Power dynamics and aid governance in a post disaster context: a case study of Haiti's recovery.

This research focuses on a case study of Haiti after the 2010 earthquake; it investigates the significance and the features of the governance of aid in a post-disaster context, looking at patterns of power distribution among the different actors involved, thus, revealing the complexity of the international aid system. The work aims at shedding light on how different actors conceived the task of rebuilding the Haitian state/society; how patterns of cleavage and power relations were re-shaped through the disaster and the recovery process; and which features the governance of the reconstruction process in Haiti assumed and which contrasting/alternative approaches to the dominant reconstruction model arose. The object of research is approached from four different perspectives, namely socio-political, institutional, grassroots and autobiographical. The result was a set of sub-cases of analysis dealing with the Build-Back-Better paradigm, the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC), watchdog initiatives, land tenure and housing issues and the aid workers’ bubble. The underlying scientific model is designed around principles of critical constructivism (Foucault and Gordon 1980), applied to social sciences, and more specifically to development studies. Coherently with the scientific model, the research’s theoretical framework was built upon four key concepts, namely Power, Governance of Aid, Disaster and Post-development. The research methods adopted are characterized by an empirical and ethnographic orientation. The ethnographic component of the research lies in the positioning of myself within the research object, living the everyday context of my study for almost one year. To collect data a combination of qualitative methods were employed, including semi-structured interviews, dialogue with interviewees, informal conversations, participant observation, field note diaries, photographs and notes taken during the field work, and the acquisition of secondary data, including a large portion of grey literature. The scope of this work is highly interdisciplinary touching upon topics relevant to the field of disaster governance, development studies and urban development, significant for both the scientific community and practitioners in these areas. Finally, Haiti, the chosen case study, is marginal to the mainstreamed research and deserves further scrutiny.