Subject to labor: Racial capitalism and ontology in the post-emancipation Caribbean. Issue 132 (June 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lewis, Jovan Scott
• Is Part Of: Geoforum. Issue 132(2022)
• Page Start: 247
• Page End: 251
• Publication Date: 2022-06
• Subjects: Racial capitalism -- Ontology -- Caribbean -- Labor -- Indenture -- Emancipation; Geography -- Periodicals; Human geography -- Periodicals; Regional planning -- Periodicals; Sciences de la terre -- Périodiques; Géographie -- Périodiques; Géographie humaine -- Périodiques; Aménagement du territoire -- Périodiques; Earth sciences; Geography; Human geography; Regional planning; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 304.205
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.06.007
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0016-7185

Abstract

Abstract: Racial capitalism is often understood as a process that acts upon subjects that are already racialized, facilitating their exploitative incorporation into capitalist processes. In this article, I push past that definition to argue that racial capitalism is a fundamentally ontologizing process by which subjectivity is produced. I advance this point through an analysis of the central role of labor in the foundation of post-emancipation Caribbean subject formation . I argue that in crossing the Atlantic in the service of colonial capital, enslaved Africans, and later indentured Indians, underwent a process that undid previous senses of identity, thus demanding new ontological moorings rooted in plantation labor. The practice and conditions of labor experienced by both groups after emancipation provided a common basis of ontological orientation. Thus, racial capitalism through the instrument of labor, has fundamentally structured the terms and definition of Caribbean identity.