ABSTRACT

Postcolonial approaches have been most influential in the fields of cultural studies, history, geography, literary criticism and more recently in development studies. In geography postcolonialism has been used in historical and cultural studies (Blunt and Rose 1994; Nash 2002) and to some extent in urban geography (Yeoh 2001). It is increasingly being employed in development geography (Radcliffe 2005) in research areas of power relations, statehood, social differences and issues of fieldwork (ibid). In this volume we extend this approach to processes of conservation and planning in former British colonies such as Jamaica, Belize, and Carriacou and Spanish former colonies such as Costa Rica and Cuba. We also consider current quasi-colonial societies such as British Overseas Territories (Montserrat) and in this introduction look at the French Départements d’Outre Mer (Martinique and Guadeloupe). The chapters provide grounded empirical studies of the links between colonialism and local planning policies. The empirical chapters are preceded by a theoretical study of planning in the Anglophone Caribbean which provides the context for some of the empirical studies. We consider postcolonial landscapes of the Caribbean in terms of their historical legacies and the environmental footprint of postcolonial planning policies. Or as Willis (2005: 121) puts it ‘postcolonialism attempts to understand not only the observable legacies of colonialism, but also the ideas or discourses about ‘development’ which have been transferred as part of the colonial process’.