This book focuses on a vision of an open-ended future, otherwise than as a threat or fear. Mika turns to concepts of hinged chronologies, slow healing and remnant dwelling. Weaving theory with attentive close-readings, the book offers an open-ended framework for conceptualising post-disaster recovery and healing. These processes happen at different times and must entail the elimination of compound vulnerabilities that created the disaster in the first place. Challenging characterisations of the region as a continuous catastrophe this book works towards a bold vision of Haiti’s and the Caribbean’s futures.
The study shows how narratives can extend some of the key concepts within discipline-bound approaches to disasters, while making an important contribution to the interface between disaster studies, postcolonial ecocriticism and Haitian Studies.
Kasia Mika is a Lecturer in Comparative Literature at Queen Mary University London. Her research focuses on disaster studies, postcolonial approaches to environmental and medical humanities, and Caribbean and island studies. In Disasters, Vulnerability, and Narratives: Writing Haiti’s Futures (Routledge 2019), she turns to narratives of the 2010 Haiti earthquake to conceptualize hinged chronologies, slow healing, and remnant dwelling. Building on this work, she has produced a short documentary, Intranqu’îllités (2019; dir. Ed Owles), on art and creativity in Haiti (AHRC Research in Film Award 2019). Her articles appeared in: Area, The Journal of Haitian Studies, Moving Worlds, Modern and Contemporary France.