Caribbean Archipelagoes: Comparative Insular and Colonial Studies

Connecting the Caribbean with other island networks that have shared histories and legacies of empire

While the Caribbean is often studied by focusing on individual islands and their pasts, Caribbean Archipelagoes proposes a new way of understanding this vital part of the world by placing it in conversation with other island chains, emphasizing those in the Pacific that share similar colonial histories. Drawing on cultural productions and concepts by thinkers such as Audre Lorde, Édouard Glissant, Derek Walcott, Michelle Stephens, Godfrey Baldacchino, Elizabeth DeLoughrey, and Lanny Thompson, Yolanda Martínez San Miguel calls for a reexamination of the Caribbean as a colonial archipelago—a network of islands shaped by the shared challenges and strategies of empires.

Analyzing a variety of primary sources in the Caribbean and places such as Guåhan and Hawai‘i, including historical maps and travel diaries from early colonial explorers, calypso songs about Caribbean federations, and contemporary art and poetry, this book reveals how island networks have been imagined and managed by French, Spanish, and Anglo imperial powers from the fifteenth century to the present. By incorporating narratives of underrepresented perspectives, such as those of Chinese migrant and queer communities, and through innovative concepts of archipelagic thinking, the book provides a powerful new framework for understanding colonial and decolonial imaginaries in the Caribbean and beyond.

Yolanda Martínez San Miguel is the Marta S. Weeks Chair and professor of Latin American and Caribbean literatures and cultures at the University of Miami. She is the author of Coloniality of Diasporas: Rethinking Intra-Colonial Migrations in a Pan-Caribbean Context.