds by large international organizations, and they have attempted to trace the donat...
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Stockholm University Press
2018
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:da7d1357f51a4ff688c361516a8cbb8e 2023-05-15T17:34:21+02:00 The Danger of the Extended Hand: A Critique of Humanitarian Aid in Makenzy Orcel’s 'L’Ombre Animale' Jocelyn Sutton Franklin 2018-11-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.16993/karib.42 https://doaj.org/article/da7d1357f51a4ff688c361516a8cbb8e EN FR eng fre Stockholm University Press https://www.karib.no/articles/42 https://doaj.org/toc/1894-8421 https://doaj.org/toc/2387-6743 1894-8421 2387-6743 doi:10.16993/karib.42 https://doaj.org/article/da7d1357f51a4ff688c361516a8cbb8e Karib, Vol 4, Iss 1 (2018) foreign aid foreign development Haiti Haitian exceptionalism Haitian resilience white savior narrative marvelous realism History of scholarship and learning. The humanities AZ20-999 article 2018 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.16993/karib.42 2022-12-30T22:10:01Z Since the 2010 earthquake that destroyed Port-au-Prince, there have been a number of inquiries detailing the material failures of the multi-national humanitarian aid response. Studies have focused on the misuse of funds by large international organizations, and they have attempted to trace the donations made by individuals and governments alike. Still others indicate the neocolonial manner in which Haitians were themselves cut out of negotiations regarding 'how' their nation should be rebuilt. Such criticisms are of particular interest, given the 40,000 Haitians still living under tarps more than eight years after the quake. Despite the documented disappointments of the post-earthquake aid initiative, North Atlantic aid workers and organizations enjoy a privileged position in the collective unconscious of the global North. As is becoming increasingly clear, “Aid” often does more harm than good, whether due to oversight, greed, or the momentum of the global wealth and power disparity. Makenzy Orcel’s 2016 novel 'L’Ombre animale' represents foreign development workers—not as the long-awaited rescuers of Haiti—but as wolves come to feed off the precarity and vulnerability of a rural Haitian village. In this article, I maintain that, through the historically and mythologically salient figure of the wolf, Orcel systematically questions the moral capital attributed to the white savior. Article in Journal/Newspaper North Atlantic Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Karib – Nordic Journal for Caribbean Studies 4 1 |
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Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
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ftdoajarticles |
language |
English French |
topic |
foreign aid foreign development Haiti Haitian exceptionalism Haitian resilience white savior narrative marvelous realism History of scholarship and learning. The humanities AZ20-999 |
spellingShingle |
foreign aid foreign development Haiti Haitian exceptionalism Haitian resilience white savior narrative marvelous realism History of scholarship and learning. The humanities AZ20-999 Jocelyn Sutton Franklin The Danger of the Extended Hand: A Critique of Humanitarian Aid in Makenzy Orcel’s 'L’Ombre Animale' |
topic_facet |
foreign aid foreign development Haiti Haitian exceptionalism Haitian resilience white savior narrative marvelous realism History of scholarship and learning. The humanities AZ20-999 |
description |
Since the 2010 earthquake that destroyed Port-au-Prince, there have been a number of inquiries detailing the material failures of the multi-national humanitarian aid response. Studies have focused on the misuse of funds by large international organizations, and they have attempted to trace the donations made by individuals and governments alike. Still others indicate the neocolonial manner in which Haitians were themselves cut out of negotiations regarding 'how' their nation should be rebuilt. Such criticisms are of particular interest, given the 40,000 Haitians still living under tarps more than eight years after the quake. Despite the documented disappointments of the post-earthquake aid initiative, North Atlantic aid workers and organizations enjoy a privileged position in the collective unconscious of the global North. As is becoming increasingly clear, “Aid” often does more harm than good, whether due to oversight, greed, or the momentum of the global wealth and power disparity. Makenzy Orcel’s 2016 novel 'L’Ombre animale' represents foreign development workers—not as the long-awaited rescuers of Haiti—but as wolves come to feed off the precarity and vulnerability of a rural Haitian village. In this article, I maintain that, through the historically and mythologically salient figure of the wolf, Orcel systematically questions the moral capital attributed to the white savior. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Jocelyn Sutton Franklin |
author_facet |
Jocelyn Sutton Franklin |
author_sort |
Jocelyn Sutton Franklin |
title |
The Danger of the Extended Hand: A Critique of Humanitarian Aid in Makenzy Orcel’s 'L’Ombre Animale' |
title_short |
The Danger of the Extended Hand: A Critique of Humanitarian Aid in Makenzy Orcel’s 'L’Ombre Animale' |
title_full |
The Danger of the Extended Hand: A Critique of Humanitarian Aid in Makenzy Orcel’s 'L’Ombre Animale' |
title_fullStr |
The Danger of the Extended Hand: A Critique of Humanitarian Aid in Makenzy Orcel’s 'L’Ombre Animale' |
title_full_unstemmed |
The Danger of the Extended Hand: A Critique of Humanitarian Aid in Makenzy Orcel’s 'L’Ombre Animale' |
title_sort |
danger of the extended hand: a critique of humanitarian aid in makenzy orcel’s 'l’ombre animale' |
publisher |
Stockholm University Press |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.16993/karib.42 https://doaj.org/article/da7d1357f51a4ff688c361516a8cbb8e |
genre |
North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic |
op_source |
Karib, Vol 4, Iss 1 (2018) |
op_relation |
https://www.karib.no/articles/42 https://doaj.org/toc/1894-8421 https://doaj.org/toc/2387-6743 1894-8421 2387-6743 doi:10.16993/karib.42 https://doaj.org/article/da7d1357f51a4ff688c361516a8cbb8e |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.16993/karib.42 |
container_title |
Karib – Nordic Journal for Caribbean Studies |
container_volume |
4 |
container_issue |
1 |
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1766133158323945472 |