Equaliberty in the Dutch Caribbean Ways of Being Non/Sovereign

EDITED BY YVON VAN DER PIJL AND FRANCIO GUADELOUPE

“

Equaliberty in the Dutch Caribbean is a compelling collection of debates, case studies, and ethnographies of belonging. It is a philosophical and cultural search for a political space of comfort between colonial dependence and autonomy. Focusing on the nonsovereign status of the Caribbean it opens up the possibility for articulating notions of freedom and liberty in the region.”

—Linden Lewis, editor of Caribbean Sovereignty, Development, and Democracy in an Age of Globalization

210 pp 6.125 x 9.25

978-1-9788-1866-8 paper $34.95S

978-1-9788-1867-5 cloth $120.00SU

April 2022

Political Science • Caribbean Studies

Table of Contents

Foreword by Linden Lewis

Introduction by Francio Guadeloupe and Yvon van der Pijl

Chapter 1: Stories of autonomy on non-sovereign Saba: Flipping the script of postcolonial resistance by Nikki Mulder

Chapter 2: “Education must be more!” Imagining and (re) producing St. Martin/Sint Maarten belonging by Jordi Halfman

Chapter 3: People from outside: Transnationalism and nationness on 21st century Curaçao by Guiselle StarinkMartha

Chapter 4: The Trinta di Mei labor revolt and its aftermath: Anticipating a just and equitable Curaçaoan nation by Rose Mary Allen

Chapter 5: Some are more equal than others: Human rights education at the University of Curaçao’s School of Law by Lisenne Delgado

Chapter 6: Thinking, seeing, and doing like a kingdom: The making of Caribbean Netherlands statistics and the “native Bonairian” by Francisca Grommé

Chapter 7: After free markets and foundations: Challenges to self-determination on St. Martin by Antonio Carmona Báez

Chapter 8: Sweet breakaway: Where equality and liberty meet on Aruba by Gregory Richardson

Chapter 9: “We come out to free up”: Movement, dance, and liberation in West Indian calypso by Charissa Granger

Chapter 10: “It’s gonna be incredible”: Lessons on being, becoming, and belonging from Statian youth by icole Sanches and Yvon van der Pijl

Epilogue by Anton Allahar

Acknowledgments

Notes on Contributors

“With editors persuasively arguing for a revolutionary non-Western vision of non/sovereignty, this outstanding anthology offers an enlightening alternative look at questions of belonging, and equality and freedom (equaliberty). In case after case in the Dutch-Caribbean, contributors challenge Western-imposed notions of sovereignty and envision new political and socio-cultural futures, making signi cant contributions to Caribbean Studies and beyond.”

—Antonio Sotomayor, author of The Sovereign Colony: Olympic Sport, National Identity, and International Politics in Puerto Rico

Equaliberty in the Dutch Caribbean is a collection of essays that explores fundamental questions of equality and freedom on the non-sovereign islands of the Dutch Caribbean. Drawing on indepth ethnographic research, historical and media analysis, the study of popular culture, and autoethnographic accounts, the various contributions challenge conventional assumptions about political non/sovereignty. While the book recognizes the existence of nationalist independence movements, it opens a critical space to look at other forms of political articulation, autonomy, liberty, and a good life. Focusing on all six different islands and through a multitude of voices and stories, the volume engages with the everyday projects, ordinary imaginaries, and dreams of equaliberty alongside the work of independistas and traditional social movements aiming for more or full self-determination. As such, it offers a rich and powerful telling of the various ways of being in and belonging to our contemporary postcolonial world.

YVON VAN DER PIJL is an associate professor of cultural anthropology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. She coedited the volume Antropologische vergezichten: mondialisering, migratie en multiculturaliteit

FRANCIO GUADELOUPE is an associate professor of anthropology of the University of Amsterdam and senior research fellow at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV-KNAW), the Netherlands. He is the author of Chanting Down the New Jerusalem: Calypso,Christianity, and Capitalism in the Caribbean

Critical Caribbean Studies