Work, debt and blackmail: Haitian braceros in the sugarcane fields of the Dominican Republic [Trabajo, deuda y chantaje: Los braceros haitianos en los cañaverales de la república dominicana]

This article analyzes the way specific economic policies—namely the privatization of the Dominican sugar industry—may determine the emergence of new forms of individual subjection based on the debt trap. Through the use of historical and theoretical Caribbean area literature and through ethnographic evidence provided by a young Haitian migrant employed in sugarcane cutting, it shows the concrete dynamics that inform the working relationships in the Dominican Republic sugar estates. This is to demonstrate a connection between the private management of the sugar industry and working conditions attributable to debt bondage.