Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies
cousins frequently marry, despite the formal legal prohibitions
against this practice. The social life of the countryside likewise
focuses on near neighbors, who are frequently direct blood
relations. The bonds of trust and cooperation among these relatives
form at an early age. Children wander at will among the
households of extended kin. Peasants distrust those from
beyond their own neighborhoods, and they are therefore leery
of economic relations with outsiders. The development of community-wide
activities and organizations has been handicapped
by this widespread distrust. People commonly assume deceit in
others in the absence of strong, incontrovertible proof to the
contrary.
Until the latter twentieth century, most joint activities were
kin-based: a few related extended families joined together for
whatever needed attention. The junta was the traditional cooperative
work group. Friends, neighbors, and relatives gathered
at a farmer's house for a day's work. There was no strict
accounting of days given and received. As wage labor became
more common, the junta gave way to smaller work groups, or it
fell into disuse.
In small towns, social life focuses on the central park, or the
plaza; in rural neighborhoods, most social interaction among
non-kin takes place in the stores, bars, and pool rooms where
men gather to gossip. Six-day workweeks leave little time for
recreation or socializing. Many farm families come to town on
Sundays to shop and to attend mass. The women and children
generally return home earlier than the men to prepare Sunday
dinner; the men stay to visit, or to enjoy an afternoon cockfight
or an important baseball or volleyball game.
Land and Poverty
Landholding is both concentrated among large holders and
fragmented at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale. All
but the largest producers face some constraints in terms of
land and money. Two surveys conducted in the 1980s indicated
the related problems of land and poverty. The first survey, the
agricultural census of 1981, reported that 2 percent of landowners
controlled 55 percent of the cultivable land while 82
percent of farmers owned only 12 percent. The second, a
national survey taken in 1985, found extensive rural poverty.
More than 40 percent of the households surveyed owned no
land; another 25 percent had less than half a hectare. (In 1990
there were an estimated 450,000 farms, of which approximately
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