Our Shared Responsibility

The United States has played a major role in Jamaica’s economic struggles through exasperating the climate crisis, and establishing trade policies that limit the country’s ability to benefit from its own resources. This is described by neoliberal colonialism. For example, U.S.-imposed tariffs and quotas - such as the 10% baseline tariffs that threaten to override Caribbean Basin Initiative preferences - have squeezed Jamaica’s key exports like bauxite, alumina, and agricultural goods. Additionally, strict tariff-rate quotas on sugar under frameworks set by the USDA and the World Trade Organization have capped Jamaica’s export potential, forcing dependency and blocking efforts to build sustainable local wealth. This is a reality that drains the nations resources from itself, and funnels it into the wealthy global minority. The same is being done across Francophone Africa, former British colonies, and places with the U.S. has identified material wealth which it wants to extract for capital.

Neoliberalism is a global economic and cultural system that prioritizes privatization, free markets, and deregulation of former colonies, while reshaping societies and identities to align with a market logic where wealth is generated through exploitation.

Neocolonialism was coined in the 1960s by Ghana’s first president Kwame Nkrumah, to describe how newly independent countries remained under the economic and political control of former colonial powers through indirect mechanisms.

These ongoing projects are driven by nations like the U.S., France, and Great Britain, and deepen inequality and dependency in regions like the Caribbean, Africa, and the Middle East.

Reading List

1. A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid

A classic, short, and powerful essay that exposes the intersections of colonialism and tourism in Antigua. It’s a sharp, personal, and captivating read.

2. Claire of the Sea Light by Edwidge Danticat

A lyrical tale of love, loss, and longing in a Haitian seaside town, where a young girl’s disappearance ripples through lives bound by secrets and hope.

3. Entrepreneurial Selves: Neoliberal Responsibility and the Making of a Caribbean Middle Class by Carla Freeman

A rich ethnography of Barbados, this work explores how neoliberal ideology masks lasting colonial inequalities behind the mirage of entrepreneurial self-making, shaping systems that commodify identity, gender, and class.

4. Caribbean Reasonings: Culture, Politics, Race and Diaspora edited by Brian Meeks

A dynamic anthology of essays honoring Stuart Hall’s foundational contributions to cultural studies. The collection features critical reflections that situate Hall’s theoretical work within the lived realities of his island of birth, Jamaica, and the broader Caribbean context.