Author : Lee Cabatingan
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226825612
Total Pages : 207 pages
Book Rating : 4.18/5 ( download)
Book Synopsis A Region Among States by : Lee Cabatingan
Download or read book A Region Among States written by Lee Cabatingan and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2023 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork at the Caribbean Court of Justice, A Region among States explores the possibility of constituting a region on a geopolitical and ideological terrain dominated by the nation-state. How is it that a great swath of the independent, English-speaking Caribbean continues to accept the judicial oversight of their former colonizer via the British institution of the Privy Council? And what possibilities might the CCJ--a judicial institution responsive to the region, not any single nation--offer for untangling sovereignty and regionhood, law and modernity, and postcolonial Caribbean identity? Joining the CCJ as an intern, Lee Cabatingan studied the work of the Court up close: she attended each court hearing and numerous staff meetings, served on committees, assisted with the organization of conferences, and helped to prepare speeches and presentations for the judges. She now offers insight into not only how the Court positions itself vis-à-vis the Caribbean region and the world, but also whether the Court--and, perhaps, the region itself as an overarching construct--might ever achieve a real measure of popular success. In their quest for an accepting, eager constituency, the Court is undertaking a project of extra-judicial region-building that borrows from the toolbox of the nation-state. In each chapter, Cabatingan takes us into an analytical dimension familiar from studies of nation and state-building--myth, territory, people, language, and brand--to help us understand not only the Court and its ambitions, but also the regionalist project, beset as it is with false starts and disappointments, as a potential alternative to the sovereign state.
