The political culture of Caribbean sovereignty

ABSTRACT

This article is part of a continuing discourse in the Caribbean about the exercise of sovereignty and the need to hold steadfast to the concept as a bulwark against imperial erasure of cultural identity. The essay argues against such conventional wisdom. It is intended to move beyond popular notions of sovereignty to unmask the reality of conflict, subordination and violence embedded in the idea of sovereignty. The article also looks at the way sovereignty is deployed in the Caribbean as part of popular, political discourses, and provides examples of how the concept is made unsustainable in its practice. It is an approach which allows for a materialist reading of the political development of the role the state plays in shaping the consciousness of the nation into an understanding of the idea of sovereignty. In conclusion, the paper returns to the specifically cultural logic of sovereignty, engaging the notion of “the sovereignty of the imagination,” articulated by the eminent Caribbean novelist, George Lamming, as a way of reconceptualizing this political concept. The paper ends with the notion that sovereignty in the Caribbean is a myth and should be abandoned for a more realistic understanding of the actual power of the postcolonial state in the global political economy.

KEYWORDS:

• Sovereignty
• culture
• hierarchy
• domination
• conflict
• myth

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Former Government Minister Donville Inniss who was convicted in 2020 for money laundering in the United States, returned to Barbados on March 26, 2023 after spending two years in prison.