The Rise and Fall of Caribbean Development Theory

Abstract

Having outlined the broad historical processes which have come to bear structurally on the Caribbean, we now orient the analysis towards questions of agency. In doing so, we trace the thinking of West Indian intellectuals as it relates to questions of development, along with wider debates in development studies and political economy. Despite sharing many similarities in terms of their historical insertion into European imperialism, the different islands of the Anglophone and Francophone Caribbean have since followed sharply divergent developmental paths, which in turn have been influenced by the analyses of their indigenous intellectuals (LaGuerre 1986, 1997). As we have seen, in the latter, prominent thinkers sought active integration into France, whereas in the former, the scholarly thrust was such that most of the region was ‘as anxious’ to secure independence from Britain as London was to offer it (Clarke 1977: 343). However, aside from this obvious difference, some deeper theoretical questions emerge. Why, for example, did French Caribbean intellectuals seek integration, and their Anglophone counterparts seek independence? How did different thinkers conceptualise the developmental problématique beyond decolonisation? How did their ideas fit into wider currents in development thinking? What is the state of indigenous development debates today?