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A Region among States

Law and Non-sovereignty in the Caribbean

Lee Cabatingan

$53.95

Paperback

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English
University of Chicago Press
05 June 2023
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.

By:  
Imprint:   University of Chicago Press
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 216mm,  Width: 140mm,  Spine: 15mm
Weight:   286g
ISBN:   9780226825618
ISBN 10:   0226825612
Pages:   240
Publication Date:  
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Lee Cabatingan is assistant professor of criminology, law, and society and anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. She is also an attorney licensed in the United States. She is coeditor of Global Perspectives on the Rule of Law.

Reviews for A Region among States: Law and Non-sovereignty in the Caribbean

“This is an empathetic and rigorous anthropology of the CCJ. Sharply constructed and with flowing writing, Cabatingan’s ethnography brings together questions and approaches from postcolonial regionalism, legal anthropology, and Caribbean studies. Through eye-opening conversations with judges and throughout the court, interwoven with a careful study of media and archival material, she shows how the delicate balance between the work of adjudication and of political region making raises dilemmas that otherwise remain right below the surface.” * Naor Ben-Yehoyada, author of The Mediterranean Incarnate * “This fascinating study of the CCJ deftly mines the peripheries of the court’s work to show successfully how the court uses and reimagines the tools of statecraft in its central effort of promoting a region. The book’s rich analysis of the array of activities of and feelings about the CCJ is a great contribution to what we know about the complex work of new apex courts and scholarly debates about region-making projects in the Caribbean.” * Tracy Robinson, coeditor of Transitions in Caribbean Law *


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