The Political Economy Tradition in the Caribbean

(This is one of a series of fortnightly columns from Guy-anese in the diaspora and others with an interest in issues related to Guyana and the Caribbean)

In March, an international two-day conference was held at the Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies. Hosted by the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES), the conference theme “Reinventing the Political Economy Tradition of the Caribbean”, was an occasion to pay tribute to economist Norman Girvan, and to draw on the work of his generation of intellectual thinkers as a point of departure for rethinking the political economy of the Caribbean. This week’s column reproduces some of the text of the conference description.

The political economy tradition of the Caribbean was consolidated in the post-independence period when newly emergent states were searching to find their own route to development. The challenge then was for them to break with the colonial past and forge new policies that could enhance their economic autonomy, propelling them along a path of independent development……