Invisible on the globe but not in the global: Decolonising IR using small island vistas

Abstract

Teaching and studying International Relations (IR) in the Caribbean makes the region’s invisibility unmissable. Nevertheless, these locales have significantly influenced the structure of global processes and are also acutely affected by global occurrences. Exposure to the global has led Caribbean scholarship to offer worthwhile insights into world affairs. Thinkers from the region and its diaspora provide noteworthy perspectives about the criticality of the Caribbean in building systems of empire and a world structured around race, class, and gender in ways that mainstream IR approaches may miss. This article takes its starting point as the Caribbean intellectual tradition. Grounding IR scholarship in this neglected, though highly pertinent, thought tradition is one angle from which to decolonise the discipline. The article connects these insights to an appraisal of a nimble strategy that Caribbean states and territories employ to navigate the global. The strategy of developing offshore financial centres (OFCs) can educate us about the functioning of the world if we are willing to think about it as embedded in global processes rather than as a problematic gimmick. In sum, this piece illustrates how using Caribbean thought and examining Caribbean global integration strategies can help to decolonise IR.

Decolonising to reimagine International Relations: An introduction

“…With regard to the Caribbean, Hinds notes that it is often assumed that the region's invisibility 'on standard world maps' is synonymous with its presumed 'insignificance in world affairs and within the discipline of IR' . 33 Further, when the Caribbean does become visible in scholarly musings, it is presented as a place of 'vulnerability, under-development and illegality' . 34 However, this contribution proposes that the region has played a significant role in 'building systems of empire' .…”