Erotics in Medias Res: Topping Caribbean Studies from the Bottom?

Abstract

This short appreciation of Citizenship from Below: Erotic Agency and Caribbean Freedom by Mimi Sheller—one of the leading theorists of mobility studies and the author of numerous works that have expanded our understanding of transits to and around the Caribbean—emphasizes the theoretical and ethical/political traditions out of which this synthetic work emerges. Here we push gently, yet steadily, toward continuing the process of historicizing and contextualizing the important turn toward “erotics” and “theorizing from below” in Caribbean studies (and in the region) apropos not only Sheller's work but also our responsibility to maintain appropriate and generative critical demeanor relative to the archives and the circulation of previously submerged or deep (bottom) knowledges.