“There Is a Real Generational Problem in This Country”: Haitian Intellectual Exile and Academic Diaspora Returns

Abstract

Based on a series of life‐history interviews conducted between 2013 and 2018, this article examines the generational aspects of homecomings, or how location and temporality affect intellectual return and reintegration. The article specifically explores the returns of Haitian intellectual exiles (jenerasyon 86) and the young academic diaspora (jenn doktè) at two would‐be moments of social transformation in Haiti: post‐Duvalier (after 1986) and post‐earthquake (after 2010). First, it discusses how populism and political uprooting (dechoukaj) led to the internal exile or social displacement of jenerasyon 86. Next, it examines academic diaspora returns in the era of the neoliberal university and outlines the intergenerational struggles that emerged between jenerasyon 86 and the jenn doktè. This article argues that generation as both social position and sociohistorical context created divergent experiences of placelessness for returnees and that the lack of intellectual friendship among returnees contributed to their inability to realize their aspirations of social change.