Caymanian Scholars: What are they saying?

Part 2:

By Dr. Livingston Smith

I began with Roy Bodden’s latest scholarly work, Deconstructing Development: Immigration, Society and Economy in Early 21st-Century Cayman, which was launched recently. In this second article, I will consider the first chapter:  De-Constructing Development: Immigration, Society and Economy in Early Twenty-First Century Cayman.

In the opening chapter of his book De-Constructing Development, Bodden says that his task is to explain contemporary Caymanian society in a way that makes clear how deeply the present is shaped by the past. He believes that of all the issues that have confronted the Cayman Islands, it is immigration that best illustrates a continuous impact and that it comes with its own tensions especially when one links this to how the society developed, increased in wealth and inequity.

Bodden’s central claim is that modern Caymanian society is best understood as a duality. He likely took the idea of ‘duality’ from Arthur Lewis, the preeminent St. Lucian Nobel Prize economist who used the concept to describe developing economies as composed of two coexisting sectors: a traditional, low-productivity subsistence sector with surplus labour and a modern, capitalist sector characterised by higher productivity, capital accumulation, and profit-driven investment. In his model, economic development occurs as labour gradually moves from the traditional sector into the modern sector, allowing profits to be reinvested and growth to accelerate.

DUALITY

Duality, for Lewis, was his way of explaining how underdeveloped economies grow, but the traditional sector was expected to diminish over time as surplus labour is absorbed and wages rise.

 Bodden’s use of duality is much broader and more sociological. In his duality, on one side are the Caymanians, referred to bluntly, and often dismissively, as “the natives” and other permanent residents and on the other are the largely white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant expatriate population who dominate key sectors of the economy. For Bodden, this social divide is economic, demographic, cultural, etcetera.

In line with the concept of ‘duality’ Bodden also uses the metaphor of Paradise and the Plantation. “Paradise” is the domain of the expatriate and global elite who are described as comfortable, insulated in distinct areas and prosperous while “the Plantation” represents the lived reality of Caymanians and permanent residents who share similar working and living conditions. This metaphor is used by Bodden to frame his contention that Cayman’s development model has reproduced distinct hierarchies.

The roots of this situation, Bodden argues, lie partly in Cayman’s long period of isolation as a marginal British dependency, governed through what he describes as “benign neglect.” That isolation ended abruptly with what he calls “the gigantic leap”: Cayman’s transformation from a small turtle-fishing society into a global tourism and financial centre within a single generation. This leap occurred, Bodden argues, without adequate planning and without a clear understanding of the social consequences of globalisation.

Ironically, the earliest agents of Cayman’s global integration were Caymanians themselves particularly seamen working on North American ships. Their remittances brought unprecedented cash into the islands, fundamentally altering the economy. Land and labour became commodities, and for the first time since early settlement, Cayman experienced sustained immigration. These changes reshaped social, cultural, and economic life in ways that policymakers were ill-prepared to manage and seemed not to have anticipated.

WARNINGS

Bodden devotes significant attention to the warnings of Commissioner Andrew Morris Gerrard in the 1950s. Gerrard foresaw the dangers of unregulated development, unchecked immigration, and the sale of Caymanian land to outsiders.  Gerrard had cautioned against materialism, loss of identity, and social fragmentation. Caymanian legislators, however, largely dismissed these warnings, Bodden argues.

Political developments such as Cayman’s decision to opt out of the West Indies Federation in favour of Crown Colony status unfolded with surprisingly little public enthusiasm. While the rest of the Anglophone Caribbean was engulfed in political agitation and change, Bodden suggests that Caymanians were more focused on economic opportunity than political self-determination, creating a lasting gap between economic reality and political authority.

As Cayman’s economy expanded, so too did its population. Bodden’s demographic data shows a dramatic rise in non-Caymanians, to the point where Caymanians now constitute a minority in their own society. Globalisation, he argues, is the primary driver of this shift, bringing skilled workers to support finance and tourism while overwhelming the state’s capacity to manage integration.

The result has been an immigration system characterised by inconsistency, uncertainty, and exclusion. Bodden is particularly critical of early status and residency policies, which he describes as opaque, prejudiced, and vulnerable to political interference. These systems, he argues, produced frustration for Caymanians, who must now prove their identity, while leaving migrants uncertain of their place in society.

The chapter closes with a sobering conclusion: immigration remains one of Cayman’s most unresolved challenges, not because solutions are impossible, but because the jurisdiction has never committed to a coherent, principled framework for planned development.

REMARKABLE BOOK

So Bodden’s first chapter in this remarkable book, is unapologetically critical. I am especially appreciative of its historical grounding as I one who has always believed that a firm grasp of history is important to show continuity and change. By tracing contemporary dilemmas back to decision made decades earlier the argument becomes more believable and credible. He resists the temptation to treat immigration and development as recent problems. His use of archival material, demographic data, and official speeches gives the argument both depth and authority. This is commendable scholarship.

The Paradise/Plantation metaphor is quite useful but there are always deficiencies in analysis which reduces reality in this way- reality tends to be rather more complex and diverse. Bodden’s critique of immigration policy is compelling, especially in exposing its inconsistency and susceptibility to political expediency. However, the analysis sometimes underplays the genuine difficulty of balancing economic necessity with cultural preservation in a small, open economy. I my view, the analysis would have been well served with sufficient exploration given to the implications of the dependent and open nature of the economy. Bodden is not offering easy answers. Instead, he is insisting that Cayman confront uncomfortable truths about identity, power, and belonging in a globalised world.