Racial capitalism, coloniality and the financialization of Caribbean remittances

Abstract

Diaspora remittances are a faithful source of capital, a vital social safety net and a source of local economic investment for many households, communities and states across the Caribbean. But recent efforts by powerful interests to exercise control over these flows of capital are beginning to threaten the continuity and accessibility of this lifeline. As financial institutions, fiscally constrained governments and imperializing states have become increasingly attuned to the value of Caribbean remittances, so too have their efforts to gain control over the volume and flow of these private transfers of funds. For governments, remittances promise the possibility of access to funds that can be used to bridge finance gaps, and among financial institutions they offer opportunities to generate profits from the cross-border movement of money. But for imperializing states, remittances are increasingly viewed as a potential threat to their efforts to control the movement of money. I argue that these different and sometimes conflicting views of remittances reflect the complex forms of coloniality and racial subjugation that continue to reproduce economies of dispossession.