Island Futures

Caribbean Survival in the Anthropocene

Book Pages: 256 Illustrations: 19 illustrations Published: November 2020

Author: Mimi Sheller

Subjects
Sociology, Caribbean Studies, Environmental Studies

In Island Futures Mimi Sheller delves into the ecological crises and reconstruction challenges affecting the entire Caribbean region during a time of climate catastrophe. Drawing on fieldwork on postearthquake reconstruction in Haiti, flooding on the Haitian-Dominican border, and recent hurricanes, Sheller shows how ecological vulnerability and the quest for a "just recovery" in the Caribbean emerge from specific transnational political, economic, and cultural dynamics. Because foreigners are largely ignorant of Haiti's political, cultural, and economic contexts, especially the historical role of the United States, their efforts to help often exacerbate inequities. Caribbean survival under ever-worsening environmental and political conditions, Sheller contends, demands radical alternatives to the pervasive neocolonialism, racial capitalism, and US military domination that have perpetuated what she calls the "coloniality of climate." Sheller insists that alternative projects for Haitian reconstruction, social justice, and climate resilience—and the sustainability of the entire region—must be grounded in radical Caribbean intellectual traditions that call for deeper transformations of transnational economies, ecologies, and human relations writ large.

Praise

“An accomplished and brilliant scholar, Mimi Sheller writes with imagination and insight, a deep theoretical sophistication, and an eye toward the configuration of new epistemic visions and approaches grounded in Caribbean realities. I can't think of any other analysis of the contemporary Haitian and Caribbean context quite like this important book.” — Laurent Dubois, coauthor of Freedom Roots: Histories from the Caribbean

“In this timely and timeless book, Mimi Sheller offers a long overdue critical historical analysis of the contemporary state of infrastructure and climate change in the Caribbean at a time when its environmental vulnerabilities and dependencies could not be more apparent. Island Futures is an outstanding and groundbreaking book set to provoke and sustain dialogues across disciplines and beyond.” — Gina Athena Ulysse, author of Because When God Is Too Busy: Haiti, Me, and the World

"I wish all researchers of the Caribbean, but especially those recently drawn to the region seeking to find quick answers to their research questions, could read Island Futures. In it they will find an excellent model to emulate how to ethically engage with a culture, place, and people without reproducing the coloniality of climate change. In addition, the book is recommended for journal and book editors who after reading how ethical research in the Caribbean can be conducted should be able to articulate similar ethical demands to their authors." — Joaquín Villanueva, Journal of Latin American Geography

"The significance of Island Futures lies in the way the structure of each chapter, and the structure of the book as a whole, gradually reveal the uneven economies of racialized desire. . . . [Sheller] takes readers to the edge of an ethical aporia where our own decisions on how to engage with opacity and difference in White supremacist societies contribute to or foreclose alternative future-making projects." — Kevin Grove, AAG Review of Books

"Island Futures is a work with a rich content, reflections and imaginaries on just recoveries from disaster colonialism and climate colonialism, and alternatives to development in the Anthropocene. . . . This book will be of great interest to Caribbean studies and disaster studies scholars, and to anyone interested in broadening their notions of what development is and what it should look like. Individual chapter could be useful as main or complementary readings in modules at the graduate or late bachelor levels." — Gibrán Cruz-Martínez, Alternautas

"Island Futures is a fascinating, important book, one whose urgency and honesty will challenge a wide range of readers, including scholars in several disciplines and students well versed in Haitian and Caribbean studies." — John Patrick Walsh, Journal of Haitian Studies

"Island Futures is a vital provocation and contribution toward visions of sustainable and just futures. Sitting in productive dialogue with scholarly work in disaster and mobility studies, this timely book resonates with myriad disciplinary strands, such as Caribbean philosophy and human geographies. As a valuable addition to decolonizing literatures, this book is a 'must-read.'" — Shiva S. Mohan, Small States & Territories

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Open Access

Author/Editor Bios Back to Top

Mimi Sheller is Professor of Sociology at Drexel University and the author of several books, including Citizenship from Below: Erotic Agency and Caribbean Freedom, also published by Duke University Press, and Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes.

Table of Contents Back to Top
Preface: An Autobiography of My Mother  ix
Acknowledgments  xxvii
Introduction: Im/Mobile Disaster  1
1. Kinopolitical Power  29
2. Water Power  48
3. Aerial Power  65
4. Digital Power  83
6. Sexual Power  129
Conclusion: Surviving the Anthropocene  144
Afterword: This Is Not a Requiem  159
Notes  173
Bibliography  193
Index  217
Sales/Territorial Rights: World

Rights and licensing
Additional InformationBack to Top
Paper ISBN: 978-1-4780-1118-7 / Cloth ISBN: 978-1-4780-1012-8 / eISBN: 978-1-4780-1273-3
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