Deconstructing Development – Dr. Roy Bodden Book Launch

By Christopher Tobutt Christopher.tobutt@gmail.com  

On Saturday, 5 July, the Sir Vassel Johnson Hall at the University College of the Cayman Islands filled with a quiet sense of anticipation. The occasion was the launch of Deconstructing Development: Immigration, Society and Economy in Early 21st Century Cayman, the latest work by Dr. J.A. Roy Bodden—a man whose voice has long been a clarion call for truth, identity, and cultural introspection in the Cayman Islands.

The event, with Ian Randle Publishers, for whom Dr. Bodden had words of praise,  was more than a book launch. It was a gathering of minds, a moment of reckoning, and a celebration of a prolific author whose nine published works have shaped the intellectual and cultural discourse of the nation. Among his titles are Stories My Grandfather Never Told Me, The Cayman Islands in Transition, Patronage, Personalities and Parties: Caymanian Politics from 1950–2000, A Gathering of Old Men, and Reflections from a Broken Mirror.

Dr. Bodden, a former Minister of Education and past President of UCCI, was joined by a distinguished audience that included former Health Minister Gilbert McLean and Mary Jannet Lawrence, MBE, former Speaker of the Legislative Assembly. Their presence underscored the gravity of the themes explored in Bodden’s new book—immigration, globalization, cultural erosion, and the existential question: Who are we developing for?

Carl Brown opened the evening with remarks that set the tone. “He’s calling it as he sees it,” Brown said, describing Bodden as a man who has defied the usual arc of human diplomacy. “Roy has always spoken the truth from his heart, whether it made him popular or not.” Brown’s reflection on the evolution of truth-telling—how we begin and end life speaking plainly, but compromise truth in the middle—was a fitting tribute to Bodden’s unwavering integrity.

Professor Livingston Smith, Acting President and CEO of UCCI, followed with a powerful endorsement. Having read all nine of Bodden’s books, Smith described Deconstructing Development as “Not for the faint-hearted.” He praised Bodden’s ability to “sound the alarm,” and take readers into the fractured soul of a society grappling with globalization, inequality, and identity loss. Smith reflected upon Bodden’s ever-present themes, that Caymanians have become a minority in their own country, excluded from land ownership and cultural confidence. “This book comes from someone who has lived both within and outside the corridors of power,” he said.

Dr. Stephanie Fullerton-Cooper, Associate Professor in the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, added a literary lens to the evening. She spoke of Bodden’s ability to challenge dominant narratives and confront uncomfortable truths. “If I were to ask what is wrong with 21st-century Cayman,” she said, “the answers would be many and varied. Bodden not only asks the question—he proffers answers grounded in data.” She also noted that his fictional works often allow him to express observations more frankly and forthrightly than his scholarly texts, which must be meticulously justified.

The invocation by Senior Pastor Alson Ebanks, Cert. Hon., of the Church of God Chapel in George Town, lent a spiritual gravity to the proceedings. It was a reminder that Bodden’s work is not merely academic—it is deeply moral, rooted in a love for these islands and a concern for their future.

When Bodden himself took the podium, he spoke with the clarity and conviction that have become his hallmark. He shared two quotations that frame his intellectual journey. The first, from Chinua Achebe: “Until the lion writes the tales of the hunt, the tales will always glorify the hunter.” The second, from Bartolomé de las Casas: “It is not the business of the historian to invent legends or to seek to please kings, but to tell the truth about great events.” These words echoed through the hall as Bodden recounted the origins of his study—an article serialized in Nor’wester magazine in 1978, where he warned that selling land to outsiders would be Cayman’s undoing.

His speech was both personal and, like many of his works, prophetic. “Every Caymanian had land,” he said. “Sometimes it was the land that brought us all together,” he said, as he described deathbed scenes where patriarchs divided their land among children (and in the process sometimes introducing them to siblings they didn’t know they had), a tradition now eroded by commodification and unchecked development. The foundational question he posed decades ago still remains unanswered: For whom are we developing?

Yet Bodden moves the dialogue forward, with his relentlessly honest and incisive observations coupled with his sense of urgency and vision, a vision which, he claims,  has long been lacking and without which the Caymanian people will, little by little, perish.   

The evening closed with a vote of thanks from Carl Brown, who reiterated Bodden’s enduring message. “This book should be read widely and taken very seriously,” Professor Smith had said earlier. “A work of this magnitude should be followed by a symposium.” Topics such as the politics of land, the failure to implement Vision 2008, and the crisis of Caymanian citizenship demand further exploration.

In recognition of his lifelong contributions, Dr. Bodden was recently awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters by UCCI. It was a fitting tribute to a man whose scholarship has been prescient, credible, and unflinching. As the audience dispersed into the warm Cayman night, the question lingered in the air: Who are we developing for? And perhaps even more urgently: Who will step up to write the next chapter?