In his new book, UBC Sociology Professor Oral Robinson explores how intra-Caribbean migrants experience living within different Caribbean countries. Through a multi-method study in the 15 member countries of the Caribbean community, he details how these experiences and perceptions influence ideas about citizenship, belonging, and identity.
Responding directly to the lack of scholarship on how Caribbean nationals feel about integration and/or free movement within their own countries and other Caribbean countries, this volume attempts to understand Caribbean societies historically, theoretically, and methodologically. It proposes bases of social identities in the Caribbean and examines how intra-Caribbean migrants negotiate their identities and narrate their lived experiences as intra-Caribbean migrants. From this research, Robinson offers policy solutions based upon its findings, reconciling practice, theory, and migration policies in the Caribbean.
We spoke to Oral about his latest publication.
Could you tell us a bit about how you came to be researching intra-Caribbean migration?
Professor Oral Robinson
I am a Caribbean national (Jamaican) and I have both visited and lived in several Caribbean Communities (CARICOM) countries. My presence as an insider/outsider evoked both positive and negative experiences, which intrigued me. There is very little written about intra-Caribbean migration – part of a general trend in which south-to-south migratory contexts are overlooked. Buoyed by my personal experiences, I found the Caribbean region to be an exciting place for migration research. This is because it is in the process of transitioning into a single market and economic space anchored on intra-regional migration as a main pillar. I wanted to buck the trend in which research on Caribbean migration has mostly focused on emigration to North America or Europe, and has given limited regard to intra-regional migration and its history. My research is aimed at closing some of those gaps.
“Many regions in the global south (not just the Caribbean) are deepening and widening integration in response to current global political contexts. Intra-regional migration is the bedrock of these integration movements and identity building.”
You used a multi-methods study in the 15 member countries of the Caribbean. Could you explain how you went about doing so?
The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) consists of 15 countries. I wanted to include participants from all the countries, which is quite ambitious. I started by researching the history of intra-Caribbean migration (a chapter in the book is devoted exclusively to that). Next, I studied the online archives of newspapers in several countries to understand how intra-regional migration was being represented in the public sphere. I also wanted to represent the authentic voices of everyday intra-Caribbean migrants. Given the insularity of the different islands and the impracticalities of visiting each, an online cross-national survey was designed. Disseminating the survey was actually interesting. I contact migrant organizations in each of the islands and asked them to advertise the survey to their members. I also advertised the survey on Facebook and disseminated it through all my social media networks. I asked all my contacts to broadcast the survey recruitment poster to their networks as well and it produced good fruits. Finally, to supplement the survey, I conducted in-depth interviews on Skype, over the telephone and over messenger with a selection of respondents from sub-regions in the Caribbean.
What did you discover about the experiences of intra-Caribbean migrants and how did these experiences relate to citizenship, belonging, and identity?
The project was primarily interested in whether political processes – as witnessed in the drive toward integrating the economies of the region – were impacting migration movements, feeling of belonging, citizenship and identity formation. I discovered that intraregional migrants experienced a mixture of excitement, skepticism, tension and anxiety in their sojourns. Despite this, most participants felt a primordial connection to the Caribbean and its people. While discriminatory experiences challenged their sense of belongingness, most were undeterred and were eager to continue pursuing migration opportunities within the Caribbean. This was interesting because it disrupts, to some extent, expectations arising from colonial history and globalization processes which would indicate that migration to Europe and North American were the default preferences. In fact, a significant portion of the sample had lived in either North America or Europe before choosing to live in a different Caribbean island. What is not well known is that there is a long historical tradition of intraregional migration by Indigenous Caribbean people pre-dating colonization. Intra-Caribbean migration, today, signified connection with historical roots. Many of motivations for intra-island travel remained the same (e.g. economic survival and in response to political instabilities) but there are new motivations as well. Many Caribbean nationals saw intra-regional migration as an expression of their Caribbean identities, citizenship and belongingness, and therefore derived pride from it.
“The history, benefits and uses of intra-Caribbean migration should also be mainstreamed in social institutions such as the education system and the media to cultivate a sense of citizenship, belongingness and connections with member countries.”
What would you like people to take away from your research?
Many regions in the global south (not just the Caribbean) are deepening and widening integration in response to current global political contexts. Intra-regional migration is the bedrock of these integration movements and identity building. This means that there are a plethora of opportunities for us to understand the similarities and differences between south-to-south and the south-to-north processes traditionally favoured by academics. Practices such as circular movements, regional transnationalism, conflicts, displacement, indigenous development and connections with other structures are equally important in southern contexts. I would like people to see new theorizing possibilities that can arise from understanding these processes.
What policy solutions did you offer?
My key policy recommendations concerned the management of the migration process in the Caribbean, in particular ways of facilitating seamless and expanded intra-regional migration. Countries in the global south (including the Caribbean) already lose large portions of their educated populations to the North. Therefore, the development of common policies within regional frameworks specifically targeted at these groups is important. At the same time, there needs to be a regional plan to facilitate responsible and managed migration. Guidance from the UN’s Migration Governance Framework and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) should inform policy design and implementation. There also needs to be greater sharing of political (and institutional) resources between countries to improve information dissemination to Caribbean populations. The history, benefits and uses of intra-Caribbean migration should also be mainstreamed in social institutions such as the education system and the media to cultivate a sense of citizenship, belongingness and connections with member countries. This means that efforts need to be placed into building partnerships between governments, social enterprises and regional commercial entities to share the responsibility for support of intraregional migrants.
