Lecture— “Prophecies from the Caribbean: On Birthright Citizenship and the Need for Decolonizing Democracy”

Dr. Sophie Maríñez, a Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, will deliver a lecture titled "Prophecies from the Caribbean: On Birthright Citizenship and the Need for Decolonizing Democracy" at Wesleyan University on March 30. The event is sponsored by the Thomas and Catherine McMahon Fund and the Romance Languages and Literatures Department.

The lecture draws on Dr. Maríñez's book "Spirals in the Caribbean: Representing Violence and Connection in Haiti and the Dominican Republic" (2024), which examines how birthright citizenship can be dismantled through constitutional violence, producing spirals of statelessness that echo across time and space. Focusing on the Dominican Republic's 2013 Constitutional Court ruling that retroactively stripped citizenship from descendants of Haitian immigrants, Dr. Maríñez situates this decision within a longer history of anti-Blackness rooted in the revolutionary challenge posed by Haiti's independence and abolition of slavery in 1804.

This event is significant in the context of ongoing debates about reparatory justice and decolonizing democracy in the Caribbean. As CARICOM Secretary-General Carla Barnett recently emphasized, reparatory justice must be tied directly to development outcomes rather than framed as charity. Dr. Maríñez's work highlights the need for a more nuanced understanding of the complex historical and social dynamics that shape citizenship and statelessness in the Caribbean.

The lecture will take place on March 30 at 4:30 pm in the RL&L Common Room, 300 High Street, Middletown, Connecticut. The talk will be in English, and a reception will follow.