Is it helpful to describe Latin America and the Caribbean as if it were a single entity? What does this do to the way the Caribbean is perceived?
In recent years the expression Latin America and the Caribbean, or LAC for short, has become a catch-all, used increasingly to view trends in nations that are at vastly different stages of development, in many cases not geographically proximate, and often with very little in common.
It is an approach particularly favoured by multilateral institutions seeming to be there more for reasons of political inclusiveness or bureaucratic neatness.
While the LAC expression genuinely has a place in providing a framework for political dialogue for those within and beyond the hemisphere, when it comes to economic matters and the Caribbean, it is of questionable utility given the often
