Illusion of Citizenship and Sovereignty in the Caribbean

This essay aims to analyze the aspirational universality of the terms “citizenship” and “sovereignty” by focusing on the nature of these terms in the Caribbean. This is accomplished through establishing the traditional definitions of sovereignty and citizenship before comparing the main tenets of these definitions with case studies from the Caribbean which challenge, contradict, or negate these traditional definitions. Specifically, this essay will discuss the promises of birthright citizenship entrenched in the constitution of the Dominican Republic in contrast with the statelessness and non-citizenship that those of Haitian descent experience in the Dominican Republic. Next, sovereignty is complicated when its traditional definition is compared to the Caribbean’s history of foreign intervention, specifically in Haiti and Jamaica. This results in the conclusion that sovereignty and citizenship are situation-specific constructs and illusionary in the Caribbean. The prevalence of these illusions is contextualized through building off the work of Yarimar Bonilla and Michel-Rolph Trouillot, who grouped these terms as “North Atlantic Universals,” to reinforce the non-existence of citizenship and sovereignty, according to their traditional definitions, in the Caribbean.