Overview of the Literature

The 1950s to 1970s were a type of golden age for studies of the madan sara. A series of US anthropologists studied the Haitian internal rotating market system from the perspective of modern economic theory. They provided deep insight and understanding into where and how development organizations could support and improve market efficiency. Scholars paid special attention to the pivotal role madan sara paid in the informal Haitian economy (Mintz 1957, 1959, 1960a, 1960b, 1961a, 1961b; Underwood 1960; Uli Locher 1974; Alvarez and Murray 1975).

In contrast, academic studies since the 1990s have more often idealized the madan sara as a feminist icon (N’Zengou-Tayo 1998), an agent of resistance to globalization (Schuller and Bergan. 2009; Dupain 2021), and a victim (Hossein 2015). Most of these studies failed to explain what distinguishes a madan sara from other female traders. An exception is Sam (2012), who gathered quantitative data on sara coming down to urban Port-au-Prince from the Southeast Department through Kenskoff, a village 4,000 feet about the city. Even more recent research on the madan sara focuses on security issues (Dowd et al. 2023). Madan sara have increasingly been the target of predatory gangs seeking to profit from commerce on roads and markets. Attacks on sara have impeded and, at times, brought national commerce to a standstill. But again, these studies don’t address just what makes a woman a sara.

Conspicuously missing from the literature is a follow-up on the golden-age reports that examined the sara as an economic agent. Reports over the past 30 years give us little information helpful in understanding just what distinguishes a sara from other market functionaries, and how she has been adapting to recent challenges. Agricultural reports often lump her with other traders (e.g. Pior 2022), and/or ask more questions about the sara than they answer (Eckert and Latané 2017). Below, we briefly review what we know from earlier studies and more recent development reports.

The Golden Age Studies

The first social scientist to systematically study the internal Haitian market system from the perspective of modern economic theory was US anthropologist Sidney Mintz (1957, 1959, 1960a, 1960b, 1961a, 1961b). Mintz brought attention to the Haitian peasant dependency on the market and on storing surplus in the form of cash, and he described the integrated Haitian national economy and its focus on Port-au-Prince. He was also the first researcher to conduct and publish systematic examinations of the relationship between madan sara and other market functionaries.

Fourteen years later, ethnographers Alvarez and Murray (1975)–a US and Dominican husband-wife team funded by IICA–built on Mintz’s work in a report about “Bean Circuits.” They provided a detailed description and analysis of madan sara who transport beans from the nearby Cul de Sac in the Department of the West to urban Port-au-Prince. IICA immediately funded a follow-up study by Uli Locher (1974), who mapped out the Port-au-Prince informal marketing system.[1]

Moving Produce

These early seminal works show that the madan sara embraces a strategy logical in the context of the Haitian economy. She focuses on moving domestic produce from rural to town to urban areas. She seldom handles imported produce or durable goods. She most often purchases at or near farmgate from producers or from other sara. She prefers to sell to other sara or resellers at gray-area sales points outside of markets, at truck/bus stations and/or warehouses (depo). To get her produce to the next sale point, she depends on a host of other market actors to resolve issues of bulking, transport, processing, packing, storage, bulk-breaking, and reselling (from aggregators called sekrete and koutye, to drivers, loaders, fare collectors, unloaders, warehouse owners and porters, security agents at the market, and tax collectors, to resellers). We also know that the sara most often specializes in a specific product, albeit she may make opportunistic purchases of other products. Not least of all, she focuses on a particular trade route, allowing her to become familiar with all the actors along that route and develop relationships that assure her security, timely information, and support from functionaries who know that she personally is a stable part of their own economic community and so, for their own good, should be respected and assisted.

Competition

Economic desperation among the Haitian population throughout the country means that competition is fierce at the lower levels of the market system, making the supply chain highly efficient as the 10s of thousands of sellers, buyers, transporters, and sekrete (low-end aggregators) respond to shortages and surpluses in terms of both time and region. The competition thins toward the top by virtue of the limited availability and high cost of capital, which may be the key to understanding the function of the madan sara in the system, how she sustains herself, and her importance to other market functionaries.

Borrowing, Lending, & Credit

The classic economic studies cited above note that the madan sara is not only the indispensable accumulator and mover of rural produce but also a critical supplier of loans and credit. She leverages loans to farmers ahead of the harvest to obtain discounts 30 to 50 percent below the final farmgate price for the produce when it is ripe for harvest. On the other end of the spectrum, she gives merchandise on credit to resellers at a higher than the wholesale price she would otherwise get. Thus, the sara is a lender. She is very likely making more on her extension of credit than she would otherwise earn from profits. For this reason, the sara avoids taking stock on credit from producers and she would prefer not to borrow from formal sector banks and lending institutions that would cut into her profits. Instead, she participates in informal rotating savings groups (sol and sabotay). This is also likely why classic studies of the sara so often not that other market functionaries cannot compete with her. Resellers who attempt to circumvent the madan sara are limited by the fact they must pay full market prices while still having to manage the risks of losing produce and the costs and complications that inevitably come with trying to transport and store large quantities of produce.

