Citizenship from the Margins: Vernacular Theories of Rights and the State from the Interwar Caribbean

Abstract

Abstract This essay explores debates over political membership and rights within empire from the interwar British Caribbean. Although no formal status of imperial, British, or colonial citizenship existed in this era, British Caribbeans routinely hailed each other as meritorious local “citizens,” demanded political rights due them as “British citizens,” and decried rulers' failure to treat colored colonials equally with other “citizens” of the empire. In the same years, the hundreds of thousands of British West Indians who labored in circum-Caribbean republics like the United States, Panama, Cuba, Venezuela, and Costa Rica experienced firsthand the international consolidation of formal citizenship as a state-issued credential ensuring mobility and abode. This convergence pushed British Caribbeans at home and abroad to question the costs of political disfranchisement and the place of race within empire. The vernacular political philosophy they developed in response importantly complements the influential theories of citizenship and rights developed by European thinkers of the same generation, such as T. H. Marshall and Hannah Arendt.