The moral economy of corner stores, buying food on credit, and Haitian-Dominican interpersonal relations in the Dominican Republic

ABSTRACT

Over the last 10 years, food prices throughout the Dominican Republic have skyrocketed, and gaining access to in-store credit (called fiao) to buy food has become an increasingly pervasive economic strategy to secure household needs. Recent scholarship on food security in the Dominican Republic has focused on strategies Dominicans use to access food on credit through social networks. But there has been little research to date that discusses the strategies migrant Haitians use to buy food in the Dominican Republic. The gap in this literature is all the more noteworthy because of the broader contemporary social, cultural, political, and economic context of an increasing number of Haitians living and working in the Dominican Republic, and the long-standing tension that increased Haitian migration has precipitated. This article examines the strategies people use to establish social networks that help them gain access to in-store credit to buy food at neighborhood corner stores in the Dominican Republic. Haitians remain food secure primarily through fiao exchanges, linking Dominicans and Haitians in extensive social networks that are predicated upon borrowers' reputations of being “gente responsable,” (responsible people, those who are good to their word, pay off their debt, and can be relied upon in times of need). Research results show that fiao is a process that creates trust between Dominicans and Haitians, but it does not necessarily lead to the modification of people's negative perceptions of the Other. The moral economy of corner stores forwards a morality of care by using a system that allows for those who are trusted to stand up for those who have not yet proven this trust. This case study highlights the complexity of Dominican–Haitian relations, shows that everyday life in the Dominican Republic requires intercultural engagement, and gives a more nuanced perspective on when and how discrimination is experienced in the Dominican Republic.

KEYWORDS:

• anti-Haitianism
• Dominican Republic
• food shopping
• migration
• moral economy

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the residents and shopkeepers of El Callejón and La Ciénaga for their hospitality, diligence, and patience during my fieldwork. I thank Lucyris Mateo for her insights as I designed and carried out this project, and her hospitality and support in Santo Domingo when I presented the results of this research to the Facultad de Humanidades, Escuela de Historia y Antropología, at the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo. I'd also like to thank the editors of Food and Foodways and the anonymous reviewers of this article for their thoughtful and helpful recommendations for improving my arguments. All mistakes made are my own.

Notes

1. In the Dominican Republic, the terms Dominico-Haitian and Haitian are complicated. These terms are not often used to self-identify but terms given to people by others (especially Haitian) or are felt to not exist at all (as in the case of Dominico-Haitian). People will often refer to other people as Haitian if they have dark skin, but many Dominicans have dark skin as well. Moreover, many people are called Haitian even when it is known that they were born in the Dominican Republic and are referred to as Haitian just because they were born to Haitian or Haitian-descended parents. The term Dominico-Haitian, although referred to more and more by people who were born in the Dominican Republic to people of Haitian heritage, is not a common term and resonates politically and socially among social movement activists who are trying to change the way citizenship and belonging is conceptualized in the Dominican Republic.

2. When I asked people how they identify themselves, many people told me that there's no such thing as “Dominico-Haitian,” while others explicitly stated that they are “Dominico-Haitian,” further evidence that Dominico-Haitian is a contested racial category.

3. There is cause for some doubt about the statistics put forward by the Office of National Statistics, as one anonymous reviewer of this article suggested. However, at this time, this is the only published data to date of rates of undernourishment in the region. In my own study, all of my interviewees told me that they both skip meals or modify their meals at least three times a week because of a lack of food. Often, people used the phrase “not even a grain of rice” (ni un grano de arroz, in Spanish) to talk about their dietary modifications due to household food shortages.

4. Fiao is unlike micro-loans in two very important respects: (a) fiao is not lending money so that people can start business enterprises; fiao is a loan to buy food, and (b) there is no interest added to fiao loans; these debts are for exactly for what was paid. For these reasons, fiao is translated as a “tab,” in that customers accumulate debts that are recorded and must be paid for with no interest added.