Sara as a Role

But the sara is first and foremost a dedicated madan sara. and she embraces her identity as such– proud to say she is, madan sara—and she is keenly aware of the functions that define that role, But the sara may take on other roles by virtue of investing her profits and storing capital. She will and often does purchase and sell land, individual trees and livestock. A successful sara will plant her own gardens. She may process produce, owning her own mill and winnowing equipment. And she may opportunistically engage in retail sales as a revande or machan. On the other side of the equation, there are other market functionaries who attempt to take on activities of the sara, such as the gwosis/gwo machann (wholesaler) who may periodically purchase crops at farmgate. The urban revande may send a sekrete to purchase in secondary rural markets. But, as explained above, the need to opportunistically leverage capital at strategic and short-lived moments when producers are most in need and disposed to sell at reduced prices ahead of harvest makes it difficult for anyone but another fulltime sara to compete with her.

Depots

Depots are a special case that helps us understand the role and activities of the sara. More than half of all sara go to urban centers where they use depots for both storage and as a place to sleep. With regard to produce, depots, are the moment of greatest accumulation in the sara trade chain, that point where an urban purchaser or exporter can find the most of any given product in one place.

Depots in Port-au-Prince specialize first and foremost based on region, reflecting the hegemonic costs and practicalities associated with transport and the importance of socio-economic relationships among the sara. But there is also a tendency toward specialization in products such as charcoal, wood, salt, beans, rice, coffee, plantains, onions, and other produce. And there is specialization with regard to depots that bulk-break, others that process particular produce (such as shelling peanuts and milling corn), and those primarily for storage and reselling.

The specialization of depots gets more precise with the need for processing, so one is unlikely to find produce in the depots where corn is being milled. In the past, the most specialized depots were those focused on export items; goat skins, coffee, essential oils, and tobacco. All that said, the owners of depots are hesitant to commit to total specialization for the same reason as the producer and the madan sara avoid strict specialization: because of risks.

Markets

The sara would prefer not to use markets. She cannot purchase enough produce to meet her needs in the market. She is also subject to boisterous competition from other buyers. She may get taxed or forced to pay protection money. Gangs fight for control of the major urban markets precisely so they can “tax” the madan sara and resellers, something that, as seen earlier, has become so severe in recent years in Port-au-Prince that many madan sara no longer go to the capital.

Transport

The inefficiency of transport is a key point, largely because of the horrendous conditions of roads. but also, more recently, because, similar to markets, it is often during transport that madan sara are robbed and/or taxed.

Frequency and Direction of Trade

A single sara can move goods directly from remote rural areas all the way to Port-au-Prince. More often produce changes hands among sara and resellers, and may do so as many 10 times along the route. Moreover, while the overwhelming pattern is for produce to move from rural to increasingly urban markets, there is also horizontal movement between markets of ostensibly equal standing. Although rarer, the direction may reverse; there are madan sara that purchase in central markets and move their stock to more rural sales points.

So what is a Madan Sara?

All the preceding begs the question, what really is a madan sara? Most observers, including common Haitians, see the sara as simply a mover of domestic produce from rural to town to urban center. The image that comes to most minds is of a large woman sitting on top of a bus or truck ensconced in sacks of produce. But while never actually stated, the other defining characteristic of a sara that comes from examining the classic studies is, as seen above, her use of capital.

The size of her purchases is irrelevant. Yes, there are sara who load tons of produce onto public transport. There are those who rent an entire truck. But most Haitian women who consider themselves sara cannot afford to ride on public transport. They walk. In 2002, in a survey of 53 madan sara interviewed while walking or carrying produce on pack animals to Port-au-Paix, the author found that the average purchase cost of the sara’s load was USD $27. Sam (2014) interviewed 163 Sara that walked from the Department of the SE to Kenskoff to then take buses with their produce and descend into the Port-au-Prince marketplace (mostly to Croix des Bossales). She found the average capital was USD $47.

Can these women leverage their small amount of capital to make below market purchases before the crop is ready to harvest? If not, in an analytic sense, should we consider them sara? What about the local woman who takes 10 kilos of her neighbor’s carrots on credit and walks 10 hours over the mountain to an urban market? If she has no capital of her own, but instead is capitalized by the producer, should we call her a madan sara? I would say no. For the reasons discussed, the defining characteristic of a Sara is her leveraging of capital and/or relations to get produce at below market price and move it to another market point.

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[1] Despite the dates, Alvarez and Murray had been living and researching in a rural Haitian community since 1972 and produced their study first. Although the data was not published until 1975, the Alvarez and Murray study was funded by IICA and first present as a report.. Before that time the work had been read by agronomist and economist IICA followed up by funding Uli Locher.